in the town close to the people

I was flying about the city one evening. It was just before darkness, that beautiful deepening of the colors – that hour when the texture of color thickens. When the colors are perfect, that moment before the darkness lies heavy upon them. Several households had turned on their lights, and the apartment buildings came to life with the little golden square windows that told that there were people within. I was coming from high up and the wind was carrying me northwards, but I dipped my head and swooped downwards and eastwards towards the town. I wanted to look inside. I wanted to see who these people are, and what they do.

All and all it is a happy city. I visited first an open window. It was a long largish window opening into an open-plan living room. Facing the window was a desk, and at a laptop on it sat a woman typing. A mug of coffee was on her right, tobacco, and an uncleaned violin near her at the end of the long desk surface. She didn’t see me coming but she saw me there. She pulled the curtain to open completely so that I could see the whole room, and turned her attention back to writing. The room was large and long, with wooden floors. On one side its walls were mostly of window. The furniture was minimal. The woman was barefoot. It is a beautiful warm night.

It is a happy city. Pretty much everyone is doing something that they want to be doing. But there is a sadness. A loneliness. A gap. A missing person. You can see it in the dark gentle eyes of the writer. Something substantial is being missed. Her eyes smile, and they concentrate on their task in a most friendly way, but they also look past their object. They look for something that is not there. They long for it.

You can hear it in the music that is coming out of the people’s windows. In the voices of the singers. Like in the voice of Bill Withers, when it is played in this town, it sounds like a presence is missing. One you know who should be here. In some houses, there are photographs on the walls. The facial features differ in each, but they portray the same presence. The same person from here who is missing. There is a longing about the place. But all and all it is a happy city.

I sit on the woman’s window sill, and I look at her. She looks at me, she offers me a coffee. She pushes her computer slightly to the side, and rolls a cigarette. It is a beautiful warm night.

You know who you are

The right music for this one is saxophone. Try Maceo Parker ‘Children’s World’. On this day, she ran into him in the street. He saw her first. First he felt a cold sweat of recognition, then he wanted to turn a corner and hide, then he felt upset at her for appearing. Though really, he wanted to go over and say hi, and laugh like a child and be merry.

She saw him standing there and she smiled gladly. He looked busy. He seems to always be busy. ‘Hey’ she said. She wanted to hug him and show gladness. Then, they would both run off like kids into the park, and run and play. Then, by late afternoon, they would settle by the pool. Get down to their underwear. Get wet. Stand closer to each other. Feel a warmth. Let the sun go down behind them.

But he has such adult ways. They could never do that now. And he is so busy. And his girlfriend knows his mother. He is a serious man living up to all the expectations (except perhaps those of personal nature). Carrying the ball he has been given. Her smile is happy, but it’s nervous. They say how are you and they leave.

You might have something in common with someone, and that part of you you share with them. But if they deny that part of themselves in themselves, they will deny you too. 

six post meridiem

He called at 6pm. That is a good time. It is after the siesta period during which it is rude to phone households – but not just immediately after. So it showed that he is considerate, but also not rushed. It was a planned phone call, he had thought about it – it wasn’t just from a burst of emotion.

He said Hello How Are You? Of course she recognized who he was. He made a quick joke and laughed himself. During their conversation, she was involved and engaging, in her usual straightforward no-frills manner. But she was reserved. Her attitude said I Can’t Give You Any More If You Don’t Start Taking Responsibility For Your Side And If You Don’t Man-Up And Engage With Me Honestly. He knew that she meant it, though he probably didn’t know what his part was. He knew he had been a disappointment. But he called – that was something.

He said Look, Come And Meet Me For An Afternoon, Do You Want To? And Don’t Plan Anything Else For the Evening, Let’s Have All The Time We Need. I Won’t Plan Anything Either. We Can Stay All Night.

Fine.

Good.  

Then

Her heartbeat beat faster. Physically, nervousness and anxiety feel the same, whether it be because you are excited or because you are frightened. You cannot distinguish, if it is a good thing you are looking forward to, or a bad thing.

She walked up and down the house and did things quickly. She danced to a few songs in her room – that always calms her down – but she did so carefully. She didn’t want her mother downstairs to hear her feet stamping and suspect that any emotional expression was taking place above her.

She showered, and let her hair dry naturally. That way her curls are bouncier. She put on something comfortable – in any case she knows: that she looks good in everything when she wears it with ‘ease’. “I won’t say that much”, she promises herself. “I will let him talk, and see what he has to say of his own accord”. She doesn’t want to guide the conversation this time. She wants to hear what is in his own heart, and what his thoughts are.

