Yesterday Was Quiet

I wrote something really raw and good. It took me all day. And now I am going to let a bunch of strangers pass it around and judge me.

Sat on kitchen counters and discussed woodworking and Einstein and Picasso and school.

Quietly on the sofa. Family was out celebrating.

Listening to some old favorites.

Waiting to be understood.

Dog.

Satisfied that I would not be understood just now, went to bed considering whether or not philosophy is dead. One of my heroes says yes. And what have the Romans ever done for us?

Quietly in bed.

Today started out nice, has been quiet as well, but in a strained way. I distrust it.

It's Hard to Say...

anything. The sadness is getting to me. Like Artex in the Swamps of Sadness (and if you get the reference, you kick so much ass).


But Merry Some Dude we Killed for Knocking Over Tables at Church Was Born A Few Thousand Years Ago Day!!!

What Shall We Say About Jack?

He wears his day glow orange cap. It is a warning to all those who approach. I am here. Do not shoot, stab, run over, douse in gasoline and set alight, drop, confuse with wild game, or otherwise maim, disfigure, or injure.

And otherwise, a dark brown suit, white shirt, cream colored necktie, polished—but not shiny—brown penny loafers, sans penny. The breath he takes before speaking is uniform, deliberate, deep, and has a certain air to those who hear it often of a small, frightened field mouse—for whom a passing cloud may as well be the wing of a circling hawk casting a shadow over his swiftly beating, tiny mouse’s heart.

It has been a few years since anyone has called him Jack. His landlord calls him Thomas. Down at the deli, he is Mr. Singer. In the lobby of the Georgian Hotel, where he has been witnessed holding quiet meetings and unclasping his briefcase to allow just a peek inside, here he is known as Mr. Martin Fletcher. He is in possession of many other monikers as well. But the one which no one now calls him is Jack. It is what leads us to conclude that this must be his real name. For a man with many names, the only one he won’t suffer is his own.

quick note regarding the airport in Narita

Because they didn't see the stamp on my passport that gave me permission to hang about in Japan for a few weeks after my visa expired, they made me wait. They took me to a table where a young man looked very confused for several minutes, then asked me to follow him to immigration. He began running. I can't run, I said, my bag will fall apart. We need to run. And so my bag fell apart and my camera fell out. The lens busted. And now I have an old lens from my 20 year old Nikon SLR attached. It works, but not well. I have yet to take any decent pictures. Thus the hiatus from picture posts. They will resume shortly, I imagine. They tried to get me to pay for a new visa, but I was finally able to get someone to look and see the stamp. Oh, he said. Nevermind. I walked through. Thank you very much, I said. A cultural thing: It's what you say instead of suck it.

When I Play Uno

with the children
I choose my place in the circle carefully, if I can. I ask how many cards we each get, and no matter what number I am told, I deal seven cards. The children are astounded at the ease with which I shuffle. The speed at which I deal. I turn over the first card, and from time to time it is a wild. We are not allowed to play anything we wish, kids. This is something you will learn. I will turn over another. Regarding direction, my cards appear either benign or evil depending on my assessment of a child's emotional capacity to be told to pick up cards. When we are playing left to right, and it is Yuto who follows, I play the red seven, a green five, my wilds are simple and kind, and I will only ask for a color that he and I both have, if I can. When we are playing right to left, and it is Aili, I enjoy needling her. If I can manage to skip her turn, I will. She needs to learn patience. She can afford to lose. And I will draw cards with a feigned broken heart. They believe I am only playing.


with my brother
I cast my gaze firmly at the top of his cards. Should they dip, it is his fault and not mine that I have caught a glimpse and gained an advantage. When he has gathered a series of Draw Twos, Skips, and Reverses, he pummels me. It is because I read. Each insult is to bring back his mother. I could have done nothing to prevent her break with reality, but for him I am a symbol of what life he might have had. He does not see that I am alone. That I read because there is no one to talk to. And so as he punishes me, I gather a storm in my hand. I plot. And pretend to have only greens.


