The Annunciation
Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?
Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.
More often
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
-Denise Levertov
1.20.2009
i am on the bus from boston to new york and there is a girl next to me my age wearing owl librarian glasses that magnify her eyes to alien proportions holding a book two inches from her face and i cant look over there or i'll laugh out loud as i allready have twice but covered them tactfully with snorts and coughs and i wouldnt care so much but poor things probably been tortured her whole life and people like that are liable to snap at any point and i dont want to be the proverbial straw.
these days i have been laughing more and i know that has to do with my company in particular my roomate who has a way of escalating small laughs to the level of epic and entirely incomprehensible jokes like the other day when we were at the grocery store and i mentioned that we should get mango sorbet and two hours later we were screetching the word MAANGOO at the top of our lungs and then collapsing into near incontinent fits of laughter and i really have no idea what came in between.
i have also been sleeping less and less and am increasingly conscious of my own mortality and i know those are related issues because if i were to fill the majority of my hours with something that makes me feel awake and alive like the way i feel howling mango at the moon then mawybe i wouldnt lie awake calculating how many hours of my life i will have slept through by the time i turn 25.
these days i have been laughing more and i know that has to do with my company in particular my roomate who has a way of escalating small laughs to the level of epic and entirely incomprehensible jokes like the other day when we were at the grocery store and i mentioned that we should get mango sorbet and two hours later we were screetching the word MAANGOO at the top of our lungs and then collapsing into near incontinent fits of laughter and i really have no idea what came in between.
i have also been sleeping less and less and am increasingly conscious of my own mortality and i know those are related issues because if i were to fill the majority of my hours with something that makes me feel awake and alive like the way i feel howling mango at the moon then mawybe i wouldnt lie awake calculating how many hours of my life i will have slept through by the time i turn 25.
1.16.2009
i reposted the wrong post. how did i manage that.
when i went to the poet rebecca loudons blog on friday i read a post that i found so typically honest and defenseless but strong as only she can be but when i pasted it into this blog i thought this isnt as great as i remember but had no time to double check and low and behold i HAD reposted the wrong post. anyway, this is what id meant to highlight to you:
POSTED BY RADISH KING AT 7:59 AM 2 COMMENTS
THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 2009
Because my day is going slow work-wise and I’ve already taken my meds and I took a walk along the river, now I have time to begin to breed fear in my pinched little heart. When I was 25 years old a man told me, The only unattractive thing about you is your fear. I can’t imagine that I was afraid of much at 25, I hadn’t even had a child, and this man was more than a little bit woo-woo in his “spiritual” leanings, if you can call the ME generation self help Esalen Lifespring Adventures in Excellence transactional therapy and Gurjeiff mumbo-jumbo of the late 70s spiritual. Besides he wanted in my pants. It took a few years to really learn to be afraid and several more years of being crazy and unmedicated to truly nail it.
Right now my fear revolves around a trinity of issues. Firstly, the layoffs coming quickly down the pike at my glamorous job are giving me nail biting grief even though I don’t bite my nails but I might find a good sized nail, say a 2 penny nail, to chew on shortly.
Secondly, I am afraid of my introduction to the quartet tonight even though I’ve known the cellist for 25 years and I played quartets with her every Tuesday for over 2 years and I do truly adore her. But I have this queasy stomach that tells me I’ll play like a tourist or I won’t be able to find her house or I’ll get sudden night blindness and a bear will wander onto the freeway and I'll hit it with my car ruining both my car and the bear or what if I spill something on my blouse if it's not already covered in bear blood or I get in a car accident or I break a finger between now and then. I have drugs for anxiety but I can’t take them and play. So I have to just live with it. My natural instinct is to go home RIGHT NOW and get in bed and pull the covers over my head. Oh that would be good. It would feel so safe and warm and tidy and expected. Then I’d cry because I really really really want to play Beethoven tonight. I just have a slightly irrational PHOBIA of leaving my house. Ever.
(Before I go on to my next fear, I’d like to say that people who think mental illness is nothing but weakness and lack of will and even worse, a lack of Jesus are stupid and wrong. Yeah, you know who you are. I haven’t forgotten that conversation.)
