There is so much about you that means so much to me. The song says it, doesn't it? There isn't anything about you that doesn't do something for me. I'm not interested in fifteen minutes of fame, but you were my closest brush with divinity... and that's saying something. I have witnessed divinity standing in my kitchen. I have heard divinity in rain song. I have read divinity in ancient texts all but lost, all but censored and burned. But you were divinity in sensation, in heartbeat, in fingerprints left on my skin that I can never forget. Of all that we have shared, all the moments, all the crossroads and catalysts, fears and flashpoints, all the inspiration, discovery, and victory, everything we have held between us, sacred and alive, the hours I hold most reverent are the hours when there was nothing between us at all.
But you do not agree.
The hours you hold most holy is the long evening into night, twelve hours, maybe fourteen, when there was a polished cherry wood table, twenty d6, four number two pencils, a hole-punch and one graph paper notebook between us.
That difference in opinion has only stopped bothering me in the last two hundred and fifty-six days. But it was today, at first light, when I realized that acceptance was wrapped in a golden hallelujah.
“I look into your eyes
as you are saying goodbye
and I see for the first time
what I see for the last time
all the scars that I laid
all the price that you paid
but I swear I never saw it
until now...”
The sunlight is oppressive outside the arboretum greenhouse. Somewhere above and outside the thirty foot ceiling, the sharp blue sky is cloudless with summer heat. Perched forbidden in the tropical crook of a hardy, split trunk palm, I feel my spine and the tree become one thing, two separate entities blending seamlessly into one, and I close my eyes and muse on the vast variety of human experience... the myriad of ways the exact same event can be seen, felt, lived by a myriad of people.
I remember...
You undress slowly, by candlelight. You have dressed carefully, in perfect layers of emotion, only hours before, before we went to dinner. You stay just out of arm's reach. You will not allow my touch only my gaze and it will stay that way all night. My mind is drifting. That happens sometimes. You say it fascinates you that I'm always thinking something. I finally murmur to you as you lift silk over your head, “How do you feel right now? Be honest.” You smile at me. Honest is the only way you know how to be. “Powerful. In control. Pleased with myself,” you tell me, impressing me once again with your pure sense of self. “How do you feel?” you ask, not surprisingly. I smile back at you. “Powerless. Without control...” my smile changes. “Pleased with you.”
The smells of the flowers – sweet, elusive -- and the green, rare growing things – spicy, lingering, thick -- that fill this glass palace wash over me not unlike the sea spray at the oceanside. I hear children laughing and the low, comfortable voices of a man and woman. They are discussing the behavior of an older child, a teenager, who is not with them but is clearly their own. The way she's dressing is the topic of conversation. Mother says, “It's empowering.” Father says, “She looks like a whore.”
I remember...
Making a checklist of attributes my perfect partner would be required to have. It was an exercise more for myself than for anyone else (so said Cosmo) so that my mind was clear. You met my every desire – physical as well as behavioral – except for one. It seemed small. Maybe even something that could have changed, and I was so willing to overlook it. Not be too picky. Because you had a child. I would be walking into a ready-made family. A little family that needed my support – financially and spiritually and emotionally. It was like walking into a dream come true. And I was a dream-walker, deliriously happy even when I was huddled, crying, shaking, afraid, humiliated... telling myself over and over again that this was everything I wanted. The first and last time we had a friend over for dinner, she threw back her chair when you ridiculed my attempt to pray in your home, and she snarled with bared teeth, “I have never witnessed such abject cruelty.” But I had been so sure I was happy... so happy... perfectly happy.
Here I am. Sitting here now. There was perhaps twenty people in the massive greenhouse. Some walk the paths alone. Others are together. But either way, they each experience this place in their own way, on their own terms.
We want so badly to not be alone, to connect, to find those bonds that bind. And we believe so deeply, so fundamentally that to fit together we must have more common denominators than uncommon ones. We must share opinions, politics, skin color, religion, and more and more.
But what is interesting (what is *fascinating*) than if another is exactly as you are? Where is the wonder and discovery and spark of new possibilities and broader horizons then?
No where. If we surround ourselves with what is easy to get along with, with those who are so like us they almost cease to be individuals outside us, than there are only the possibilities that exist when we are alone. Our view of the horizon (of everything) is narrow.