with my lover
She has placed a blue four, and I might either play a Skip or a red four. Perhaps she knows of my dilemma, and should I play the four, she will think me weak-willed. Or if I play the skip, she will judge me unkind. It is only a Skip. A momentary interruption. A very slight advantage. Perhaps if I play it and laugh she will also laugh. She will sense the fight is feigned, that I am replacing our real troubles with this false one, and then we will not have to discuss the way I spoke to her sister.

as she steps lightly through the tangled recollections of winter, it occurs to her

When I saw that the paper was two-ply, I began to peel the layers and it made me think of wrinkled green Christmas streamers. And I made one into the light and the other into the difficult footpaths in Olympia. I scattered them around the room thinking that you might later, carefully in the evening, gather them again to make flowers.

what is not recalled makes veins

It is usually deep in the morning when we see the cowering circle with their hands in the mud, singing some hymn of creation. And in this breath there is fidelity. We each share some trivial recollection of the cars we traveled in when we were young. Of the figure who, remembering the days before seat-belts, would cast an arm across our shoulders at stop-lights. It seems nothing special, except for those who hold no such thought in mind.

I plucked three lemons from the bin, reasoning that vitamins might account for some part in wives tales. There is the cellular concern, the particular, and the spiritual. Which is less important than that we strain to hear something in the dawn, these voices rising, this earth beginning to clot like blood from god's veins.

take nothing of this

Function is the question of self: my job is to build and so when I see these forests torn down, these streets laid waste, I am a loss.

There are also too many names: they gather in pools exchanging alleles while I stir them like honey in tea. CTCC, or some such nonsense. It is that they are too clever for me to scoop up. Or that the lens I use to observe is overly intense. The casting of light too soon.

And film lacks camera in the early hints of Winter: she never found her way onto my palette. I had thought her an eternal star. She was instead a falling leaf.

When there was a ring in my pocket for three days: titanium may be scratched, rope too quickly untethers itself. What would I have tied it to? There is no self but that I build. I have no fingers of my own.

Or how else have I typed these things to you, or to the blind web, or to a forgotten lot, having exchanged only electronically aided promises. Those may be kept in the aether, but not on this unsteady earth.

(It is not for you, but for myself, and if you should look in, I hope that you'll smile that my tips make words, finally, again, and take nothing of this for yourself)

Heisneberg didn't know how to build a battery

but they went ahead and gave him his degree, with which he was able to proffer us the most misappropriated scientific principle since (social) Darwinism. To wit, we shall now continue in that long tradition of mistaking a very specific observation about the behavior of particles for a sweeping generalization. A life lesson, if you will.

Staring at the sun will create one of two possible stars, either spinning like a carousel or rushing through the heavens like a mad stallion. Either way we will imagine a horse.

As we observe the horse, searching for clues regarding its heritage, we will find that we may either know the name of its mother or how well the father must have been endowed, but definitely not both.

And say we choose to know that the mother's name had been Regina, we will find it in a long shadow cast from the early east, from whence the sun spins willy-nilly. Very often, we will watch ourselves walking on a cool morning--long and slender, bristling with the grass as its blades poke and stick through our outlines: those thin things that separate us from the outside world, that which defines us. We are known by what we are not; there is no other way to tell--and we will sometimes confuse ourselves with the light that fails to cast itself, and forget to feel the warmth at our backs and in the creases of our jeans.

The grass is dying, we might think. And if we should stand still all day we can carve out an ovular patch in the ground upon which to lie, considering what may or may not come to pass, or should the king make some form of decree. Either concerning the killing of the grass in his fields or about the nature of his love for his subjects.

Here again, one, but not both, are possible. We may either know what vexes kings or what love they bear. Sadly, our heads might roll if we insist on knowing all the one. Perhaps we should hope for the other.