But I digress. My thirdly fear is that no one will come to my reading. I had to write a grant to get the space for this reading and I have fairly invited everyone I know and only a couple of people I don’t know. I’m not afraid one single bit of reading but I am afraid of just reading to Alice and my son. If Alice makes it. She forgot to come to the last reading for which I have forgiven her because I adore her. Just enough people to fill the space. They don’t have to spill out or anything. I’d like to sell a couple books too but I’m not afraid of not selling books. I have a terrible fear of reading to a completely empty room. Of no one showing up. Maybe it’s actually a fear that no one cares. Or, more basically, no one loves me. I guess that’s really it.
POSTED BY RADISH KING AT 7:59 AM 2 COMMENTS
THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 2009
Because my day is going slow work-wise and I’ve already taken my meds and I took a walk along the river, now I have time to begin to breed fear in my pinched little heart. When I was 25 years old a man told me, The only unattractive thing about you is your fear. I can’t imagine that I was afraid of much at 25, I hadn’t even had a child, and this man was more than a little bit woo-woo in his “spiritual” leanings, if you can call the ME generation self help Esalen Lifespring Adventures in Excellence transactional therapy and Gurjeiff mumbo-jumbo of the late 70s spiritual. Besides he wanted in my pants. It took a few years to really learn to be afraid and several more years of being crazy and unmedicated to truly nail it.
Right now my fear revolves around a trinity of issues. Firstly, the layoffs coming quickly down the pike at my glamorous job are giving me nail biting grief even though I don’t bite my nails but I might find a good sized nail, say a 2 penny nail, to chew on shortly.
Secondly, I am afraid of my introduction to the quartet tonight even though I’ve known the cellist for 25 years and I played quartets with her every Tuesday for over 2 years and I do truly adore her. But I have this queasy stomach that tells me I’ll play like a tourist or I won’t be able to find her house or I’ll get sudden night blindness and a bear will wander onto the freeway and I'll hit it with my car ruining both my car and the bear or what if I spill something on my blouse if it's not already covered in bear blood or I get in a car accident or I break a finger between now and then. I have drugs for anxiety but I can’t take them and play. So I have to just live with it. My natural instinct is to go home RIGHT NOW and get in bed and pull the covers over my head. Oh that would be good. It would feel so safe and warm and tidy and expected. Then I’d cry because I really really really want to play Beethoven tonight. I just have a slightly irrational PHOBIA of leaving my house. Ever.
(Before I go on to my next fear, I’d like to say that people who think mental illness is nothing but weakness and lack of will and even worse, a lack of Jesus are stupid and wrong. Yeah, you know who you are. I haven’t forgotten that conversation.)
But I digress. My thirdly fear is that no one will come to my reading. I had to write a grant to get the space for this reading and I have fairly invited everyone I know and only a couple of people I don’t know. I’m not afraid one single bit of reading but I am afraid of just reading to Alice and my son. If Alice makes it. She forgot to come to the last reading for which I have forgiven her because I adore her. Just enough people to fill the space. They don’t have to spill out or anything. I’d like to sell a couple books too but I’m not afraid of not selling books. I have a terrible fear of reading to a completely empty room. Of no one showing up. Maybe it’s actually a fear that no one cares. Or, more basically, no one loves me. I guess that’s really it.
1.15.2009
responding to a non y mous
a few days ago i received an anonymous comment on a post id written last week some time. the comment was as thoughtful as the post was thoughtless, i.e. written at 1 am with my computer on my chest, throwing a few lyrics of a missy higgins song up on the blog because Id walked home singing it and felt something stir.
the comment was wonderful because it made me work. wonderful too because i knew i objected somehow to where the logic was leading me but couldn't get my thoughts straight ....ive been feeling around the questions, trying to find the draft between the bricks of thought this person built up so beautifully...
theres a fine line that i don't think you address, and might even be missing, anonymous, between being in the moment and being overly aware of the moment.
through the rolling logic of your questions youre suggesting that i, or anyone, would be better off living in the moment, accepting the ride of life without the need to find meaning or assign future value to each experience.
but in the same breath you talk about stepping back, looking at peices of our experience and recognizing them for what they are and for how they affect our ride.
are those two ways of living not directly opposed?