Humanity can survive with an insular, isolationist approach, but it cannot grow. It cannot evolve and transform. Do we really want to stay *here*? Is this really as high as we think we can reach? God did not place us here, on this only green world, to wallow in petty, base animal instincts – eat, sleep, screw, fight. We are animals, yes, of course. We mirror nature just as our world mythologies mirror themselves and ourselves crossing all political borders. But we are the animal that God named steward of all others and the Earth itself. Connecting with one another beyond the primal needs for food, shelter and reproduction and is what God expects, demands and requires of us.
I tucked my hands behind my head. I imagine that no one will find me here ever. That I can exist indefinitely perched here in this cultivated garden of Eden. I imagine the faces of my comrades. Those men and women who are walking with me on a path I once walked alone. They are all... so different. Even those who, on the surface (their armor perhaps) appear so like me, experience life so very, very differently. Intrinsically different. We are not one race, religion, orientation, generation, political party. We do not all call each friends, call each other reliable, call each other at all. But we are together. We are, as a team, standing, fighting, working, all to create something beautiful, something with depth and breath and beating heart. Our differing experiences, even with the same event, the same facts, the same words and moments, combine and spill into our ideas forming a singular experience that becomes greater than any of us could create alone.
I am talking, of course, about Mardi Gras 3000.
This blog has become a place for me to bare my heart and talk to my friends, strangers searching, other fighters hoping. But I have to stop and remind myself that this blog would not be here if it weren't for MG3K. If it weren't for the encouragement, the focus, the support, I have found in that community. That community of dynamically different people.
There are people in my life – forces in my life – outside that network of comrades, who are trying their hardest to tear me down. Some say they love me. Some say they hate me. Some just insist I need them. They say: Look to your own. Look to those like you. Look to us. But they don't understand or know me. They herald the end times (little end times) because their own experience is failure. Their shared experiences are focused on their own losses and so that is all they have to project, to offer. They are little minds that surround themselves with little minds and they cannot understand that we celebrate that we are each different, with and without blame in every situation, above and beyond and beneath the work we must do, choose to do, avoid doing. We are realists and we dance in the face of our own imperfections.
“There is no way you'll make it. And when you fail, when you flame out in false glory, you'll come back to me because I know how to treat you.”
No, I won't.
And no, you don't.
But don't take my world on it. Because that's only my experience.
Just keep watching us reach.
EJ
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
So Sayth the Lord
Mass is over but I do not rise to leave. I sit for long moments while the crowded pews empty leaving me, eyes closed, in contemplation. This is not my denomination. I am not a joiner, a team-player, a follower... except of Christ... but we made a deal: You would go if it was alien to me, too.
The sounds of Sunday catch up and gossip and small talk take a long time to melt away until finally there is just this:
The sound of a place made holy by human faith.
The sound of stillness.
The beating of my heart.
The beating of your own.
If stain glass windows and rose oil on wood and impossibly high and arched ceilings had a sound, there would be that sound as well but I will have to settle for the sound of candles flickering at the stations of the cross. The whispers of saints and shuffle of prayers floating among the rafters.
You speak into my quiet space:
"Once, when I was younger, I had every hope and every faith in everyone and everything and every where I saw God. I knew with certainty that if I prayed and married and lived my life as He commands, that I would arrive at my Destination which shares the same root as Destiny. Not heaven. Something before heaven. A place I could touch and taste while still my body was flesh and my tongue hungered. This place was called Happiness."
I open my eyes. They, my eyes, are brown and black and gold. They are the same hues as the worn wood of the pew, the leather of the hymnal, the gold of my father's wedding ring that I have come to wear. I stare at one of my hands, gripping the edge of the pew. My brown knuckles are white but still the pew seems insubstantial. I am falling through space... or maybe rising. It is impossible to tell until... unless... I arrive.
You continue:
"It did not happen gradually. It happened all at once. Not at dawn as revelation is rumored to come, but at the soft fall of darkling. I was not alone -- the city street was crowded -- nor was I introspective. But I may as well have been on a mountain top deep in faithful meditation. The truth was like sharp, cold rain, pure and undeniable: All my life had been shaped by other hands. Not God's hands but man's. Culture and society and expectation. I had never once struck out on my own for wilds unknown with myself and my God alone to guide and comfort me. Never had I allowed Him to be my only companion so that He could show me, in running river and still pond, in morning dew and misty sky, a reflection that showed me myself as He sees me. Not once had I come near that place called Happiness... because that place is not a destination but rather the journey to heaven itself and it is the journey that is the location. It is the journey that is Happiness."