Things We Keep on Shelves

The thin collection of stories by the Argentine, the cover, blue canvas, gold lettering. It is currently in transit, on a ship no doubt in the Pacific. I am never quite at home without it and I have no notion as to when it will arrive.

A DVD I bought but have not felt moved to watch. The photo of the two lovers, an embrace, frozen in a kiss which, no matter how many times we look, has failed to materialize. And the caption, The film they were made for.

A symbol for the year of the rabbit given to me by a student.

A button. Barrack Obama, 2008.

And in a box. Old fears. A bit of fabric that can be woven into anything we like. We postpone its mending. It will gather moisture and dust from the room, its ends beginning to curl, to tatter themselves without ever having been worn.

We might feel it necessary to keep the items separate. Give each its own shelf. It is to impose an illusion of order upon things which, by their very nature, make heaps.

...my only friend,

This is the end. Last night was my last night in Japan. I got a freshness burger and walked around Sendai a bit. I'd like to have felt a little more reflective. On the Shinkansen, I remembered the sensation of strangeness I initially felt, but could not really access any kind of emotion. I'll have to remember fondly later. Trust me, I'll start a lot of sentences with "When I was living in Japan..." And you'll think, oh Jesus, not again.

But at the moment, I am on a journey. My contemplation on the present. And I will want to be ready to arrive precisely when I arrive. I am crossing an ocean tonight. Coming home. And there lies love. Also tacos.

a space odyssey

as she does with the passage of time

it is so soon

and there isn't much to say. (breathstolen) (home)

Why so serious?

You know what, forget that last bit. I'm thinking about a hammock. An electric fire. A plane ride full of every bloody waking moment across the Pacific, I will not sleep. The challenge of a test. The puzzle of a portfolio. The mysteries of the empire. My last days in Japan. Quiet. Thoughtful. My first days back home. Rich. Overflowing.

The fullness of things.

See Nothing Hear Nothing Do Nothing

There are boiled eggs cooling on my cutting board. Coffee in front of me. No, behind me. My timer is still running in the corner, probably at fifteen minutes or so, I was supposed to stop it at five.

Looking at a hangnail, I wonder where I will fit when I go back home. Will they let me walk places. Will they let me read. Will they place me on a shelf in the den. Or under the sink with the comet and old sponges now only used for cleaning the tub. There is routine here, even though I pretend there is not. I must vacuum. Islands and Busdriver on my morning speakers.

I miss school. I don't imagine that I've really been at one. But perhaps it was my doing. That it is an office more than a classroom. That it is a business more than a place to push students, piss them off, get them into the fog, as my father is fond of saying, so that they might encounter that moment when I, as a guide, am insufficient to their journey. And they can show me that I am wrong, and head out on their own. And find that the fog has lifted. A beautiful moment.

I share a common dislike of clowns. So why have we been drawing them then having conversations with them. I'm even doing their voices. Psychoanalysis unnecessary. I am the clown here.

Time she is Funky, No?

The days are slow, but the things in my apartment are starting to make me nervous. They need to be gone. Now. I don't want to scramble at the last minute to find homes for chair and sofa, etc.

GRE is creeping up on me. Applications. I keep riding around looking for the doctor's office and can't locate it. I should have learned this crazy moon language more thoroughly. Getting my bags shipped to Narita. Planning a Halloween Party with NO TIME in my schedule to do anything of the kind (who thinks 30+ in-class hours is reasonable is an idiot).

But I cannot worry. It all fades away with a single quiet thought. And things will be as they must. I cannot help but trust to it. And this is when the days begin to slow down again.

SHPAYYYDA !!

little ghost

Dojyou

I encountered them swimming in a frenzy in a green tupperware bowl on the floor of Naomi's kitchen. Naomi is my Japanese sister. Her son, upon noticing the little eels, promptly shoved his hands into the water and began trying to scoop them up. Two fell onto the floor, at which I carefully helped one of them back into the bowl, watching it struggle and writhe in my fingers, worried about applying too much pressure and killing or injuring it. Finally getting it back to its home. This is how I thought of a green bowl on the floor. Home.