or is it just me who finds it difficult to keep one foot on the ground, engaging in life in a visceral instinctive way, as i would like to live, while another part of me tries to keep things in perspective, be self aware, step back, as you said, to understand how my "velocity, momentum, energy" is all being affected by what im going through... i don't think they can be done at the same time. i almost envy people who live without questioning. i certainly pity people who question without living. but i cant seem to find the balance.
my tendency is to lift off too far. remove myself from a situation and study it like an anthropologist. When i was a child there was always fighting around my house and i distinctly remember feeling like i was floating up near the ceiling of my kitchen or living room, watching the conflicts. I have vivid memories but all memorized in the third person, like i TiVod much of my childhood. let me tell you, it was particuarly useful later when i was writing plays about it all.
i'm sure i'm not alone in this. at a basic level its self awareness but it became extreme at times and i've resented it, tried to anchor myself in moments that i didn't want any perspective on at all, i just wanted to live in them and give in to them but despite myself i'd become removed. i'm in a packed club with loud music and suddenly i'm suspended over it the scene in my emotional shark cage taking notes on the experience, on what it all means? fuck that.
these days the shifts in my perspective are dizzying. one day i'm so down i have no perspective at all. i try to be grateful for the job and for what i'm learning, i try to understand that i can change my situation if i want, but its like i can't manage to see over the walls of my cubicle to understand that this is just A job. its just one of many jobs ill have and what i learn here will ideally contribute to the job i one day take that i love deeply and feel passionately driven to do. writing this now i believe i'll find a line of work i love- i love too many things in this world not to... but you try having that kind of perspective when you get 532 emails a day, (no joke) 100 of which are multifaceted tasks to be done "asap." there isnt time in my day for perspective, i barely keep my head above water from 7 to 7.
other days still, i'm so high above the whole affair i'm barely in touch with myself at all. i walk home and realize im watching myself walk home, studying how it feels to be as alone as i often feel i am. studying the people around me wondering what they do and whether they're satisfied. i have trouble engaging with anyone on those days.
and then obviously some days, an increasing number of days, i find balance. when im laughing at my exceptionally entertaining and caring coworkers, when im reading a poem that surprises me, when i'm driving around boston at night in my fuzzy slippers with my roomate listening to Delilah's-Love-Songs-At-Night. those are beautiful moments. that is life at its best and me at my best. that, is how i lived for much of last year. there was someone in my life whose presence had the affect of keeping me aware but accepting. floating maybe, yes, a little, but only from elation, the high you get from real connection, but otherwise i was grounded, feeling, sensing everything fully without demanding anything from my experience but that it would continue.
anyway.
you seem to have a similiar affect on me, anonymous, you and your softly probing naggingly frustrating all the same beautiful questions.
so thank you.
the comment was wonderful because it made me work. wonderful too because i knew i objected somehow to where the logic was leading me but couldn't get my thoughts straight ....ive been feeling around the questions, trying to find the draft between the bricks of thought this person built up so beautifully...
theres a fine line that i don't think you address, and might even be missing, anonymous, between being in the moment and being overly aware of the moment.
through the rolling logic of your questions youre suggesting that i, or anyone, would be better off living in the moment, accepting the ride of life without the need to find meaning or assign future value to each experience.
but in the same breath you talk about stepping back, looking at peices of our experience and recognizing them for what they are and for how they affect our ride.
are those two ways of living not directly opposed?
or is it just me who finds it difficult to keep one foot on the ground, engaging in life in a visceral instinctive way, as i would like to live, while another part of me tries to keep things in perspective, be self aware, step back, as you said, to understand how my "velocity, momentum, energy" is all being affected by what im going through... i don't think they can be done at the same time. i almost envy people who live without questioning. i certainly pity people who question without living. but i cant seem to find the balance.
my tendency is to lift off too far. remove myself from a situation and study it like an anthropologist. When i was a child there was always fighting around my house and i distinctly remember feeling like i was floating up near the ceiling of my kitchen or living room, watching the conflicts. I have vivid memories but all memorized in the third person, like i TiVod much of my childhood. let me tell you, it was particuarly useful later when i was writing plays about it all.
i'm sure i'm not alone in this. at a basic level its self awareness but it became extreme at times and i've resented it, tried to anchor myself in moments that i didn't want any perspective on at all, i just wanted to live in them and give in to them but despite myself i'd become removed. i'm in a packed club with loud music and suddenly i'm suspended over it the scene in my emotional shark cage taking notes on the experience, on what it all means? fuck that.
