Tuesday, October 27, 2009

I and Love and You

It's kind of funny. The way life works out. The way people surprise you in even the simplest of ways. How a letter or a phone call can seemingly change the course of your very existence. I think it's something about the power of words. Or maybe it's more the people saying them. For a time I've attached myself to this theory that words are not enough. That words actually carry very little weight. They're empty. Because no words can fully encompass all that someone is or what they mean to us. No words can truly encapsulate the depths of emotion. Only we can comprehend our feelings- their immensity and shape.

Yet we grasp at alike words: happy, sad, love, fear... and think that we each mean to express similar sentiments when in actuality, that's impossible. In actuality, we have no way of knowing the capacity of another to feel happy or sad, to fear, to love. Yet in clinging to these words one has to believe that we at least move in like minded directions. That my 'love' could not be so off course from that of another. That your 'happiness' sits close to mine if not so neatly beside it.

But, I suppose aside from action, from the physical depictions of emotion, words are sort of all we've got. So it's no wonder that relationships become so complicated. You'd think they could be simple. You'd think that at our very core, human beings are actually quite simple. We all want and need the same basic things. We're just struggling to understand one another's words... how we express our needs or desires for those common necessities. We dance around ideas, bull shit, lie, pretend... we use and abuse a language so expertly devised to simply tell the truth. And find ourselves wondering why these things are all so complicated.

Well then maybe it's not the words themselves, but really the people saying them. It's how one's emotions and thought and intent manifest themselves inside the framework of words. How one can shape or manipulate or color those common words to mean what he or she needs them to mean...

The Avett Brother's have a song called "I and Love and You." It's my latest obsession. Maybe it's their struggle with words that rings home. Check it out, friends. And until next time...

Load the car and write the note
Grab your bag and grab your coat
Tell ones that need to know
We are headed north

All one foot in and one foot back
But it don't pay, to live like that
So I cut the ties and I jumped the tracks
For never to return

Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in
Are you aware the shape I'm in
My hands they shake my head it spins
Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in

When at first I learned to speak
I used all my words to fight
With him and her and you and me
Oh it's just a waste of time
It's such a waste of time

That women shes got eyes that shine
Like a pair of stolen polished dimes
She asked to dance I said it's fine
I'll see you in the morning time

Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in
Are you aware the shape I'm in
My hands they shake my head it spins
Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in

Three words that became hard to say
I and love and you
What you were then I am today
Look at the things I do

Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in
Are you aware the shape I'm in
My hands they shake my head it spins
Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in

Dumbed down and numbed by time and age
You dreams to catch this world the cage
The highway sets the travelers stage
All exits look the same
Three words that became hard to say
I and love and you
I and love and you
I and love and you

Sunday, October 25, 2009

every morning the maple leaves

I love Sunday walks in the park with Noel. Noel is my soon to be 8 year old pup- a sheltie mix of sorts we happily rescued from a shelter on the Eastern Shore those many Christmases ago. And I suppose I just love walks in the park in early Autumn, as colors begin changing: the mix of red, orange, yellow, and greens taking over a tree infused landscape. I stop when Noel stops- pausing to take in the smells of grass, trees, and the crispness of Fall. I think there's a sort of vitality in the air of Autumn. We are awakened and brought into a deeper, more heightened sense of experience. The senses illuminate in a way that can only happen in these months of October and November, with a sweet dog by your side, reminding you to slow down and take moments to pause every now and then. And I get to thinking about Elizabeth Bennet- the pensive and stubborn character Austen so expertly created... a lover of walking, much like myself. And I begin wondering if perhaps Austen imagined Bennet's experience of walking to be something like this- a meditation of sorts, taking in the colors, smells, and sounds of this outward place, dreaming of chance encounters while allowing a moment for reflection and self introspection. One can find a sense of peace while walking, and ideally when walking in a physically beautiful place.

So I got to thinking about walking in a city like New York- something which I at one time found to be a different kind of meditation but now deem a sport of sorts. Competitive, fast paced, each individual so tightly wound up in his or own world of thought and focus, merely aiming to get from point A to point B seemingly as quickly as possible. One does not walk in a city like that for the sense of calm or inner peace it brings. One does not see this practice as a means of restoration but rather a means of transportation. It's like a million atoms in space attempting not to collide- dodging one another and hot dog carts and yellow cabs, trying not to be distracted by bright city lights, angered Yankees fans, or posh downtown hipsters donning far too few accessories. I don't think Noel would enjoy those kinds of walks, and more and more I'm thinking I wouldn't either. Because who really wants to live in world overflowing with zombies donning headphones apparently cut off from that outward experience? I think I'd rather an openness to that space, allowing all that a park or a path or landscape can wash over me as I move through it.

So there's that.

I'm no longer one of those Starbucks dwelling people... but more so my need for employment and some fund saving as transformed me into a Trader Joe's dweller. And not just for the free samples. I now get to spend mornings, afternoons, and some very late evenings unloading trucks,stocking shelves, bagging groceries and making attempts to interact with those other specialty food loving people. I work at Trader Joe's. I live at home with my parents. In a good number of ways, I'm lost. And each day is a struggle to allow myself to be okay with all of that. To be okay with where I am, what I'm doing, and what I have. Because really, I'm not lost. I'm just trying to figure out who I am and what I want without the regulations or labels of some larger institution or structure deciding for me.

And it's kind of amazing... finding yourself in the vast openness of possibility existing in the universe. But it's simultaneously terrifying- thinking that you have to choose a path, a passion, an occupation. What if you're just too overwhelmed by option? By interest? What if you're just in a transition... because transitions DO exist. And as of this moment, I am in one. The ultimate one. And I have to believe that this is going to lead to another moment... or maybe just another transition. Maybe there are no certain things or final destinations in life. Maybe it's all moving through one transition after the other- like riding the waves of an infinite sea... loving the thrilling rush of the crash, all the while terrified of drowning. I guess I'm just having a hard time. I'm having a hard time figuring out how to be living life... when the reality is, I can do or be anything. Really. So why a sense of fear or guilt or judgment? Why not just rid yourself of all of that and allow life to be what it is, where it is, in this very moment... in this transition?
Easier said than done I guess, right?

Well for now, there is some sort of satisfaction that comes from making someone smile, from seeing the world through the eyes of an affectionate, loving, animal, and so perfectly stacking jars of salsa and beans and tomato paste. There is a sense of peace one feels after reading a good book purely for pleasure, of having the time to write and write and write, and taking endless moments to pause and think, to meditate. And all I can hope is that I'll figure this thing out. This thing being life. So perhaps that will take a life time. Perhaps that's kind of the point. We spend our lives trying to figure this thing out... so we make connections with other people and places, we develop skills and interests and passions, we feel and think and dream, and we hope that at the end of the day we're left with something or someone to hold onto. We're all just trying to figure this thing out. I'm not sure that any of us really know what we're doing. And maybe there should be some sort of comfort in that.

On a lighter note, the following items are assisting me in welcoming my favorite season of Autumn... check them out:

Poetry of Richard Siken: Crush
the musical stylings of Ingrid Michaelson, Ryan Adams (from Easy Tiger), Courtney Jones and Ben Folds
new books including: The Kids are All Right and The Stranger (Camus)
Baking and eating pumpkin bread
abundant walks in the park
actually dressing up for Halloween this year and enjoying it

Until next time,

L