Her father later told me how they are cooked. I don't speak the language too well, and so gestures here were very important. They are placed in a pot with a little water and tofu, swimming around as the fire is made to bring the water to a slow boil. As they begin to die, the eels try to escape the heat and burrow into the block of tofu, breaking it up and stirring the nabe. Their desperate attempts at survival a vital role in the making of the soup. This is what I understood from his gestures and piecemeal of words I could catch and hang onto.







I considered which one I had helped back into the bowl. Had I done it any favors? Had I eaten it? Did Naomi hold it up for a photo with her chopsticks?






Dessert was cow poo. But that's another thing entirely.

trash #22

the ambiguous cold

I have been vaguely sick for a little over a week now. A cough. Something also in the bones. And when I tire of it, decide that I must push myself to write or to go for walks or in other ways generally live, that is when it reminds me not to rush things.

And there is the guilt of the boy who faked illnesses constantly in his school days. It doesn't matter that I am actually sick, nor that I find the energy to teach. I am guilty of something, and shall be punished, surely.

Even so, I am in the journal today. There is an attempt to locate the lesson of this journey, or at least a cogent impression. But I would like to keep it from turning into a confessional piece.

Something that occurred. Perhaps that's all it was. I suppose it depends on the view I take on original sin, but I doubt this has much to do with anything.

I did not set out to learn a lesson. But perhaps how far I could push myself. I don't think I found out an answer. As with any venture of worth, distractions have abounded.

We are told to keep quiet. To follow where others walk. To drink with our superiors. To watch the children walking at the festival parades, and try the octopus on sticks. And not to make waves. And to make waves. To say thank you again and again. To apologize thinking that you are a dog. To look at the pines and bridges on the islands. To visit the pleasure districts. To drink coffee from cans, only warm for seven months of the year. To buy things, from the giant screens. To buy things. Everything. The signs so pervasive that they become spectacle. Especially in the evenings. To not feed tobacco to sewer rats. To never waste anything. To keep our trash with us. In our bags and pockets. To look for the remnants of the Bushido in black suit jackets and black ties and a drunken evening slouch, the things he must do out of filial duty. To accept the strangeness, the lack of concern for logic in our affairs. The humble apologies of politicians. The seemingly constant changing of the guard. To observe the night when two lovers are separated by the river of stars, the milky way, and eat rice rolled in seaweed. To go and see the cherry blossoms, and everywhere there are the famous orchards containing one thousand trees. The paper lanterns. I have learned the names of nothing. We are told, and sometimes we listen, and sometimes we are deaf. And sometimes we choose which to be. We are impermanent. Even those of us who believe ourselves not to be.

path clear/obscure

I will often reflect on Solomon's labyrinth when I become confused about path. I think it is intended that I meditate on the movement of the stars around the Earth, and I rather enjoy this misplaced center. Regardless, there is nothing but to continue walking forward. That one might become confused along a single path is confounding, nevertheless true. The question always before me, is there truly a center? And once I reach it, what will I find? I do hope that it will be the octagonal cage of mirrors designed by da Vinci to allow a person to see themselves from all angles. Unless they are fun-house mirrors, at which the distortion would be likely to support my current understanding, illuminating nothing.

But I have never actually walked the labyrinth in any physical incarnation. And I think it is impossible to know what effect the thing will have until the walking is done.

And so I must find one of these and walk it. You are welcome to join me. Although I will sometimes be quiet and turned inward, we can also share some time, and it will be better than walking alone.

i should like to make a series of panels on my office wall, one day when I have an office, and to here forget that there ever was language

trite thoughts on being in rome and doing and such

When visiting Rome, do as the Romans do. Certainly. No question.

