That's Just the Feeling

This fall has been a bizarre season. No matter how much I tell myself that a single life is only one timeline, with a definite beginning and end, I can't help but constantly give myself over to that American idea of perpetually having the capability of beginning again. I think part of it is that I believe people can change. I mean, there are two ways of going about it: people change or they don't. And if I believe people change, then I have to believe I have the capacity to change too-- for better or worse. And man oh man, does the idea of ever growing worse startle me. I can't be the only one, though I may be in slim company of those who are infinitely conscious of it at most every moment, even in dreams. 

One of the reasons I married Tim is because we speak the same language. He has the exact same capacity of the infinitely conscious fear of being one who grows worse. I'm not saying that it's because of, but maybe only informed by, that fear that he is pretty good at saying something I've never heard before when I need to hear it. For this strange fall season, Tim told me that the worst tragedies happen on otherwise beautiful days because it's the only way anyone could cope with it. 

I mean, damn. That's poignant. 

Throughout this strange fall season, with all it's dramatics moving in completely disparate directions, along with other things, I keep thinking of what Tim told me. Maybe part of it's poignancy is connected to staying in the center of things. When things get to feeling like you're being tosses around at sea, I hear the best thing to do is remain a stone. So for this strange season, I've tried my best to remain a stone. But even living in this little city, one can only really stay a stone for so long, hardly anytime at all.

I keep going back to that scene in Broken Flowers too. When Bill Murray is at the end, all busted up and broken, suffocating under the gravity of life and being, and all the repercussions that stem from both, and he's holding those terrible, cheap pink flowers. He's leaning against a giant old tree, squatting next to the grave of one of his last loves, crying. Whenever I picture this in my mind, it's raining. I've seen the movie at least twenty times, and the greens are so fresh, they feel wet with the weight of falling rain.

But it isn't raining at all. That's just the feeling. 

For the most part, outside my love for Tim and Langston, I don't know where I'm traveling. But I know I'm capable, and I know people love me. (I dyed my hair pink this month, and immediately, my wonderful cousin texted me, "Are you okay? It's pink not brown, but does it mean the same thing?")

I think art is inside/outside-- part of the time is collecting, the other part is creating. Sometimes the stages take years to navigate. This week I've realized that it's probably just time for the other side of things.

teeth

Lang watched Rocky III for the first time, and this happened:

He says, "Stand up! Stand up, I tell you, I told you box! You box ring. (garble) You gotta box in ring."

here's our new home:

when the world gets overwhelming, and the sadness and frustration are overwhelming, and I fall asleep talking to my husband about why things happen and what we can do to change things, and make things better for the world our son lives in, I fall asleep with my dirty hair sticking to the tears on my face, my head at the foot of the bed. 

I wake up hearing Tim talk to our son. I don't know what they're saying. the fan is on in our bedroom, making everything beyond it sound like a familiar rhythm, a song I know by heart. Lately, I've been thinking about how difficult it is to be steady, how steadiness is the most difficult necessity to order and to happiness and pleasure. and how this is because we live out our timelines under the halo of the end, knowing it's there, ahead of us, at some point that's always too close. and we want our pleasures, our tragedies, we want the absolutes to come at us quickly. again and again, we watch the same things unfolding and change nothing. the endlessness brings us nothing. I hate thinking about these things.

for the last seven days, I've tried to turn this part of myself off. for years, I've charted these habits in my behavior, and the best I've done is only feel this way twelve days a month. that was last month. that was with a lot of effort. I'm already in the hole six days this month, yesterday. I'm trying to change the voice, trying to pull it back, push it down a different hallway. one with a window, a door, one with that checkered summer tent where my son sleeps. 

and then there's today. it's like falling through the mirror: all the strongholds behind have fallen away, and the steps I'm taking are appearing, spontaneously. it's a quiet Friday off, a day to spend with my son. no phones, no news, nothing. and he's asleep, taking a nap in the summer tent I make around his bed. and he sleeps for hours. and he looks calm, and he looks happy. and I hope he always knows what calm feels like, and I hope he remembers the feeling. I hope that he always knows how to get back there. 

spontaneous trip to Kansas City

what we talk about when we talk about love:

Tim: Langston was great on the bus and at school this morning. I ended up playing with his little friends for a few minutes. It is so much fun to do that. With the bus, Langston is always so excited to leave the house haha It was really hot, though, and we were both sweating.

Me: I'm so glad you two had a great morning; these are the things you're both going to remember. Like in American Beauty, when the father remembers his life, all that love and beauty, so much it hurts. Those are the greatest moments to live. I have memories of going to mc Donald's with my dad and Nick. Nick and I would split a hot cakes and sausage, and we alway had to trade off who got to eat from the lid and who had to eat from the plate. We each got an orange juice, and my dad would sometimes let us have a sip of his coffee.

Tim: yeah, nobody will ever be able to take those memories away, and despite how little they are, they mean so much. It's because kids often have a higher capability of happiness. Kids can be happy with so little, and despite their whining and complaining, they truly are satisfied. I think as a parent we get to relive that happiness through them. Riding a bus, for example, is mundane, but because of Langston, I am allowed to return to my childhood and that feeling of happiness. Only, as a parent, the gift might arguably be better. Not only do I get to relive those moments of childhood and happiness, I get to experience the kinship with a son. I feel for him and for myself because I can relate to him while also experiencing something new. Then, I also get the experience of kinship with my father by coming to a realization of how he must have felt and had that same enjoyment, and because I can realize what he did and felt and had, I have a better appreciation for and understanding of him.

Me:  absolutely. kids are absolutely transcendental. wow. yeah, man. that is so so much better than Salinger's philosophy. yeah, man. that's beautiful.

that shot though:

Memorial Day

On Sunday, I read my new story at the UNO Alumni Reading, and I was offered a very awesome job. We celebrated with milk, honey, and each other.

when only a fort will do

on Saturdays, Langston takes me to ballet

not yet 1 1/2, and he's already 1/2 my size

three of my poems published by The Birds We Piled Loosely

three of my poems were just published by the lovely journal The Birds We Piled Loosely, including the only poem I've written about Langston, the baby lion when he was only two weeks old. it's called "Hunger" and starts

Again, the bristles of the lion’s mane
catch in the splinters of my nails,

as I coax him to be still, be silent
in his sleep. He is curled

on the bathmat; he is sucking air.


You can read the rest of my poems, and the rest of the issue here :)

Enjoy!

happy 4th!

Henry Doorly Zoo

home is wherever I'm with you