downstairs. the types i learned lessons from about the world when younger. a blueprint for a world i don’t agree with. a world i don’t want to live in. so you get older, and you bring with you scars. the marks we bear from being pushed, prodded, thrown, and burned. the shape of a human who has been tried and weighed and tested and taught by mama nature.

you do your best, moment by moment. your actions grow to be gradually less and less selfish. you realize you don’t have it all, can’t get it all, don’t need it all, aren’t all that matters, and can do more than simply react in a knee-jerk way to the conditions in the world you disagree with or have found offensive or injurious.

you may come to believe that through your thoughts, words and actions you can help make a world that you do agree with. a world you want to live in. and it can work. it will happen, here and there. and it can be a beautiful, harmonious, very real, very moss rock in the hand, sandwich in the bag, sweetness in the air, child in the embrace, lover in the bed, full bottle on the table, sweet notes on the steel string, tangible sort of thing.

but as is the way with life, nothing stays the same. nor ever will. and as is the way with nature, creatures seek shelter, creatures fight over perimeter, dogs scuffle and bite over hierarchy, and when you are talking about human creatures, figure in a lack of instinct that can lead to destructive self-interest and disregard for the animal’s own well-being.

and surely, one day, such animals will happen into your path who don’t (yet, maybe they will never) live in the world of your choosing. they are written as antagonists in the soft to the touch, heavy as a truck, pages-of-vanilla cream-in-an-aquamarine-green-bound-tome you pen each night with a lightning plume in that barely-measurable moment before you fall into sleep. and the characters in this particular chapter do not yet know the techniques that will enable them to appreciate the nature of their geographical or social environment or take correct stock of the terrain around them. or how best to engage it. what approach to use. who does what in the area. who has done what. what relationships exist or mean in this context. what, even, the general rules of operation are. they have not learned the need yet, for a reconnaissance of all these realities. it is not for their youth, though that is a frequent correlative to their ignorance. you could know better younger…though you could be as ignorant into your dying days, too.

for whatever the cause these characters not only operate by and respond to that terrible guide you’ve thrown into ten neighborhoods’ worth of bonfires since. they will, in fact, only act in accordance with the hot pages in that cement-powder smelling, maggoty-skinned playbook. this time, they come freshly liberated from their parents’ domain and they come forth thinking the new, wide open world is theirs for the pillaging; for the casual acquisition of space, for possession of power, for command of sound. they know nothing. they feel entitled to everything. they think they live in a cartoon after-school special, or in a private dream where there is no pain or consequence for their actions; where the key light is always on their good side and the camera always focused on them.

and you…you sleep in full dress rehearsal. you could never forget the language required. nor the years of training. after all, you put it down out of choice, not out of desire or inability. and so, like a person lucky enough to have the right language for a dire and unexpected situation, you take back the common tongue. you wrap it around your wrists like twin boa constrictors. you find yourself, mid-movement, unfolding in configurations unscheduled. all stances hit with full lock; a pattern you don’t remembering studying for. deadly aim from years of practice. power efficiently channeled. bombshell impact on a point not broader than a dime.

there is only one type of energy to give to a noisy, blustery, slithering, proud, array of antagonistic behavior and that is a a direct cannon shot to the midsection. no hesitation, no preponderance, no reserve. ghosts will shatter and visions dissipate. cowards will quiet, or run. and who is left is very likely to be no one at all. but if they are there, you are warmed up and ready and you know why you are there.

in sum: it’s done.

and

know that if forced to leave the land of the lotus, i bring fire. remember that an open hand can have steel fingertips.

that is, if you are going to bring war to my door, please be very earnest in your intention. know that i will never look away. i will come directly for you.

–

there could (some would say “should”) be a chapter itself written on the cost of invoking such energy. everything balances out, of course. the choice is not made because it is an easy or casual one. it is made only when necessary, when the energy is available, and because nothing else will achieve the needed directives—and because hostility or ignorance seeping through the walls or creeping in my screen door or outside where my children play is not permitted.

but there is a toll for practicing an outlawed pattern. that is my due, and that is my business.

let me drop some thoughts here before i shut this down for the night and prepare to celebrate.

