Why

... do you look so hard for something that isn't even what you want when you know very well what it is you ought to be doing to make yourself happy?

Hunker down. Buckle up. Get on. 

Word of the day

stanch/stônCH/

Verb:

Stop or restrict (a flow of blood) from a wound. Stop the flow of blood from (a wound).

Do you ever

... have trouble staying present? 

I find myself ostensibly walking the dog but actually replaying many small defeats and other trifles of the past in my mind. It is an effort not to let myself wander too far. I suppose this is what they mean by absent minded, like when I used to leave the key in the door coming home, or forget to close it going out.

I stop to tell myself: "You don't need to be anywhere but here." 

And of course the sun shines and the glass fronts of the buildings around me reflects deep azure trimmed in white clouds and the tree over head has fragrant blossoms and my dog floppy ears curly tail agile limbs and an inquiring look that wants my attention. 

"Look what you're missing." 

Is it hyper-activity plus attention-deficit? I would like to think so. 

But another part of me remembers when it was a common necessity to leave my body behind while my mind goes elsewhere, does whatever, waiting out the time until life resurfaces again to the hard and shiny shell of its normal exterior. 

By which I mean the time elapsed between being groped and the end of groping. By which I mean when I was young and a victim of sexual predation and abuse. By which I mean not simply knowing, but internalizing the belief that everything is not what is seems and all that is solid melts into air (yes, that phrase, decontextualized, has stayed with me). 

By which I mean going up the escalator this morning I saw a woman running down the way to catch a train, her heavy breasts bouncing with each step. I remembered a time when my uncle took me to the shopping mall and leaned down toward me as we walked, whispering in an moist and urgent voice about women walking briskly past, and how their breasts move in time to their body (though his words were more crude than mine). Then we went to a book store, maybe because he knew that I like books, or maybe because the tall shelves offered good camouflage for him when he closed in and put his hand into my shirt. 

This morning going up the escalator I remembered his voice and the way his wet breath seemed to force its way into my ear. Is it just uncontrollable sexual urges, or is it something else that drove him to be who he was? I don't know that I'll ever know. 

So it seems I have a two track mind. I would like to turn up the volume on the present: the crispness of autumn and the smells of the city; the cracks in the pavement beneath my feet and the twinge in my shoulder or the weariness of fellow commuters of early morning. But the other track plays a random selection of the greatest hits from the past - skipping between various moments of intensity, good or bad. 

Navigating the two, I try not to forget where I stand, or I will miss a trick and leave the key in the door again. 

Good morning, therapist in my head

How nice of you to drop in on a grey Monday.

(it counsels me not so that I can conquer and defeat you, but so that I can conquer and defeat me.)

Allen Ginsberg's mother

Two days after she died in 1956 in Pilgrim State Hospital on Long Island, he received a letter from her that said: ''The key is in the window, the key is in the sunlight in the window -- I have the key -- get married Allen don't take drugs. . . . Love, your mother.''

[via The New York Times]

都是祝福

Taking a peek at the beautiful photos of you, hugging rock, sitting by water, smiling with friends - especially smiling, I remember just what you smell like; how it feels to hold you and bury myself in the rough fabric of your jumper, to have your hair between my fingers and rest my weight on the expanse of your broad chest.

this is one of those little moments when the past that I knew flashes brightly in the present, blotting out reality and now.

At twenty-three I thought I was going to be a permanent fixture. The future was going to be bare-feet, strong, mud-splattered proud and happy, standing in the rose garden you prune for me.

誰知道原來我才是過客

and so many things turned out different from how I imagined.

Be well and happy, my friend. Still you are part of me, and nothing more than to see you smile brings me greater joy.

This is a true story

... It happened to a friend of a friend of mine (who is, incidentally, also my friend). 

Girl:        wink
Me:         Only a wink?  Come on, you can do better than that ;-)
Girl:        mmm… so what can I do?
Me:         You're a smart girl, I'm sure you will think of something.  Maybe tell me something interesting about yourself
Girl:        i am kind of play girl
Girl:        no need love n bf
Girl:        like to give bj
Girl:        enough?! ;)
Me:        That doesn't necessarily mean you're interesting
Me:        What happens after sex?  Awkward silence?
Me:        Gotta be something special about you
Girl:        I dunno what's special about me
Girl:        but guys like me
Girl:        but I don't think I am sexy or good at sex
Me:        Most guys like any girl
Me:        That really doesn't mean much

Prayers

Oh Lord please help me manage my anger and aggression and direct them toward useful ends. At the very least let me take it out on myself only and keep collateral damage a thing of the past. Piercings will do fine, as will tattoos, as would more working out and/or even the occasional jog, though I'm not even a fan of running. 

