Everything I Tell You is Hearsay

What would you be?”

A stranger recently posed this one.  Anyone who knows me would know better. They wouldnt even consider asking, because they know I am scared of fish, and thus, imagining myself as a sea creature would be pretty much the worst sort of torture. And also, that hypotheticals of this type are annoying in the extreme and no one I consent to hang out with would ask such a stupid question.

However, when I refused to answer it for the person who did not know better, he did have a follow up question that set me thinking about something that was worth considering. He asked if I didn’t like hypothetical questions, did that mean I was unimaginative. And I realized, that yes, indeed, it sort of does.

 I think about things, in obsessive detail, but rarely make things up in my head. I am reflective, rather then generative, in most cases. I feel I am a good critic, in that it is a pleasure for me to asborb and weigh the work of another; to turn it over in my head and try to see it from all angles, inside and out. I like to play with language and thoughts, but mostly as an atrifact of something I have already taken in from elsewhere. The only “art” I even come close to feeling any chance of making decent is photography, but even that, deals often in concrete and I draw inspiration from observing what is not by conjuring what does not yet exist.

I do not however, as his question implied, say this in the vein of admitting this as a shortcoming. I think it is simply a matter of fact that some people are better at creating their own reality and then expressing it to others through various mediums, and others are better at interpreting the realities they encounter and functionalizing them. I happen to be of the latter stripe, but know damn well both are needed for a fully realized and satisfying creative endeavor to thrive.

I do not suffer from my failure of imagination; it just leaves me with the space to better appreciate what can be born of someone else’s.

Imagination III By realityDream from DeviantArt.com

“Lean into the sharp points.” Buddhist Wisdom~

I don’t tend to avoid things just because they are unpleasant. I recognize that usually, difficulties have something to teach me. That to test the boundaries of my capacity to cope, tolerate, and accept most often results in growth that contributes to me becoming and happier, wiser, and more fully realized person

This can mean that I spend a fair amount of time confronting truths that are not always easy to process. I know myself pretty well, but there is always more to discover, and occasionally I find something out that shocks me, or makes me feel like I don’t know myself as well as I like to think.

By attending to these discoveries I am able to expand my awareness. I can understand not only what prods me in those tender places, but also why it is that they do. To avoid this experience would only serve to leave me vulnerable to the same injury going forward. By finding those places I have hidden, I can open myself to new possibilities with less fear. It is by no means easy to do this, but it is always rewarding to understand myself better. And even though the pain of leaning into the sharp points can be mighty indeed, it helps me to know they are there, to take more tender care of myself while I muster the strength to bear more than I ever knew I could.

It happened today.It derailed some of my plans and kept me from my little theme on the blog I’ve been running with the last few days. I’m in no imminent danger, just a fairly annoying amount of pain.

Here’s hoping some answers present themselves soon…

“A breeze can lift waters from a gorge; rising as mist, it blows away” ~The I-Ching

“And if there come the singers and the dancers and the flute players, buy of their gifts also. For they too are the gatherers of fruit and frankincense, and that which they bring, though fashioned of dreams, is raiment and food for your soul.” ~The Prophet Kahlil Gibran

For in the everyday commerce of our lives, let us not forget the pleasures that sustain us. Not so much an admonition, this is instead the reminder that sweetness and indulgence too have their place in a well-ordered soul. The aesetics took their task too far; by denying all pleasure they forget we are enabled us feel joy and ecstacy in that we may have a hint of the divine. We must conduct our business, indeed, but so too must we nurture the vessel by which the work is done.

This is not a blanket endorsement for debachery, but instead the reminder that the simplest pleasures are worth your most precious commodity, be that time or effort, or indeed coin. That to engage in the material support of your own pleasure is the most satisfying use of the sweat of your brow. To truly earn your delights a great gift.

There are those songs, you know.

Those songs which contain words and phrases that spell out the aching particulars of however you experience life and beauty and pain and truth.

We all have this soundtrack.; the songs that bring us immediately to a place or time or feeling. Without preamble or fanfare, we are fully and utterly lost to that moment, that emotion. And sometimes, they make no sense or they make a sense that only your insides can interpret. They are often profoundly unglamorous and leave us raw and exposed, but in the best possible way.

And today with my speakers up louder than I can usually have them at work, I heard again the line from a song that most says LOVE to me while I listen. It is contained in a song about stumbling upon love while not yet free to have it. It is not a scenario I have ever found myself in, yet it cries out with the most beautiful poignancy what I most feel… and want to feel from someone else, about love.