She sits on a chair and tries to breathe well. Welling up inside her she feels the anxiety. She knows what it is. It is a rush of hope trying to make it through, but dragging up with it, suppressed tears of disappointment, and words of discontent and reaction against being let down repeatedly. Words that were never heard, and which now, linger on still like a ghost is said to linger in a place, if it is frustrated, because its purpose was never accomplished before the persons death. Hope comes up in her like a stick would surface from a dirty still pond – with figs and gunk attached to its sides.   

These are words that he might never hear. These are her truths that he rejects, because he does not like to accept any responsibility for his part in what went wrong. She knows that by now. She is not frustrated by this anymore. She is independent, and rather strong. She acknowledges her fear, but she does not let it get out of hand. If this, this meeting this evening, is another half-assed bit of socialization where they are to pretend that everything is ok, but they are not to show one another the feelings, and the realizations that inhabit them, then so be it. She will not pretend to be content with him, but she will not surface anything that he chooses to avoid. She will see what he wants, and then leave again. She can do that. She has had to do that before. She does not expect, and she does not hope, that he will care to communicate genuinely with her. Not with all the things that that would mean. If she cannot be pleasant, then at least she can be calm and reserved.

If he does seek to communicate, if he does say: “there is something between us, what is it? Let us look at it. I have something and you have something. Let us look at what we have and what we are for each other. Let us be honest about what is between us, let us speak and communicate. You carry something that you got from me, let me see what it is, tell me about it”. If he does say that, then of course, she will speak. And she will listen. There is no point in playing games about these things.

Otherwise, she has self-respect and a keen sense of dignity. She will not ask this man to share something with her  that he does not want to, that he does not choose to. Frankly, you cannot get someone to do that even if she meant to. She does not know how.

How will this meeting go? She cannot know. As is, she cannot hope either. She will see. But she is ready.

It is ok if you cry. If you cry in front of someone, in such a situation, it is not a bad thing. It is not a sign of weakness. I did not know that for a long time. But now she knows it. She might cry. If it happens she won’t stop it. It is not something to be anxious about.

A love without a Lover

One man without another, is like a walkman without batteries. You have your real self, though, your real self is made of the same stuff that 'potential' is made of. Without a context to be in, you are not anything. Within a context, we are what we are. Of course, each context we are in, each group of people, will judge you in its own way. They will look at you differently, and you will accentuate some other part of your self. 

Some contexts will reject you. Some contexts will inhibit you, and not being able to express yourself, to participate and to do your thing, you will feel frustrated, and sad. A better context will accept you, as you are, and let you express yourself as you feel. Such contexts allow us to be happy. 

I have thoughts, and feelings, and plans, and projects. I see the Purpose of things, and I try to do what I do, well. This makes me excited, and often happy. When I manage to do something well, I am even joyful. But despite my projects, sometimes when I am alone, there is nothing. I sit, and I feel nothing. And to this, the world around me is indifferent. Purpose, and its shining light switch off, and there is nothing left.

It is a good thing that we have Memory. We can recreate a context, and hold on to its life-giving powers, even when we are not with other people. Understanding the contexts we are in, and remembering them when we are not in them, gives us life. They allow the manifestation of our being, of our true selves. Inside these spaces we live, but outside, Nothingness, a darkness and a death, are never far afield.

It is a good thing that we have memory.

I have a notebook. It is magical. I can speak through it when there is no one to speak to. I write, and writing I beat time, and distance. With writing, I speak across physical structures of isolation. When I write, there is a friend for me somewhere, who might sometime hear me. I beat death, I defy Nothingness.

I have my notebook, and the vast, heavy skies, that might otherwise press down and squash me, are held up.

What do you have?

shading

1. She doesn't impress you much at first glance, but actually, she has a very pleasant face. Her smile is soft, and kind, and happy. Her voice that sounds over-sweet at first, is actually gentle. You could quickly overlook her. Literally, you can disregard her when you first meet her and pay no more notice to her from then on. And she would let you if you did so. She would watch you, and learn about you, from the shadows, but you wouldn't look or learn about her. But you would be better off for it if you did. Acknowledge her and she will speak to you. You'll see that she is not in fact shy at all. Rather, she is content, and patient. She is not greedy for attention.

When you look at her you will see how her face shines, how glad her eyes are, how confident her soft, gentle demeanor. She has a pair of twins, she is pregnant now with another two. Her husband loves her and is fortunate to have her in his life.

She sits in the shade of the kitchen. She doesn't drink coffee.

2. She has good-looking characteristics on her face, you notice that right away, but there is something wrong with her posture - it is not exactly right. It feels perhaps as if her muscles are too tense for her body to be strait.

Her black hair is cut bellow her earlobes, but again, not exactly strait. It leans forward like her body. Her daughter is slightly oler than the twins and well behaved, calm.