these days the shifts in my perspective are dizzying. one day i'm so down i have no perspective at all. i try to be grateful for the job and for what i'm learning, i try to understand that i can change my situation if i want, but its like i can't manage to see over the walls of my cubicle to understand that this is just A job. its just one of many jobs ill have and what i learn here will ideally contribute to the job i one day take that i love deeply and feel passionately driven to do. writing this now i believe i'll find a line of work i love- i love too many things in this world not to... but you try having that kind of perspective when you get 532 emails a day, (no joke) 100 of which are multifaceted tasks to be done "asap." there isnt time in my day for perspective, i barely keep my head above water from 7 to 7.
other days still, i'm so high above the whole affair i'm barely in touch with myself at all. i walk home and realize im watching myself walk home, studying how it feels to be as alone as i often feel i am. studying the people around me wondering what they do and whether they're satisfied. i have trouble engaging with anyone on those days.
and then obviously some days, an increasing number of days, i find balance. when im laughing at my exceptionally entertaining and caring coworkers, when im reading a poem that surprises me, when i'm driving around boston at night in my fuzzy slippers with my roomate listening to Delilah's-Love-Songs-At-Night. those are beautiful moments. that is life at its best and me at my best. that, is how i lived for much of last year. there was someone in my life whose presence had the affect of keeping me aware but accepting. floating maybe, yes, a little, but only from elation, the high you get from real connection, but otherwise i was grounded, feeling, sensing everything fully without demanding anything from my experience but that it would continue.
anyway.
you seem to have a similiar affect on me, anonymous, you and your softly probing naggingly frustrating all the same beautiful questions.
so thank you.
1.13.2009
i realized today after laughing until it hurt that i am so tired of being serious
The Boiling Water by Kenneth Koch
A serious moment for the water is
when it boils
And though one usually regards it
merely as a convenience
To have the boiling water
available for bath or table
Occasionally there is someone
around who understands
The importance of this moment
for the water—maybe a saint,
Maybe a poet, maybe a crazy
man, or just someone
temporarily disturbed
With his mind "floating"in a
sense, away from his deepest
Personal concerns to more
"unreal" things...
A serious moment for the island
is when its trees
Begin to give it shade, and
another is when the ocean
washes
Big heavy things against its side.
One walks around and looks at
the island
But not really at it, at what is on
it, and one thinks,
It must be serious, even, to be this
island, at all, here.
Since it is lying here exposed to
the whole sea. All its
Moments might be serious. It is
serious, in such windy weather,
to be a sail
Or an open window, or a feather
flying in the street...
Seriousness, how often I have
thought of seriousness
And how little I have understood
it, except this: serious is urgent
And it has to do with change. You
say to the water,
It's not necessary to boil now,
and you turn it off. It stops
Fidgeting. And starts to cool. You
put your hand in it
And say, The water isn't serious
any more. It has the potential,
However—that urgency to give
off bubbles, to
Change itself to steam. And the
wind,
When it becomes part of a
hurricane, blowing up the
beach
And the sand dunes can't keep it
away.
Fainting is one sign of
seriousness, crying is another.
Shuddering all over is another
one.
A serious moment for the
telephone is when it rings.
And a person answers, it is
Angelica, or is it you.
A serious moment for the fly is
when its wings
Are moving, and a serious
moment for the duck
Is when it swims, when it first
touches water, then spreads
Its smile upon the water...
A serious moment for the match
is when it burst into flame...
Serious for me that I met you, and
serious for you
That you met me, and that we do
not know
If we will ever be close to anyone
again. Serious the recognition
of the probability
That we will, although time
stretches terribly in
between.
A serious moment for the water is
when it boils
And though one usually regards it
merely as a convenience
To have the boiling water
available for bath or table
Occasionally there is someone
around who understands
The importance of this moment
for the water—maybe a saint,
Maybe a poet, maybe a crazy
man, or just someone
temporarily disturbed
With his mind "floating"in a
sense, away from his deepest
Personal concerns to more
"unreal" things...
A serious moment for the island
is when its trees
Begin to give it shade, and
another is when the ocean
washes
Big heavy things against its side.
One walks around and looks at
the island
But not really at it, at what is on
it, and one thinks,
It must be serious, even, to be this
island, at all, here.