I raise my bowed head. I look to my right. You are there, composed and proud. Today you attended service in a black knee length skirt with a gold link belt and a purple silk blouse. Your buckle-up boots are intact with their angel charm dangling. You blink once, slowly. You are looking past me. You have not spoken since before Mass.
I turn almost against my will. I look to my left. The woman who sits beside me was not there during the service. She is not looking at me. Her profile is austere, regal, dignified. She turns to me so suddenly that I jump.
"Do not stray from your location."
And she is gone. Moving soundlessly away through the aisle. Moving gracefully out of the church and into the day.
I stare after her.
You lay a hand on mine. I do not look at you. You ask, "Who was that?"
I answer with the truth, "My mother."
EJ
The sounds of Sunday catch up and gossip and small talk take a long time to melt away until finally there is just this:
The sound of a place made holy by human faith.
The sound of stillness.
The beating of my heart.
The beating of your own.
If stain glass windows and rose oil on wood and impossibly high and arched ceilings had a sound, there would be that sound as well but I will have to settle for the sound of candles flickering at the stations of the cross. The whispers of saints and shuffle of prayers floating among the rafters.
You speak into my quiet space:
"Once, when I was younger, I had every hope and every faith in everyone and everything and every where I saw God. I knew with certainty that if I prayed and married and lived my life as He commands, that I would arrive at my Destination which shares the same root as Destiny. Not heaven. Something before heaven. A place I could touch and taste while still my body was flesh and my tongue hungered. This place was called Happiness."
I open my eyes. They, my eyes, are brown and black and gold. They are the same hues as the worn wood of the pew, the leather of the hymnal, the gold of my father's wedding ring that I have come to wear. I stare at one of my hands, gripping the edge of the pew. My brown knuckles are white but still the pew seems insubstantial. I am falling through space... or maybe rising. It is impossible to tell until... unless... I arrive.
You continue:
"It did not happen gradually. It happened all at once. Not at dawn as revelation is rumored to come, but at the soft fall of darkling. I was not alone -- the city street was crowded -- nor was I introspective. But I may as well have been on a mountain top deep in faithful meditation. The truth was like sharp, cold rain, pure and undeniable: All my life had been shaped by other hands. Not God's hands but man's. Culture and society and expectation. I had never once struck out on my own for wilds unknown with myself and my God alone to guide and comfort me. Never had I allowed Him to be my only companion so that He could show me, in running river and still pond, in morning dew and misty sky, a reflection that showed me myself as He sees me. Not once had I come near that place called Happiness... because that place is not a destination but rather the journey to heaven itself and it is the journey that is the location. It is the journey that is Happiness."
I raise my bowed head. I look to my right. You are there, composed and proud. Today you attended service in a black knee length skirt with a gold link belt and a purple silk blouse. Your buckle-up boots are intact with their angel charm dangling. You blink once, slowly. You are looking past me. You have not spoken since before Mass.
I turn almost against my will. I look to my left. The woman who sits beside me was not there during the service. She is not looking at me. Her profile is austere, regal, dignified. She turns to me so suddenly that I jump.
"Do not stray from your location."
And she is gone. Moving soundlessly away through the aisle. Moving gracefully out of the church and into the day.
I stare after her.
You lay a hand on mine. I do not look at you. You ask, "Who was that?"
I answer with the truth, "My mother."
EJ
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Clockwork Letters
I close my eyes and my truest desire shapes and reshapes my reality. You are standing beside me. There is nothing but the rain. It is warm and the night is springtime on your tongue as you whisper my favorite prayer that begins and ends with yes.
Lately, I find myself remembering the night we made love. The connection afterward that was almost without words, quiet and still but tangible. I thought I would never have that again but I have found it just as strong in conversation, over coffee, over email, and even over time. I once thought I could only find that spark of connection -- blue fire in the night -- during love making or prayer but I realize now that I just wasn't looking hard enough.