2010 has not been entirely bad. i saw some ventures move forward, some friendships deepen, and i brought myself back to training in taekwondo—something that makes me happier than almost anything else i do in life. so by no means can i call it a bad year or anything.

at the same time, i very much feel this is a real juncture, a good point where some things will be left behind, some things that have been riding along quite a long time.

just the other day, i felt a cloud of despair… or a haze of doubt…or maybe a clinging to hope—i’m not sure what it was, or better yet, i’m not sure what to call it or what i want to call it—pass by me. finally. pass over, float away. dry up. it wasn’t wishful thinking, or strained effort, or effort at all. it was just there like always, and then….gone. came a moment and i accepted what i needed to, i exhaled, i looked within, and then when i was done, i looked to the sky, and knew i was done.

it has not returned since then, and i know i walk into this new year with a sense of peace that has been absent for too long.

i knew it was important that i clean my room today. i tried to clean the whole house, but it was too much work, even moving at a good clip for 7 or 8 hours.

i knew i needed to get rid of the clutter that i see every single day, that bothers me every day. mess of wires and broken styrofoam and tapes in a heap. wrappers and dust and pennies and rubber bands and old business cards and stray filters and so much clutter in my room that all that was left was a path through it to my computer seat. but on every side, junk junk junk.

that’s what took me most of those 7 hours. because i was determined that when the sun rises tomorrow, it will shine on this room and this room will be clean. and feel peaceful. and ordered. open the pathways, wipe away the dust, throw out the clinging clutter. and i did. it felt so good.

i broke down the whole room. did laundry. put it away. washed my guitars. vacuumed behind everything, dusted and cleaned my desks. threw out appliances and things that i’d been holding on to…for ridiculous reasons. not reasons at all, actually. just …habit. fear? inertia. but i tossed them tonight, and i feel lighter. physically lighter.

later i’ll finish up the third load of dishes so that the sink is empty and clean in the morning.

some years have passed by and yeah before it’s been like happy new year this will be new stuff…but there was really no feeling of that happening in my life before the 31st of december came along. it was just part of the holiday/cultural feeling, the celebration.

this year is different. tonight’s celebration feels like the official gold stamp on a process and event that has been unfolding for months. and more than that. i feel i walk away from some things that have been a constant companion for about two decades. and it’s good, yeah. real good.

before i forget, i wanted to clear something up, since i was asked by a couple people: this post is not about anyone i’ve spoken to on the phone or in email or in person in the last year. it’s about someone not in my life anymore at all. i don’t like to write things about people who read and who i speak to in such a way, so no fear. we can go into tomorrow without any doubt. in fact, once the heat passed i wished i just kept it to myself. but then again, maybe the heat wouldn’t have passed if i did that. so it is what it is.

next year?

…will be the year that the mobile platform/software company i am with drops our first game on the market.

…will be the year of my brown belt. and the year of my red belt. year of the black?

…will be the year i travel east…further east than nyc.

…will be the year my grandchild is born to my eldest son.

…will be the year i turn 42—which as we know, is The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

…will be the year luna starts school.

…will be the year i return to recording music.

and?

i don’t know. and that’s the very best part. the uknown. the potential. the possibility.

so much possibility.

here we go!

happy new years, mis amigos. i’m not going to edit and edit this until it shines and sings. i’m going to cap it off here and hop in the shower. get a drink. tell some stories, have some laughs, chill with some human beings.

i hope you and i come to discover some unexpected and electric frontier in 2011. let’s be a bit bolder this year. let’s dare. i feel so grateful that i’m still here. that i’m allowed to learn, and grow, and strive. and become more than i was. and see more than i have. i don’t know about you… but i’m feeling a bit joyous. and reckless, too. and i mean that in a good way.

either way, may you and i become even better at letting our humility grow, our love show, and our generosity flow.

peace.

had an unexpected interaction last night with the new(ish) downstairs neighbor, who looks to be a (white) kid in his early 20s. we’ve not yet spoken before this. he got himself an electric guitar for christmas, and of course now i hear it through my floor at various times during the day (and night).

we’d not yet spoken on noise, but since he moved in (he and his girlfriend?) i’ve had to push back a few times when they were not being sensible or considerate. like the morning after his partying in the middle of the week one night until 3 am, i’d crank my bass through his floor first thing in the morning. wakey wakey! hope you got some good sleep last night!

