Drinking my morning coffee and having my 1st cigarette of the day - i could not locate my walking stick and after a 1st, 2nd and 3rd search of the house · assumed the worst. My neighbor Mr. Tranh, was minding his own business and about to begin his day’s labor; I had to share my pain with somebody, he was it. I couldn’t contain my anguish and sweeping up the debris of the shedding tree was not enough to banish the evil suspicion that because i couldn’t find my walking stick, it thereby had to have been stolen by some hateful wretch who coveted my labor and wanted me to know how unwelcome i am Vietnam · i can only apologize for my unfair accusation about all the people of Vietnam. This meanness was born of an unwillingness to peer into the recesses of my own soul and confront the pettiness of my being and the scope of my own fears. And as Dr. “Mac” MacO’lash might have said to me - “well that’s kind of mean”
What began as a hideous day with fears about an entire nation ended with an exquisite downpour on the porch of my kind neighbors - the same people i as much as accused of stealing my conceit, as i had judged determined to vanquish me from this land of mystery. Nor is it the first time in my history i have experienced such irrational threat: driving to NYC, 1st or 2nd time i don’t remember - what i do remember is sitting in the passenger seat of a “cooperatively rented conveyance” at the apogee of the counter-culture entirely certain that the 10 or so other human beings reacting unfavorably to my obnoxious fear and contrary nature were arrayed and prepared to set my out of the van at the earliest opportunity. Sitting here now - i realize that my fears at that time echoed earlier journey’s whereupon older siblings in greater solidarity, excluded me and made clear my unwelcome · and today i have a younger sibling who has taken umbrage to my non-responsiveness to banking queries has, again “shut me out.” Not because he is a vicious mean spirited human being, but because he is approximating the feeling he experienced by not hearing from me in a timely manner about fiduciary concerns that he had kindly undertaken on my behalf.
“If you think everything is someone else’s fault, your will suffer a lot; when you realize that everything springs only from yourself, you will learn both peace and joy.” - 14 Dalai Lama · Man, when you’re right, you’re right. How do you argue with the facts. There is also talk about radical accountability, as an inveterate “free thinker” i have much to account for - and teasing guilt from shame is not always clear. I am, and have been in a great deal of pain for a very long time; i have yet to learn how to distinguish emotional from the physical. I know from personal experience that depression can animate physical distress, not just from my own experience but listening the to the stories of others as we try to understand our shared contours. Couple that with a righteous fury toward a family that has committed betrayals that were inexcusable as a unit, but entirely “passable” as grown ass adults. For example - left 4 years of drawings, as fine as i could make in a flat file within the jurisdiction of a mother who could barely stand my birth, much less my existence.
My eldest brother when the time came accused me of “living off the fat of the land” expecting to find my work in tact where i had left it.” That is an injustice that i must swallow for the vanity of a man that has turned his back to me from the time i squalled like a stuck pig at the torment he felt was my lot as the younger “identified patient” on the other side of his cloying and as vain as my beautiful mother could ever be if she lived to a “hundred” - she is 92 and going well in the midst of a viral epidemic · she has good teeth, the only useful thing my sister ever shared with me about our mutual upbringing, floss your teeth. I sustained myself growing up with “mea culpa”, but as i near my intersection with the great beyond, it lacks nutrients. What i struggle for in my end days is usefulness, either with words, actions or both. I would like to nurture you as much as i may with what patience i have left, yet i have learned at a late date - it is a good thing to “leave the table when love is no longer being served.” - Nina Simone.
So what to do - there has been a blessed rain storm today that has blunted the cruel heat that regardless of how acclimatized you might be, by birth or discipline will be become only more lethal as time marches across our once benign planet. I am not reconciled to this outcome, no matter how you dress it up as “development” or ______ fill in the blank: stupid people are making book on how stupid you are, and if that is not the height of folly, i don’t know what is. I have few years left - i would prefer they be spent in the loving embrace of one i can adore - the prospects are not good. The locals view me with patience and tolerance, because they have a war torn logic that separates the lethal, from the bullshit - it is what i love about VN. Whether that translates into a companionship with some loving other that can look past my decrepitude to the earnest lad still wondering where his mother’s hand went on the 1st day of school is anybody’s guess - i know i am still wondering.
jts 29/05/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
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