Her Cypriot is good, she barely has an accent. One feels that she has tried to fit in. She moves in the same spaces, the same people speak to her, but you can feel that there is some destain regarding her. My first thought is that it is racism. I hear there is racism amongst the islanders. 

She knows it. She expects you it. She notices your discomfort with her before you feel it yourself. Then you notice it: in her eyes, that she knows you like her less, and that your gestures showed it. And then you notice that perhaps you like her less. Her eyes tell you that you don't like her, and you are convinced by them.

I ask who the woman was. She is the wife of that man. She is his second wife. He has a son with the first wife, adult children - his son is of age to be in the military. She was taking care of the grandfather. That is how he met her, and fell in love with her, and left his wife for her.

I think about him. There was something not nice about his manner also, something unjoyous. But people ignore these things, and they talk to eachother as if everything is fine. They will listen to you, have coffee with you, and smoke with you. People might talk about these things when you are not there, but in practice they are forgiving. They overlook, and they help you behave as if you are ok. They treat you as if you were respectable anyway. That is the skill of good men - they can do that for you.

3. She always wanted a man she could depend on, a man who will save her from the tower and be her loving partner through the years - doing things together and for eachother. She never found that. On the contrary: she found a man who couldn't even save himself.

But she never got over it. She never stood up and said "okie-dokie. This is it, this is reality, let me get on with it." She never became independent. She just lets herself become more, and more trivially dependent, even though there s no one to depend on. As if we owe her that. As if we need to deal with her that way, because her mother never nurtured her when she was small and she was that way, and that disagreement is not over. Mind, we do owe her that.

Now her mother is becoming senile, she is rather old. "Don't think you can jst get away with it", she thinks, "you still owe me. I need too. I can be dependent too."

I came into the bedroom and found the duvet without a cover. A single sheet and a double duvet. She did not cover it because it is too heavy and she cannot do it alone. "You do not acknowledge my needs", she thinks, "but I will show you! I will have more."

"I cannot do it because no one helps me", she says.

4. I want to write and say everything. I want to speak the details of the lives I see around me. But I don't. I feel it is unkind to speak too clearly about people as they try to live their lives. I feel that if I write too coherently about peoples issues they will cease to be the problems they are dealing with and will become people's character traits and their faults. I don't want to pin burdensome characters to people who are just trying to live their lives. I feel bad. I am ashamed to describe the vices.

Do you that is how abstract are came about? I do think so. You can say it, but no one has to understand you if they don't want to.

Look at people, and you will see. There is light shining upon some amongst us, and there are shades. Some people live blessed, and others are burdened, and captivated in some sort of foul spiritual prison. And we all live side by side, sholder to sholder. We have the same brand of fridge. We share a coffee, talk, smoke. 

itch

I want to consume something
a fruit
food, icecream
a boy, a feeling
a punch
to reach in with it
and scratch that itchy part.


2002

Season 1

Can hope be green?
But what about the color of pomigranates?
Can't hope hug and kiss the color of pomigranates as much as it can green?
And can't it sometimes quieten and ride alongside mustard yellow just to feel it there?
No, I don't think you could say that hope is green and be finished with it.


Let's just say that colors are descriprive, they are informative and engaging, talkative and demonstrative, kind, considerate, and sometimes over the top: so soothing and comforting that you can feel at ease when you are not.


But 'hope', well I think it's the bundle of air, the oxygen that keeps your body alive even when you think you breathed it all out.
Let's just say that hope is cool with all the colors.


And since we are here, lets say that love is the force that keeps everything together. 
Physically.
Otherwise, why would it stay together? Why wouldn't it dissolve into the infinite possibilities of 'whatever' and 'nothing-really'?


What's with this life? So many colors. Is someone making fun of me? Jocking that they love me enough to let me be here? And I am so much smaller that I can't even laugh at it because I avert my eyes from what I see just so that I don't burst?
Like a shape found in a vacume?   


Anyway so here I am, so I guess we'll see.

3 things

1. 
Are we deseased
Are we cruel by nature,
and evil.
Are we ruthless and 
faithless and so shapeless
by nature that it takes
a life, a death
and even a long 
moment
to become
free of
our malice?
or Is it only me?


1999




2.
When it's dark outside
And your alone inside
and there is no one there to re-affirm
your being
Then you can loose the fight
And dissapear
Into the Nothingness
that threatens me.


26.10.03




3.
I don't think about him that often,
Because I said I don't mind and I don't.
I said it's over and it is.
Only sometimes, in the shower when I am by
myself.
I am not caught up in it or anything.
Just sometimes it catches up with me.


24.10.03