and one morning he began playing some music way too loud too early, i retaliated by turning on my subwoofer and bumping some control machete, which generally ends most musical inter-apartment exchanges quickly.

sharp people get what’s going on. it’s pretty obvious cause and effect stuff. i don’t instigate it, i only instruct upon it. why so coded and musically moded? i prefer those types of communications after a few years of face to face confrontations that at times led to fights, near fights, or guns waved around.

i’d hoped these times back and forth with stereos were signal enough, and to his credit, they seemed to work.

even more to his credit tho was this conversation last night. he had been playing the guitar, and it was about 9:45 at night, and suddenly i get a knock on the door. it was him, asking if i could hear it, and was it too loud. i said i thought ten pm a good cutoff time for such levels of noise. i added that he might have noticed that when i’m playing my music loud, at ten pm it goes off, and i explained that the reason for that was because that’s when i put my headphones on. he said, “ten pm? is that cool?” i said, “it seems like a good time to quiet down, no?” and we agreed, and that was that.

it was the easiest and weirdest conversation about apartment noise i can remember having. it’s a delicate dance,  you realize. or i realized, after a number of years of living in different situations, in different states. unfortunately, it’s usually the case that the people who don’t care or aren’t aware enough to avoid playing loud music (or just being loud) at bad times are also the very same people who don’t care in the least once you confront them about it. sometimes (often) it’s not worth the conflict, and you have to judge on a case by case basis. having ongoing feud stuff with neighbors can take a heavy and ongoing toll on your peace of mind.

now they are downstairs singing I Wanna Hold Your Hand by the Beatles, but over a somewhat distorted electric guitar. oh, i can see where this is going. i’m going to have a band underneath me in a week.

well. as long as we have a set time when it quiets down, it’s all good. after all, if they can deal with my flurries of activity on the heavy bag, which definitely thumps the floor pretty good, then i can be accommodating, too.

in fact, i’ll admit i miss the first apartment i had (shared) in this college town. it was an apartment building mostly inhabited by college students and you could always hear instruments being played in one apartment or another. on one hand, there was the downside of always hearing people through your walls. but on the other, there’s something about it that is comforting to me. reminds me of some of the scenes i grew up around. plus it’s hard for the building to feel lonely if there is always artistic energy going on.

hell, it beats a quiet street full of statues and rose bushes.

The flowers whirl away
In the wind like snow.
The thing that falls away
Is myself.

Hana sasou
Arashi no niwa no
Yuki narade
Furi yuki mono wa
Waga mi narikeri

—THE PRIME MINISTER KINTSUNE

i am doing the spring cleaning thing, finally. i wondered when it would manifest. we are into july. but it had to be a moment that chose itself. one thing led to another.

it’s really amazing when you can sit back and stop trying to tie ends together and bring certain realities to bear…trying to arrange things against their own movement into the shape you think best, and instead become watchful and flexible so that you can move yourself to best enjoy or appreciate what things life is doing and bringing your way. what treasures reveal themselves, then. ones you’d not have thought to look for. and many seemingly magical coincidences.

i finally got behind all my furniture in the living room. cleared the junk away behind everything. threw some things out, rerouted some wires. i’ll need to do this to the kitchen soon. i did a halfway job–which looked pretty good–but then dishes crowded in on everything. i really need to get rid of/give away most of my dishes. there is no reason for them anymore. i need only one small set. an extra two for visitors, which i can keep put away. for myself a glass, a cup, a plate, a bowl, a fork, a spoon, a knife and chopsticks. that should do it. there is no reason my sink and counter should get piled up with enough dishes to feed a blogging convention.

master lee is a great sabum, a great teacher i can tell right away. not only does word of mouth move around him like a wide ring of fresh energy, extolling his kindness and ability, but it is plain to see.

luna's first day at the dojang

luna has not yet really been able to enjoy her class. the first time she came with me to all belts practice, but it was above her ability and she felt a bit shy and didn’t really know what to do but  she’ll engage and have a great time when she attends the children-specific class, which would’ve happened already but she caught the nasty cough her sister has and they are both quarantined for now.