The clock in the hallway has stopped working. The key lays on the antique table beside the sixty year old grandfather clock. I cross the wood floor in silence, without any sound at all, and I caress the lines of the key. I think of my friend Abbie spending time, joyous, as she selects just the right Tupperware organizers for her kitchen. I trace the hallows of the key and think about my friend Cris, joyous, cutting lawn greens for her herd of livestock rabbits. I pick up the key and let it slide down my fingers into my palm, the weight of it solid and real, as no time really is. I stare down at it... and then up at the still face of the clock.
I know that even if I allow it to remain asleep, the time it tracks will still pass. The cat is just as much alive as it is dead, and the possibilities of what may happen between this dawn and Christ's next are as endless as the concentric curls of the key pressed into my hand.
I hear the cab rumble to the curb. You are always standing outside waiting for it. You can't abide being late and obsess about missing your ride. In my half awake, half sleeping state, it seems we have made love every night for several weeks, but I know that can't be true. An expanse of time like that hasn't existed for either of us for years. I hear a child singing. You have left a CD of choir hymns in the stereo. A young boy's heart is poured into "The Little Drummer Boy" and I do not try to stop the tears that roll down my face.
I sink down against the wall. My eyes are still on the clock. My hand still grips the key.
I dream about harnessing the Grail in a Cathedral.
I dream that the face of the clock peals open like a Christmas orange and the clockworks, the gears and springs and tiny wires and weights, spill out slowly, slipping like something liquid, like blood or tears, down the front of the elegant case and pooling, spreading out over the floor, drowning my bare feet with time.
I didn't really understand anything then. Past present and to be tumbling into one another the way we tumble into each other's arms. No reason except truth. That one is the other and we are, like they are, much the same. I hadn't really been listening. I heard you, though. You spoke to me from the darkness of the road that night. You reached me and made me see how important it all was. How real. But I was frustrated and afraid about so many things. Afraid of failing. Afraid of success.
Time washed all that away.
Just not man's time.
At the ocean, I feel you beside me. In the cold evening waiting for dusk. In the heady breeze off the water, in the salt spray and the movement of the waves against the sand. I came home wanting to let go. To stop trying to hold on so tightly. I am tired of holding on. I'm not afraid of failing any more. Or of success. Either way, what will come, will come.
It doesn't matter if we fail or if we succeed. It doesn't matter if the journey is the entire destination. It is this fight that is my path. Not what might come of it.
As long as we stand together, what are we afraid of really? What can we lose that we truly love? No object, no place. Those things cannot command love as the feeling of your hand in mine, the whisper of your heart, audible or digital, the perfection of every small victory.
It has already been enough.
We have already changed the world.
Let the clock stay still. The Lord's time is now then forever. And everything in His time is as it should be, when it should be, and why. Dawn will come. Dusk will come. Day and night and joy and sorrow. I cannot effect these forces nor stop the earth from turning. I think I should stop trying.
After all, I need all my energy for better things.
EJ
Lately, I find myself remembering the night we made love. The connection afterward that was almost without words, quiet and still but tangible. I thought I would never have that again but I have found it just as strong in conversation, over coffee, over email, and even over time. I once thought I could only find that spark of connection -- blue fire in the night -- during love making or prayer but I realize now that I just wasn't looking hard enough.
The clock in the hallway has stopped working. The key lays on the antique table beside the sixty year old grandfather clock. I cross the wood floor in silence, without any sound at all, and I caress the lines of the key. I think of my friend Abbie spending time, joyous, as she selects just the right Tupperware organizers for her kitchen. I trace the hallows of the key and think about my friend Cris, joyous, cutting lawn greens for her herd of livestock rabbits. I pick up the key and let it slide down my fingers into my palm, the weight of it solid and real, as no time really is. I stare down at it... and then up at the still face of the clock.
I know that even if I allow it to remain asleep, the time it tracks will still pass. The cat is just as much alive as it is dead, and the possibilities of what may happen between this dawn and Christ's next are as endless as the concentric curls of the key pressed into my hand.
I hear the cab rumble to the curb. You are always standing outside waiting for it. You can't abide being late and obsess about missing your ride. In my half awake, half sleeping state, it seems we have made love every night for several weeks, but I know that can't be true. An expanse of time like that hasn't existed for either of us for years. I hear a child singing. You have left a CD of choir hymns in the stereo. A young boy's heart is poured into "The Little Drummer Boy" and I do not try to stop the tears that roll down my face.