There have been others: they tell a story about the way my concept of love has changed

Ghost by The Indigo Girls “Of all my demon spirits I need you the most”

I always felt like this song was about being in love with the idea of someone, rather than their actual person. About idealizing someone past the point of all reason so that you could have no real hope of loving them in actuality. This is something I know well how to do. This was my idea of love when I was a sophomore in high school. It still tugs at me though…

Do What You Have to Do by Sarah McLachlan “And I have the sense to recognize that I don’t know how to let you go”

Some part of me is convinced that love has to hurt. That it isn’t real if you don’t ache for the lack of the other. Probably too large a part of me indeed. The quality of love I most readily recognize is the sort that causes me to lose myself so completely in the feeling that I become someone else as a result. the person I was before ceases to exist and so, in a very real sense I struggle with the notion of losing anyone I come to truly love, for it would result in becoming Not Me, at least Not the Me I’d been ever since falling in love had made me Someone New. Plus also, I just don’t like to let go.

Steam Engine by My Morning Jacket “Your skin looks good in moonlight, goddamn those shaky knees”

This song was just eerily appropriate for the love I was falling in at the time I first heard the song. I had never had someone so enamored of me as was the boy who was the object of my affection at the time. I had never had anyone speak with such fervor about how beautiful he thought I was; about the effect I had on him with the mere fact of my presence. This was the lesson of being adored as an aspect of love. It was a good lesson.

Crash by Dave Matthews Band “Hike up your skirt a little more, and show your world to me”

Far from being smutty, I find this line to be singularly romantic. It acknowledges the fundamental vulnerabilty inherent in revealing oneself this way. The faith, entire and unblemished, that accompanies such a gesture. It is an intoxicating moment, to feel that trust for someone else, and to feel it expressed toward you as well.

And now…

Challengers by The New Pornographers “Whatever the mess you are, you’re mine”

This, oh this, is what I have come to believe is really what love is about. Not that we do not see, or that we are made perfect by our love, but rather that we are seen, and known, and absolved, and loved nevertheless. I think I like this notion best. It feels truer, and wiser and more likely, when compared to the illusions and self-sacrifice of the past.

And I wonder, as I always do, about the quality of love that others feel. How it is sounded out across their lives. What resonates inside of them and carries them forward on waves of song…

By Dan Simmons

This book is a trap. Don’t start reading it until you have the sequel lined up next to it on your table; madness that way lies.

Hyperion is also the finest piece of science fiction I have read in a good long time. I haven’t had sufficient time to let it sink in and work on me, but I would say it certainly ranks in the top 20 books I have ever read, and given time to travel around my head a few more times, it seems likely to rise yet higher.

This book appeared twice in the last few weeks on the side tables and library shelves of two people the opinions of I respect. It was a funny little coincidence, but I take that seriously, so I picked it up off the library shelf and I took it with me to Hawaii. That in itself was a but of a coincidence too, in that one of the locations of import in the book is a place called Maui-Covenant (true, I wasn’t on Maui, but I’ll call it close enough for Science Fiction). Synchronicity is important to me, and I felt like this book came along at just the right moment. It is about travelling, and the essence of humanity, how we tell each other our stories, and how doing so binds us together.

It is also a very classic post-Earth space epoch. All the standard science fiction structures are there; the seemingly benevolent interstellar empire trying to recreate the best about Old Earth and move past the mistakes seemed to spring from her soil. The fantastic but feasible technology that allows the diaspora of mankind to spread past all human reckoning. The pervasive and piebald mysticism that arises in the face of phenomenon beyond human experience and understanding. Each of these is deftly executed and remarkably robust. In fact that is what makes this novel so extremely satisfying; while it contains each of these standard elements, it treats each as its own critical part not to be neglected in favor of anything else.

Rare indeed is the author who can manage to generate a palpable fear and an equally compelling eroticism. To pair a moving sense of the mystic and a convincing technical vernacular. To give each character a distinct and evocative voice while maintaining a gripping continuity. Not only are these seldom found together in pairs, I have never encountered each and all together in such measure and balance as in this book. Dan Simmon has created nothing less than a masterpiece in this novel by his ability to do so with such grace and artistry.

Hyperion is a planet at the center of a mystery the known universe have been unable to fathom. Phenomenon that defy all of man’s learning and the best of its efforts to unfold persist on this far flung world that has resisted all efforts to bring it into the fold of the Hegemony.  Time works in ways that cannot be explained and a creature known as the Shrike, a four armed creature covered in metal spikes with glowing red eyes roams the outlands leaving death in his wake. Now on the verge on an intergalactic war, seven pilgrims are selected to make a final pilgrimage to the Shrike who, legend says, will grant either a final wish or death.