Since it is lying here exposed to
the whole sea. All its
Moments might be serious. It is
serious, in such windy weather,
to be a sail
Or an open window, or a feather
flying in the street...
Seriousness, how often I have
thought of seriousness
And how little I have understood
it, except this: serious is urgent
And it has to do with change. You
say to the water,
It's not necessary to boil now,
and you turn it off. It stops
Fidgeting. And starts to cool. You
put your hand in it
And say, The water isn't serious
any more. It has the potential,
However—that urgency to give
off bubbles, to
Change itself to steam. And the
wind,
When it becomes part of a
hurricane, blowing up the
beach
And the sand dunes can't keep it
away.
Fainting is one sign of
seriousness, crying is another.
Shuddering all over is another
one.
A serious moment for the
telephone is when it rings.
And a person answers, it is
Angelica, or is it you.
A serious moment for the fly is
when its wings
Are moving, and a serious
moment for the duck
Is when it swims, when it first
touches water, then spreads
Its smile upon the water...
A serious moment for the match
is when it burst into flame...
Serious for me that I met you, and
serious for you
That you met me, and that we do
not know
If we will ever be close to anyone
again. Serious the recognition
of the probability
That we will, although time
stretches terribly in
between.
1.08.2009
if this song were any more appropriate
it would have to be streamed directly from my brain
as it were, its simply missy higgins hitting the neurosis nail on the proverbial head.
they keep saying this is part of the ride but i'm not getting stronger
if only i could sing so i could turn my bouts of self pity and loneliness into something worthwhile as missy does.
as it were, its simply missy higgins hitting the neurosis nail on the proverbial head.
they keep saying this is part of the ride but i'm not getting stronger
if only i could sing so i could turn my bouts of self pity and loneliness into something worthwhile as missy does.
1.06.2009
this damned beautiful initiation
The Old Professor Deals with Death and Dying
Talking around the block with no one near
but me, my sometime friend,
I think of events that punctuate our lives
and how, as a kindness deep in the nature of things,
death brings the sentence to an end.
How many of us, though,
when vessels break and minds misconstrue,
will say inside ourselves that we'd rather be dead
except that we're scared to die.
More than a few,
hardly disturbing the bedsheets, have said—
telling not quite the truth, not quite a lie—
"Lord, I don't want to die. I just want to be dead."
They'd leave living behind and go back to what
they were before they were born. Who can recall
a lot of discomfort in that? Like as not,
we're all of us going to no place at all,
a nowhere with nothing to pay, nothing to do,
no one to do it with and no one to care.
What a crock to have to suffer through
a damned initiation to get only there.
Still we stand at the beds of those who leave us
and cherish the seconds. Still our best dramas
depend on the death scenes, which all the religious
tell us are not periods but commas.
--miller williams
Talking around the block with no one near
but me, my sometime friend,
I think of events that punctuate our lives
and how, as a kindness deep in the nature of things,
death brings the sentence to an end.
How many of us, though,
when vessels break and minds misconstrue,
will say inside ourselves that we'd rather be dead
except that we're scared to die.
More than a few,
hardly disturbing the bedsheets, have said—
telling not quite the truth, not quite a lie—
"Lord, I don't want to die. I just want to be dead."
They'd leave living behind and go back to what
they were before they were born. Who can recall
a lot of discomfort in that? Like as not,
we're all of us going to no place at all,
a nowhere with nothing to pay, nothing to do,
no one to do it with and no one to care.
What a crock to have to suffer through
a damned initiation to get only there.
Still we stand at the beds of those who leave us
and cherish the seconds. Still our best dramas
depend on the death scenes, which all the religious
tell us are not periods but commas.
--miller williams
1.04.2009
in. ert. ia.
i have had so much to write ive written nothing at all
ive had so much to do ive done nothing at all
i have so much to think about ive thought of nothing. at all.
the only thing ive managed to do of worth recently is lose myself in some seriously beautiful music
for example, bon iver, who you should damn well be listening to if you're not allready
ive had so much to do ive done nothing at all
i have so much to think about ive thought of nothing. at all.
the only thing ive managed to do of worth recently is lose myself in some seriously beautiful music
for example, bon iver, who you should damn well be listening to if you're not allready
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