I sink down against the wall. My eyes are still on the clock. My hand still grips the key.
I dream about harnessing the Grail in a Cathedral.
I dream that the face of the clock peals open like a Christmas orange and the clockworks, the gears and springs and tiny wires and weights, spill out slowly, slipping like something liquid, like blood or tears, down the front of the elegant case and pooling, spreading out over the floor, drowning my bare feet with time.
I didn't really understand anything then. Past present and to be tumbling into one another the way we tumble into each other's arms. No reason except truth. That one is the other and we are, like they are, much the same. I hadn't really been listening. I heard you, though. You spoke to me from the darkness of the road that night. You reached me and made me see how important it all was. How real. But I was frustrated and afraid about so many things. Afraid of failing. Afraid of success.
Time washed all that away.
Just not man's time.
At the ocean, I feel you beside me. In the cold evening waiting for dusk. In the heady breeze off the water, in the salt spray and the movement of the waves against the sand. I came home wanting to let go. To stop trying to hold on so tightly. I am tired of holding on. I'm not afraid of failing any more. Or of success. Either way, what will come, will come.
It doesn't matter if we fail or if we succeed. It doesn't matter if the journey is the entire destination. It is this fight that is my path. Not what might come of it.
As long as we stand together, what are we afraid of really? What can we lose that we truly love? No object, no place. Those things cannot command love as the feeling of your hand in mine, the whisper of your heart, audible or digital, the perfection of every small victory.
It has already been enough.
We have already changed the world.
Let the clock stay still. The Lord's time is now then forever. And everything in His time is as it should be, when it should be, and why. Dawn will come. Dusk will come. Day and night and joy and sorrow. I cannot effect these forces nor stop the earth from turning. I think I should stop trying.
After all, I need all my energy for better things.
EJ
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Pride Day Sabbath
Won a tiny little radio bud as a door prize at my favorite club. I think it was rigged but I didn't complain. In the accompanying tiny headphones, Jack FM plays it so well. The song reaches me and becomes the soundtrack as you walk across the lot. Your Raybans. Your classic LBD paired with six-buckle combat boots. Your hair wild and laced with peak-a-boo braids strung up with blood red ribbons. I can already smell your spicy perfume. Already taste your chapstick on my fingertips.
The song plays. It seems, impossibly, like you hear it too because you're stepping in time with the simple back beat, bobbing your head almost imperceptibly.
"I don't mind you coming here
and wasting all my time.
'Cause when you're standing oh so near
I kinda lose my mind.
It's not the perfume that you wear.
It's not the ribbons in your hair..."
They've given us permission to use an empty studio. The billowing whites and bright, bright lights cast you in perfect tones. I stand behind the camera (what a new change) and forget to take the lens cap off. I am watching you watch me. Forget the fan, the window is open. God's wind fills the room, creating ripples in the backdrop and sending your hair flying like a mane. We took the stairs up four floors to get here. You told me to stop staring at my feet, to take my hands out of my pockets. I wasn't staring at my feet. My eyes were closed. My hands stayed in my pockets. This grrl knows the limits of her self-control.
"I don't mind you hanging out
and talking in your sleep.
It doesn't matter where you've been
As long as it was deep, yeah.
You always knew to wear it well and
you look so fancy I can tell..."
You turn your back to me and lift your hair. You look over your shoulder at me. You know what you need, you ask me. I think the question is rhetorical or maybe not a question at all. You don't expect an answer but you neither do you look away. Bottomless eyes all full up with confident experience (Lord, where have I seen *that before? Heaven help me LOL!) give me all the answer I could ever muster. I can almost read the words, your careful cursive script. Then you say, You need a fighter. And you undress.
I wonder how in the world you hid your wings beneath such a tiny dress... and then I set the timer on the camera and step to your side.
"I guess you're just what I needed.
I needed someone who's free.
I guess you're just what I needed.
I needed someone willing to bleed."
* * *
My stomach tumbles
in anticipation
I fidget, shift my weight
shrug deeper into my leather jacket
straighten my cotton shirt
and feel my breath fast over parted lips
and I wonder what your name is
tonight.