but it sure is great to see her in her dobok. not only is she the most adorable white belt ever, but it’s always been important to me to have my girls (my girls especially, tho i’d like to see all my kids in tkd) train since rainsong was little (tho my attempst there failed). her mother wasn’t interested in that idea, but instead put rain into bible camp and horse riding courses. i tried my best, when i could, to introduce rainsong to the idea and to practicing. but you know how those busted relationships can go…some people will specifically strike anything from your kids’ life that you want or that reminds them of you, so deep is their loathing for the other parent of their child. this is still one of those cases.

rainsong and me, 1996ish

when you think about it, it’s impressive that some people can maintain active hate for decades. it’s like a worship of you, in a way. you remain that important to them…even if negatively. hmm. yeah. not for me. that life is not for me. i honor nobody with that kind of self-immolation.

soon luna will make friends in the dojang and she will (i hope?) love it. master lee already asked a few people (girls) on that first day to help luna get her dobok on when she first was fitted, and they whisked her away to later come back with dear luna in her outfit. she looked like a doll!

then, since lunita didn’t really know what you do in a dojang, she told the girls she was going to cover her eyes and they should run and hide. that sort of broke my heart. not that luna was sad, or confused, or anything bad happened. it didn’t. they agreed, and luna covered her eyes, but i actually brought luna to me before she had a chance to start a game, so i could keep her  close.

even the sweet moments watching your child can break your heart into a billion pieces for reasons you don’t even know. your children can seem so sweet, and so naive; so helpless and to survive, dependent on the good graces of the cruel, cruel world. watching them meet the world can surprise you, can rend you with pain you normally never feel for yourself, so inured you are to the way things are. even watching someone else tell her to not lean on the mirrors is not easy, in a tiny, private way. but only for a moment. it will all be good for her, which is of course why she is there. i can be very sensitive to my hypersensitive luna’s feelings, i know. which is why it will be best to give her to the children’s class and master lee, and back off of that part.

master lee brought good reminders to help her feel the dojang was ‘her place’ and to simply support her and tell her she did a good job. which i did. soon, she will meet all the younger kids there, and enjoy the special attention that master lee gives them.

i am still mightily sore, but in different ways than after the first day. and without so much pain. most excitingly, i did better on pacing myself. which is important if i want to make it through the entire class. if i don’t watch out for my pacing, i’ll launch every punch, strike, and kick with full kihap and full intensity, full speed and full extension. this will end up with me heaving for air.  master lee tells me that for the first month, i should keep my energy at about 6, instead of 10 because while my body remembers how to practice, i need to recondition and bring it back to training shape. he has to remind me a few times, but its sticking. i finished last class without stopping, tho many times i was close and really had to push through. he had us doing these wall to wall running, kicking, bowling, shotputting, basketball motion type drills which were exhausting. he told me he developed those specifically for when he was training the olympic tkd team.

on friday, master lee made sure to come around at the start of new exercises and show me the form, which i appreciated. i want to learn the movement from him. most people practicing that i’ve seen up close (lower ranks especially) often implement varying degrees of sloppiness, and i need to see a crisp original so i can copy it exactly. even if not sloppy, not everyone has the ability to render a martial arts movement beautiful. some bodies and brains just don’t seem to get there; they don’t feel that groove to lock into, or won’t snap tightly at the right moment, or maybe they just get there later, i don’t know. but i pay special attention to those who perform these moves a certain way. obviously, master lee is one of those. my body wants to do these moves without any loss of signal, without any degradation of art. of those who practice forms/poomsae sort of loosely or halfheartedly, i don’t think they are bad practitioners. but i guess i don’t understand why they are not getting everything out of it you could. gliding and then jamming and locking it out…extending, floating and BAM…. it’s a conscience-laden, gorgeous dance that has a center, a core that ties it all together. it’s not just a collection of moves that are arranged in a linear sequence like a checkbox list. if i sound judgmental, it’s not in a mean way. just in a way where i evaluate a context around me and decide where i need to be within that.