Each pilgrim seems an unlikely choice in their way, and with no discernible connection either to each other or the Shrike.  As the journey begins and their tales unfold, we begin to see the ways in which a priest, a warrior, a scholar, a ship captain, a poet, a mercenary, and a diplomat are all deeply bound to both Hyperion and each other.  Each character speaks in a distinct and wholly convincing voice. Simmons switches effortlessly between the male and female characters and persuades entirely with both.

To give away more would spoil the pleasure of letting the reader sink into this excellent tale unhampered by expectation. Suffice it to say I found it utterly engrossing and totally satisfying. Funny, moving, horrifying and sexy. It is the best of all that literature has to offer, if you will allow yourself to submit to the Shrike’s dangerous embrace.

Highly Recommended

Retail Therapy; it works!

At least in the short term….

This, for example, would give me a great deal of immediate pleasure! Look how pretty it is!!

I think part of it comes from having such an utter lack of resources for most of my young life. There was never any money to manage, so I had no idea how to do it once I had some of my own. As I said before, I like to acquire things. I have a closet stuffed full of clothes, knick-knacks I’ve owned for half my life, and more purses than you can shake a stick at. I feel almost anchored by my belongings; as though their existence makes me somehow more corporeal. I am conforted when I look around me and see my stuff, ordered and set, each thing in it’s place.

The actual act of shopping though, well.

While going on an outing a few weeks ago with Lyza she lamented that she didn’t think she really had any girl friends who liked to shop. I was flabbergasted. Hodie hears this from the backseat and says

“You didn’t know she likes shopping?? Have you MET her?? I think she might like shopping as much as she likes ME!”

Which is of course, an exaggeration, but… well… you know, not a HUGE one.

Something comes over me. I walk into a store, doesnt matter what kind, I get this feeling in the grocery store too, of an almost narcotic bliss. I would not be surprised if my eyes glazed over in this moment. I become utterly focused and deeply intent on whatever comes to hand. I like to mull and reflect, choose and reject. Feeling fabrics, inhaling scents, picking things up and putting them back. It feels incredibly satisfying to have such power, such pleasure. Shopping is my heroin.

If I could only shop in five clothing stores for the rest of my life, I’d choose:

1) Banana Republic~ Part of the GAP empire, they are about the only place I can find t-shirts that will fit me properly.

2) J.Crew~ In the same way my mother didn’t want me to participate in Yuppie sports, she didn’t want me to dress like I was going to be summering in the Hamptons. Naturally I have always LOVED that style. Get me in front of an Argyle sweater and I positively swoon.

3) Ann Taylor~ Classic, stylish, incredibly comfortable and wearable stuff. Goods are of excellent quality and hold up for years with proper care.

4)H&M~ This is sort of the other end of the spectrum. Quality, not so great, but they are very trendy and the prices are quite low. It makes sense to have a foundation wardrobe of high quality pieces and then throw in some cheap shiny crap for variety.

5) Nordstrom~ Not just because they have excellent quality and selection, but also because they are the only department store in the states that carries lingerie that will accomodate my particular measurements. I used to have to go online and order garments from GB and if they didn’t fit properly, well, as the saying goes “tough titty”

It’s been a long time since I really had the means to go out and buy clothes in any real quantity, but I’m trying to learn to enjoy window shopping a bit more. Like methadone.

And the fact that it is my own fault is both par for the course and in no way comforting.  Analgesic could take many forms but at the moment, nothing is even scratching the surface.

Deep breaths, in the meantime.

It is the first Tuesday in November, and thus, election day. I myself managed to somehow fail to be registered to vote. Apparently when I moved, I didn’t submit a new registration with my change of address. When the well-meaning and earnest young people approached me on the train asking if I’d like to sign a petition, I blithely obliged them unaware my signature would be cast aside, invalid on accident.

When my ballot didn’t arrive along with that of my hosuemate a little light when on in my head, but then I failed to move fast enough to remedy the problem. Disenfranchised via scatterbrain.

This is, however only the 4th election in which I even had an interest in participating. I will shamefacely admit, I have only voted 3 times in my adult life. it wasn’t something my parents did, it always seemed sort of pointless, and I didn’t want to just vote without knowing what the issues were, and being politically well-informed is both moderately challening and intermittently depressing. I didn’t really want to make the effort, nor to cast an uninformed opinion into the sea of careless ballots.

But then. I joined the debate team in college, and I had no choice but to be politically informed. You can’t win a round without a pretty firm grasp on current events, and you can’t help but form opinions once you are exposed to the information. I became a rather rabid NPR listener, and eventually, felt excited about voting. However, this was recently enough that it’s still only been about 4 election cycles since I decided it was worth all the bother. 

And though I realize vote by mail is less expensive, increases turn-out, and is in every way logistically preferable, I am kinda sad I never got to try out the booth…

For those of you that DID your civic duty, my thanks.