If you decide to live in Rome, and find that the Romans go apeshit over ridiculously small things--obviously this is in your estimation and not theirs--then you don't have to make it a point to do as they do.

Just do as you do, if you can find a way not to worry about what Romans think of you.

Also, don't talk about your medical history or personal life. Romans have no sense of privacy.

japanamerica

Scripts and Lightning

There was a dream, from the floor of the apartment at Craig Place. That floor was filled with nightmares and voices, a drugged clarity. It was one of two, the first I had thought completed, but has since reasserted itself. This one, the second, I had hoped merely vivid, with no real bearing. But the disruptive lightning, the afterlife, I had seen them as tag-ons. Unimportant to what I should be taking from the dream itself. Now, as this dream begins to assert itself on reality, I think I shall write it into a script.

There is no serious thought of psychic powers, though in small moments I do entertain the notion. No, it is that in times of deep distress, there is a clarity of vision that may emerge, and if one pays attention, one can see things about oneself, the development of one's heart, as it were. It deserves a fair treatment, and I shall try to give it one.

There is thunder outside my window now. The beginnings of rainfall on the pavement. Lighting is so rare here, it is hard to explain to Texans its severe imprint on the passage of days, its power to reorder life, but it is there.

Books Hit Back

Am a little dizzy from lack of getting everything together all at once. I know it's impossible, and it is the reason one must have a schedule, organize, plan, but I am always in each moment that I am studying, wondering why I am not researching schools, and in each moment I am looking at schools, wondering what I think I'm doing not writing, and in each moment writing, wondering why I have done so little to get my things in order here, and so on.

I will take a breath.

There is the airport pickup to think of. All else failing, this will have to be beautiful. Even this is suspect. What if I should fly in on a Monday? Could it be beautiful on a Monday?

Sighs. I really will ride into the mountains soon.

Hitting the Books

Although organizing feels incomplete, it's time to crack open the books. Here goes. I'll be smart one day soon.

Good luck, me.

When we stop counting bridges

I have found that the morning rides are a good time to think productively, as opposed to the apartment, where ruminations run in circles, bounce off the walls, and become brittle in the stale, dim air.

I am allowing one of my stories to fold in on itself, and for this to continue, I will need to employ (or at least consult) the golden triangle. The goal being to find the level of reality in the story that is most basic, and so most true, but always there is a more basic element to truth. And so, much of today's ride was spent folding.

I may have mentioned that I ride by the river, and so from time to time must cross a bridge. They are laid out relatively evenly, and so, since I don't mark distance in miles or kilometers, or even time, it has become a very simple thing to mark my progress in bridges. For instance, on Thursday, I rode two bridges. Yesterday, I rode four. Today I rode six. But at the sixth, I decided to veer away from the river and down into the country, scouting for next weeks attempt at a mountain ride. I passed through a little rural community, I wouldn't even call it a village, and then saw another small bridge coming out from beyond a bend. This seemed like a good entryway into the mountains, so I decided to make it seven bridges and go home, but at this point I saw that the bridge was not leading over a tributary river, but a marsh, with giant waterlilies. My mind went to Jules Verne, at least my childhood memories of A Journey the the Centre of the Earth, and my memories of reading this book are very spotty at best, but my recollection is of the characters continually entering new parts of this underground world, slowly entering a cavern and having revealed some brilliant wonder. There were at least a thousand of these giant pink flowers, and the red frame of a shinto shrine on the hill leading away from the marsh. I stopped here for a little while and my mind went completely empty. Perhaps this is where Kappa lives.

Then on the return trip, I made some evaluations of time, the schedule between now and November, and I allowed myself to take out a piece of a beautiful night I spent recently, look at it, so to speak, and let it make me as quiet as the lilies.