There is a crackling between us
that lights the lantern in my chest
guides me, illuminates me
fills my hollow places
with a molten bronze and copper
glow of darkling dusk dawn
when you whisper to me
Christ be with you
and I answer
He certainly is
tonight.
Somewhere someone is playing
music like harp or violin and
I realize that my tie is crooked
as is your grin but it somehow
suits you when you wear the
little black dress
with the rich embroidered collar
that you're wearing
tonight.
You tuck your legs up under you
and the six buckles on your calf-high boots
are pressed against my thigh
through my pressed slacks and
I glimpse
(because I'm staring)
a tiny angel charm dangling
from one buckle is
laying still and serene on the pew
between us at Mass
tonight.
The pastor's voice is filled with hope
and his own faith to call to arms
all of us drawn here tonight
to hear the words of men like him
and women like him too
who have stepped outside the pens
of their shallow denominations
to offer their prayers and thoughts and
anger and all their pulpit votes
to show that we
(the we that includes you and me)
are actually, in truth, in the end
(like these end times most certainly are)
human beings
with rights
(imagine that)
and that we have a place
in their churches
in their cities
in their heaven
not just tonight
not just today
not just tomorrow
but now
then
forever.
EJ
The song plays. It seems, impossibly, like you hear it too because you're stepping in time with the simple back beat, bobbing your head almost imperceptibly.
"I don't mind you coming here
and wasting all my time.
'Cause when you're standing oh so near
I kinda lose my mind.
It's not the perfume that you wear.
It's not the ribbons in your hair..."
They've given us permission to use an empty studio. The billowing whites and bright, bright lights cast you in perfect tones. I stand behind the camera (what a new change) and forget to take the lens cap off. I am watching you watch me. Forget the fan, the window is open. God's wind fills the room, creating ripples in the backdrop and sending your hair flying like a mane. We took the stairs up four floors to get here. You told me to stop staring at my feet, to take my hands out of my pockets. I wasn't staring at my feet. My eyes were closed. My hands stayed in my pockets. This grrl knows the limits of her self-control.
"I don't mind you hanging out
and talking in your sleep.
It doesn't matter where you've been
As long as it was deep, yeah.
You always knew to wear it well and
you look so fancy I can tell..."
You turn your back to me and lift your hair. You look over your shoulder at me. You know what you need, you ask me. I think the question is rhetorical or maybe not a question at all. You don't expect an answer but you neither do you look away. Bottomless eyes all full up with confident experience (Lord, where have I seen *that before? Heaven help me LOL!) give me all the answer I could ever muster. I can almost read the words, your careful cursive script. Then you say, You need a fighter. And you undress.
I wonder how in the world you hid your wings beneath such a tiny dress... and then I set the timer on the camera and step to your side.
"I guess you're just what I needed.
I needed someone who's free.
I guess you're just what I needed.
I needed someone willing to bleed."
* * *
My stomach tumbles
in anticipation
I fidget, shift my weight
shrug deeper into my leather jacket
straighten my cotton shirt
and feel my breath fast over parted lips
and I wonder what your name is
tonight.
There is a crackling between us
that lights the lantern in my chest
guides me, illuminates me
fills my hollow places
with a molten bronze and copper
glow of darkling dusk dawn
when you whisper to me
Christ be with you
and I answer
He certainly is
tonight.
Somewhere someone is playing
music like harp or violin and
I realize that my tie is crooked
as is your grin but it somehow
suits you when you wear the
little black dress
with the rich embroidered collar
that you're wearing
tonight.
You tuck your legs up under you
and the six buckles on your calf-high boots
are pressed against my thigh
through my pressed slacks and
I glimpse
(because I'm staring)
a tiny angel charm dangling
from one buckle is
laying still and serene on the pew
between us at Mass
tonight.
The pastor's voice is filled with hope
and his own faith to call to arms
all of us drawn here tonight
to hear the words of men like him
and women like him too
who have stepped outside the pens
of their shallow denominations
to offer their prayers and thoughts and
anger and all their pulpit votes
to show that we
(the we that includes you and me)
are actually, in truth, in the end
(like these end times most certainly are)
human beings
with rights
(imagine that)
and that we have a place
in their churches
in their cities
in their heaven
not just tonight
not just today
not just tomorrow
but now
then
forever.
EJ
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