it made me feel very good that this focus of mine was noticed by a few people already (black belt instructors among them), people who made it a point to tell me. this lets me know i’m not living in a dream of my own imagining, but am demonstrating with my body what is taking place within, and that this performance mirrors my own perceptions. to me, taekwondo really is an art and it really must be perfected for the whole essence to work, i feel. not that you have to get stuff perfect right away, or soon. but my art will require me to get there at some point, to aim for that. martial arts (tkd) to me is like an invaluable personal close special friend that speaks to me on a very true level. because of that i feel i understand what its creators were/are getting at, i’ve grokked that since i first began training. that’s why my love for it is so deep. it does what religion tries to. it guides you along a path that allows you to access a higher self, a pure self that demonstrates focus, strength, balance, energy, and love into your life, into your body, helps you become a vessel of as much. but you have to work it like it is an art, not just a hobby and not just something you do for aerobics.

right now i’m trying my best to catch up on the forms, and the commands and responses. master lee’s dojang has a whole new set of protocol. what you say when you enter, what you say when you leave. what you shout in response to his drills. i feel all bumbly and unschooled! keeping my responses quiet as i listen to how others do it. hey, i’d love to come in all knowledgeable, but we all learn, and we all progress if we want to. its good for the humility bone. and again, i just can’t stand people who don’t know how to be humble on the mat about what they have yet to master. there’s something beautiful about a person’s humility as they learn something important to them. they only shine brighter once they learn and learn well.

—i stop here to muse suddenly on the fact that some people who know me only from online interactions might think i am not humble or that i cannot be, or am the opposite of humble (often my ego is a monster, it is true). i’ve heard as much. then again, as i try to remind them, you don’t know me from only reading me online. none of us know each other if that is the depth of our relationship and i stand by that. but despite the validity of that opinion, and however we are perceived, the truth is that we are many things and could become any of those things we choose. to whatever degree we want. we must find those things and pursuits and ways that help us become the self we feel is truest.

on protocol in the new dojang, i’ve got my sheet of paper and i’m finding pronunciation on youtube, and i’m listening hard in class, and asking when i’m stumped on something. i studied stuff about General Choi and some Korean history when i used to train, but i’m pretty sure in this school and our style of tkd, General Choi is de-emphasized, and i think it is because of the split in style and origins. i have to read more on it. but i also have to do my work for pay, for rent. so dividing time wisely is key. but soon i will get a couple books from the library out so i can expand my understanding of this art and its history. which reminds me, i’ve also taken up more reading lately.

it would be easy to dive fully into training and let many other things fall away. i have to find a balance there, too. for now i am going to three classes a week, and trying to see how that fits into my schedule. maybe later i will go more. when the body stops being sore at three times a week! mixing it up is good. so was the slushy margarita i got at the bar and grill down the street from the dojang on friday, after class. i have a feeling i’ll be back there, too.

this morning i read the intro to mein kampf, and most of a book of japanese poetry.

other things have happened that are worthy of discussing. but i’ve written here long enough.

when i came to the booth this morning i saw dude
didn’t like the way he was walking so i kept him in my view
he was headed to the booth
i cut wide, so that i could come up behind him without him knowing it
just in case he had any bad intentions in mind
i figured i could fall on him like batman
well, not like batman, more like felix cuz i’m one lithe cat so light on my feet you’ll never hear me coming
a fluid five foot six, suited in a black and gilded silver mix and i step on shadows softly like i’m melding music with my midnight mind, a single harmony woven nine notes at a time
so i walked up and stopped about ten feet behind him
just letting him do his thing at the booth
looked kosher
finally he turned around
feeling my energy coiling up and down
and saw me standing there
i smiled but i don’t know if that did anything to smooth the moment over
he felt he had to mutter and grumble at me
but the mutter don’t matter, i wasn’t there to please him

i was there for my Shot in the Dark and just to keep an eye on the coffeegirl
even if she never knows it
you can count on me to be felix the espresso chugging guardian angel of la noche

it’s a tuff spot in her speech use. she knows enough that she tries to speak in some pretty ambitious sentences now, but half of it is mushmouth to me. i can’t help but start laughing from deep affection, watching her hand gesture and her forehead wrinkle as she launches into her talk. frustrating to not understand it so well sometimes. i don’t want her to take it as her fault. we work it out.