For years I searched for you

Sunlight at Sherbourne and Bloor

Late afternoon my bike takes me across the city. I wonder how we
fashion our lives, these brilliant disorders, these fine, inspired errors when

– look – the future is utterly implicit in the present, the present is the logical outcome 

Of all points in the past, and that building going up across the
street has been going up forever. Everything we do now contains the
seeds of its own unfolding.  The bridge eases over the deep ravine.

Something tells me:

You will never do anything more vital, more profound, more perfect or more

Necessary than what you are doing right now.

Today has been Friday, that was its name – Friday – and  the

Sunlight at Sherbourne and Bloor completes the city.

- Gwendolyn MacEwen

... and you would not be found. Every time I walked away I promised to be back and suddenly here we are. Packing boxes and picking ourselves off the floor. Holding the things that encapsulate so many years, so many you. So many me. This time whatever is left behind is deliberate, not casualty. The only collateral damage is a weekend of delirium and 15 hours darkness and memories. Remember Josie? When you were locked in the bathroom crying feeling hopelessly stupid because you couldn't force sound & meaning out of the words on the page (it's only a children's story book -為什麼, 妳為什麼不會？）. you couldn't see as far as today. All the times you wanted to go home too, and you have now. So it seems that the old adage was true after all: you will be alright. 

Thursday's child

... has far to go.

from Anna Karenina

This first quarrel arose from Levin's having gone out to a new farmhouse and having been away half an hour too long, because he had tried to get home by a short cut and had lost his way. He drove home thinking of nothing but her, of her love, of his own happiness, and the nearer he drew to home, the warmer was his tenderness for her. He ran into the room with the same feeling, with an even stronger feeling than he had had when he reached the Shtcherbatskys' house to make his offer. And suddenly he was met by a lowering expression he had never seen in her. He would have kissed her; she pushed him away.

"What is it?"

"You've been enjoying yourself," she began, trying to be calm and spiteful. But as soon as she opened her mouth, a stream of reproach, of senseless jealousy, of all that had been torturing her during that half hour which she had spent sitting motionless at the window, burst from her. It was only then, for the first time, that he clearly understood what he had not understood when he led her out of the church after the wedding. He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began. He felt this from the agonizing sensation of division that he experienced at that instant. He was offended for the first instant, but the very same second he felt that he could not be offended by her, that she was himself. He felt for the first moment as a man feels when, having suddenly received a violent blow from behind, he turns round, angry and eager to avenge himself, to look for his antagonist, and finds that it is he himself who has accidentally struck himself, that there is no one to be angry with, and that he must put up with and try to soothe the pain.

Never afterwards did he feel it with such intensity, but this first time he could not for a long while get over it. His natural feeling urged him to defend himself, to prove to her she was wrong; but to prove her wrong would mean irritating her still more and making the rupture greater that was the cause of all his suffering. One habitual feeling impelled him to get rid of the blame and to pass it on to her. Another feeling, even stronger, impelled him as quickly as possible to smooth over the rupture without letting it grow greater. To remain under such undeserved reproach was wretched, but to make her suffer by justifying himself was worse still. Like a man half-awake in an agony of pain, he wanted to tear out, to fling away the aching place, and coming to his senses, he felt that the aching place was himself. He could do nothing but try to help the aching place to bear it, and this he tried to do.

They made peace. She, recognizing that she was wrong, though she did not say so, became tenderer to him, and they experienced new, redoubled happiness in their love. But that did not prevent such quarrels from happening again, and exceedingly often too, on the most unexpected and trivial grounds. These quarrels frequently arose from the fact that they did not yet know what was of importance to each other and that all this early period they were both often in a bad temper. When one was in a good temper, and the other in a bad temper, the peace was not broken; but when both happened to be in an ill-humor, quarrels sprang up from such incomprehensibly trifling causes, that they could never remember afterwards what they had quarreled about. It is true that when they were both in a good temper their enjoyment of life was redoubled. But still this first period of their married life was a difficult time for them.

There is no sense

... in hiding your weird. 

We knew each other in strange times

Thinking back I don't think I really knew how to be kind then. Now I show people pictures of you and say: this is my beautiful friend who is getting married. 

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