I ran out of water before I got home. Sustenance must be dealt with in all of its many forms.

reverse

it made me nervous, walking into houses with my shoes on. and standing in line at a convenience store, and every available employee not running to other registers and apologizing that I had had to wait for three seconds before they noticed me. that when leaving any place, I was not profusely thanked and bowed to, that someone did not stand at the door and bow in an awkwardly prolonged farewell.

but it was nice to be more invisible.

if it is a fiction, it is a pleasant one

next week's game: truth or fiction. i tested it yesterday and it went fabulously. teaching kids to lie in english--they need to know how to do it right.

perhaps we'll get into tells. i don't want them to be too good at it. we'll see.

speaking of which, i was a bald-faced lying little bastard when i was a kid, and it's been only recently that i've realized that i had largely gotten away with it. i just assumed that everyone in my family had known this, because i got caught from time to time, and it turned into a bit of a game for me. my perception being that everyone knew i was always lying, but they just couldn't prove it. but over the past couple of years, i've had individual conversations with certain members of my family who seemed to be wholly unaware of this side of me... last week, my mom accused me of having been "such a good, honest little boy," and i had to set her straight.

in my early twenties, i recognized this as a (flaw?)(obstacle to my chosen aesthetic?) and i had to make a major change. no more lies. on the whole, it worked out, but of course if Courtney happens to read this, she will no doubt feel that this is, itself, a bit of a fiction. she and i had started out in this new world of mine, in which total honesty prevails, but i allowed myself some lapses in some difficult situations, after the honesty had proven just to be a trouble-maker. again, i had to learn my lesson on this. after the split, i recommitted, and with the exception of the occasional omission (which i will usually come back around and correct in time) i've turned into a pretty honest guy. but it's kind of a spiritual thing for me, meditative. truthfulness leads to understanding of path. honesty with self, even when it takes a while to see some of those things about yourself you need to admit, leads to movement along path. owing truth to others is a secondary debt, it is owed primarily to self, at which point it will be freely given to others. (just don't be a dick and say things like "i'm just being honest" because that really means "i'm trying to hurt your feelings and i'm hiding behind self-righteousness"--i think)

stories are better, too, when one's main concern is truth. even fiction. especially fiction.

is what it is was

was feeling incredulous, but then decided i'd rather just not care. there is too little in the way of true life, or else life lived truthfully, to waste time getting worked up.

have been making lists and compiling lists and organizing lists on graph paper and transferring them to word note pad, excel spreadsheets, trying to see which one will make me feel like doing things in the proper sequence, and with the right amount of vigor.

trying to just say the things i'm thinking, which is pretty safe when i'm in a good mood. wonder if i could do it when i'm in some sort of funk. the habit is to not.

took the bike back out again this week. hadn't been on it for a while, and i promise to take my camera along some sunday or so, when i've worked up the stamina to go into the mountains down-river.

the work takes a lot out of a person. if i've taken one thing from living here, it's that you really need a concept of relaxation... not just recreation or drinking-time. work is everything. what do i mean everything? (tell 'em gary oldman)

i need a second.

pounding around on the keyboard, making noise at something, the stories still feel clangy, but they are stories

lots of typing around things, not much to relate...

Another Subdued Manic Phase

I can feel one coming on soon, so I may start posting a lot again. We'll see.

It's been a really rough week since I got back to Nippon. So much so that I can say that and it's only been like three days. Jesus. Lots of upheaval.

My plan is to get focused as immediately as possible on GRE study and produce as many tons of words as possible to place in a portfolio. I have until mid-November to get ready for a return to Texas, something I am excited and lost about at the same time.

Two writing groups, classes, a near-total absence of social life, morning vocab and math, weekend practice tests, classes, looking for monkeys, reading, taking stuff to recycle shops, sending stuff to the states, saving money, lining up work... and I have to fix my tax situation, no idea about overseas filing, but I am way behind schedule on that too. Yikes. Don't want to go to jail.

Thanks to everybody who lugged me around last week. It was an incredible time, both expected and surprising.

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