she hears “agua” a lot, as well as “water” (water said with an oregon accent and a slightly new york-tinted accent, both) and it has all worked out so far to waga. she’s quite a character. when i get to playing on the congas, when i fall into a groove, you should see her start dancing. moving her shoulders forward and back one by one. she’s beautiful and funny.

i’m really not sure what to do about UMX for now. i’m not taking it down or anything like that. it has too many readers and subscribers for me to vanish it, and truth is, i’m not sure i’m done blogging in that vein…i’m just done for the moment. anyway. i’ll figure it out.

not much to say here except…the separation doesnt feel as dramatic anymore. trying to be friends with the ex, there’s plenty of good reasons to do so. trying to keep an eye on and spend time with and be good to my girls. my daughters mean the world to me, all of them. not that my sons don’t. but my girls have a special place in my heart.

thinking this year will see me very much not seeking out or obsessing about or prioritizing female company. i’ve spent the rest of my life doing that so far, and i think it’s time i shifted a lot of that energy to my art. and my work. and in fact, that’s already begun. and its good. it’s good for me, it’s good for them, it’s good for everyone. that’s how i see it.

and it feels good, 2009, so far. very good. the cosmic morbius strips sees a twist that puts more weight on the soles of my feet, and i feel i grow closer to my true self. none of it is easy, but who cares. dont know bout you, but i was never promised a life of peach pie, costly linens, and bath oils. it’s been a fight since day one. see me smiling? that’s cuz i’m a warrior. i was born to fight.

he might have felt lonely if it hadn’t been for his thoughts: not the consecutive, reasoned grey of intellectual thought, but the bursts of kaleidoscopic imagery, both flowering in his mind, and filtered sensuously through his blood…

—The Vivisector, Patrick White

it has been an unusual autumn. an auspicious approach to winter. several relationships have fractured or fallen away, initiated by one party or another. different reasons, different causes, and yet the end result is i am alone heading into this rainy winter forest. alone in an apartment, and my day, and my nights. i don’t say that moaning, or in complaint. i don’t even speak it with the angst which has accompanied the last twenty posts here or so. for once, i am only noting it. and in fact, i think this time comes destined. but yes, it is unusual. the long, deep silences in this apartment are unusual. so many days and nights in a row with so much space in bed is unusual. the quality to the days are utterly unusual. again, so much silence. room to move about and think. that made things very painful for a while. too much space. too much silence. i feel i have moved into a new season, now.

at first this aloneness felt like a withdrawal stage. the apartment in disarray was a wound. a ghost moaning incessantly of the past, and of shame and failure. someone asked me “isn’t there another way to frame it aside from ‘failure’?” and if i were being more honest with myself i would have just admitted ‘no’ instead of trying to rationalize that, yes, i understood there could be other ways to frame it. some nights i went mad for a while. most nights, at first. i lost myself in moving furniture. trying to reshape the interior. cleaning. trying to help my brain over the landing. through the change. i’ve used booze too.

so strange. not having someone here to always hear my thoughts. nobody’s company watching a movie. nothing at all. the displacement paralyzed me. almost like after 9/11, when i froze and everything fell to the ground in a tiny echo of what the city had all just lived through. this time things almost fell entirely into disrepair, financially and spatially, before i lurched into action because, no. not twice in a row at least.

and so i got up and scheduled things and set up some jobs, and worked for the right amounts of time—and i’m still doing that—and i’ve had a little help, too, from friends. i’ve got things going and i’m doing food shopping and am keeping things reasonably clean and maintaining my time with luna and i feel i’m on track. i’m paying the rent and my fone is not shut off and i don’t feel crazy every night, nor dread the evening whenever it comes around…that’s a big one.

i’ve simply started moving again, turning the wheels again, accepting that there is a reason to do so, and that in doing so, progress can be made in some way. it occurred to me the other day a lot of this is replacing old routines with new routines and in this way i am moving through it. and now i’m no longer just holding on…i’m beginning to enjoy some of the silences. and settling into my own seat. taking a breath, looking around. now that i’m not in survival/shock mode and wondering if the ship is going to go under any moment, i’m beginning to think about where i want to steer this thing.

and i’m not part of any daily dysfunction that feeds a bristling ball of anger, pain, and general negativity within my own sphere and others’. that’s first and foremost. nothing happens until that part is removed. no, i don’t know whose “fault” it all was. if it was mine, well then. i’ve removed myself and that seemed to work. and i didn’t even plan that. unexpected happenstance was the catalyst, but this continued path i walk is about more than that, now.

actually, i’m amazed. mostly because being alone for too long has been a bit terrifying for me. i don’t do that. i’ve always traveled with a best friend, or lived in group settings with other males (institutional settings) or lived with a woman—since i was 17. on one road trip (20) i stopped at my father’s who I’d just met again for the first time in 15 years. when he saw me and my best friend, he asked me pointedly “why aren’t you ever alone?” it wasn’t until at least ten years later that it occurred to me what a cruel question that was coming from someone who walked out on your life before you were even born. but to the point, and as strange as it might sound to someone else with different experiences, being alone in my own place is a brand new pattern. waking up alone, going to sleep alone. figuring out how to eat each day. paying bills all alone. making structure out of no structure at all. being with myself. i feel a change lately, in that i can bear it. this seems important to me.

if anyone has wondered why i’ve maintained a distance around myself at certain times or a lack of promise or investment its because i’m trying not just to be fair to others, but to brave these silences for once. i’m trying to reap the benefit of this struggle. if there is anything positive to be wrought from the depths of such a crack-lipped rift as this which takes a family apart in this way, it is to be found in my reflection, solitude, loneliness, thoughtfulness. it is to be manifested in a gathering in of my energies and a careful application to that which is positive and creative and constructive. I want to be careful not to be reactive, nor to simply distract myself from the ache. There is a meaningful and profound pain running through this change, whether it be called a failure or otherwise. I want to use that pain to hone my effects, to pare away the distance between my intention and application on multiple levels.

i find with more time to myself i have more time to consider not simply my emotional reaction to the world and to others, but the origins of my own emotion. there seems to me an important distinction.

i feel i am less grounded in other people’s ongoing reality, and that is a good thing. as an artist, i am a bit like a receptor. a tuning fork. i feel easily, deeply, and intensely. this is coupled, of course, with the recoil and response which artists have as a matter of function. you receive the energies of your environment, are imbued of them, resonate with that and then transmit it back/outward—and if i dont have time to process or consider the transmission or interpretation, the event can become like an echo track overloading and overheating the circuit. me, being that conduit. part of what was so painful in my marriage was that i was ultimately contending with cluttered emotional freight on a daily basis. there was not the room to get to more fragile or more subtle vibrations such as one needs to contact for much of their art. and if an artist is not doing these types of things, i really think a great amount of unhappiness resounds. and then, that is what you transmit.

i dont write these things to blame anyone else. i think these are problems inherent in an artist having any close relationship, to tell you the truth (and i’ve got plenty of my own freight). and i’m sure we could embark on another discussion here. but i’m talking now of my specific life. not theories involving love, intimacy, and artists.

we could no longer dance. we could barely move. we were both dragging around lists made of lead. i tag neither of us as some sort of sole destroyer or victimizer. if she does, that’s her view and for her to espouse or defend. but for me arguing about it brings no clarity, only more pain. i didn’t know what went wrong. or how much was right to begin with. even when i tried, i couldnt navigate simple kindness anymore and i couldn stand myself for that lack. i don’t know what is the future of her or myself or our children. but i don’t want it to be anything other than kindness. kindness or nothing. and so far, this is better. though it is certainly not ideal…

i want to be truer to myself. that means seeing what i am good at and what i am not. and applying myself doubly hard in the areas i have interest and talent and ability (and yes calling) and retracting myself more from areas where i am just lounging or killing time. i am 39. if life were fair, i’d live to be 400. because i’m an infant in terms of mastering my talents and being a human being in general. i feel such great awe and earnest gratitude for every new thing i learn, but i’m hardly half way to being self-actualized. and so it is with a certain tinge of (sorrow may be too strong a word, but i don’t have enough terms for shades of sadness) wistfulness that i admit my life will be incomplete. meanwhile, i don’t want to waste too much more time pretending or starching up my collar or posing—unless its for really weird art fotographs or installations.

i want to be truer to my art. i’ve been practicing brushstrokes and gradients and arcs and shading and hue and image capture and composition and layering and narrative and theme and subtext and transition and meter and metaphor for two decades, now. i feel i am ready for another round of production and another level of corazónian expression. i havent made any art (and i mean paintings in the 3D) or sculpture or albums in a long time. I’ve dabbled in digital grafiks and fun little audio tracks or quickie songs for about two years and i see this as a buffer period where i’ve been soaking up a lot of new information, thinking about things in new ways, and in general, changing and not quite ready to “produce” yet. i’ve also done a lot of thinking about art and how i’ve used it and what the gift is for. my entire approach to art has transformed in this time period where i’ve not been really exploring any new ground. my thoughts on the use of it, the debt owed to it, the power and function of art, and consequently how to speak with it. a reader could track this since i began writing years ago in el grito about euro-centric media, and indigenous art, and capitalism’s minions, and sexist and racist media…and actually, it began years before, while learning about media messaging in NYU Film/TV, and even earlier with my photography and SBS and marketing courses in community college. In fact, “this” is a long path, and we cannot find the toe or head here. i am but standing aside for a moment and marking the journey. once again.

my art (and i include music) itself was a reaction for a long time. and it was a mourning. it was a mourning without a full accounting. it was a hand of anger with an incomplete grasp of cause. it was a vow to take vengeance but overlooking many important actors. in this way it was typical. the “truth” of what i am creating is of greater importance to me, but apart from all other considerations, i certainly do not strive to be a typical creator of sound or imagery or story. if i’m going to bother, i don’t need another hobby. no, i want to reach new, original levels of creation/interpretation/expression. not necessarily in the world’s canons, but definitely within the context of my own repertoire of style. i want to push myself toward the greatness that may lie at the seed of this ability. looking back, so much of what i was saying was repeating lessons i’d been given. or reacting viscerally to realities i was living and sometimes the result was beautiful, maybe, in its striving for honesty. (granted, there are still people who swear by much of it. and i would take nothing from them. that’s an argument i dont win even when i seem to!) but there are always deeper levels to plumb. without evaluating further or degrading past efforts to be real, these stated conditions are why i say that my years of art—soulful gestures for sure—has been mostly practice. then again, i’m sure every artist wants to look back with scorn upon her or his seminal or early work. so perhaps i am not being so original after all.

regardless, i feel something truer and vast beneath the surface. and i would dive down to get at it. i would risk drowning to find it. that i know to be so much of my purpose here.

not this:

and while words are very much a part of my work and what i am presumptuous enough to think of as my gifts, this blogging thing has tended to steer me toward overuse. an effervescent outpouring of words, words, words and that’s all too easy for me, isn’t it? and all this time i’m typing and talking i’m not doing enough of other things. words, as i’ve written before in el grito, are dangerous and at the same time, inefficient. (all these value judgments of course depend on intent and function and goal, that’s a given). but lately i’ve been looking at my easel a lot. and lately i’ve been picking up my guitars more often. it might not mean a thing. then again, it might.

one last thing. in my last post i talked, joked, about having contempt for the entirety of the human race. now of course, this is not a great statement to make wholesale, and while i’m okay with the amount and quality of people who choose to stick around despite the many off-the-cuff statements i make like this, i had a few thoughts about it. and what i thought was that there is no time i am more unhappy with the human race as a whole then when i am improperly interacting with it. that might mean holding a job that offends my nature, or lying too much, or trying to engage people in ways that feel phony or unnatural to me; against my own grain. it might mean a number of things. but i’d like to take back the locus, if nothing else. people are no one thing. people are in turns, wondrous, disappointing, ugly, beautiful, amazing, selfish, shallow, generous, remarkable. there is no blanket statement that holds fast. and again, it comes down to where i’m trying to place myself within that entire exchange. if i’m more careful and honest about it, there will be less moments like that. at least that’s the idea.

what was i saying? oh yeah. too many words. pretending i understand them and that they fix things. or that they say what it is i’ve been feeling. missing getting my hands wet, dirty, bright, staying up drawing impossible suns all night. less of that and more of this. announcing my alliance with fearlessness and bliss.

a flock of birds moves across the sky

a woman lets me know through email auto reply

that her heart is exploded and though she didn’t say so

a buffet of petals before her on the ground

i have murdered another dream