in response

it's been a while since i've written. i guess i was a little surprised by the responses that i got from the last little ditty i wrote and i wanted to respond in turn but haven't know exactly how to yet... first of all, i loved the responses; there is not shortage of well written images of love and support, and i feel blessed to be able to receive that energy. at the same time i felt guilty. the five paragraphs seemed to strike a chord, and my sister was not the only one to write me and ask if everything was ok.

 

so i looked back at what i wrote, and it is SAD. i didn't think i was sad, a little homesick maybe... missing my wife, my family, my friends, good mexican food... but i didn't think i was sad. i was laying in bed looking through my iTunes library remarking on all the albums that i have had since the beginning of time, but that remain nonetheless unchecked... never to be downloaded onto my wee pod. i was wondering why i keep those albums, and i couldn't explain. i didn't know. so i figured i would ask one of them, "hey CD! yah you! how do you feel?" and see what they would say.

 

silly patrick, you might say... CDs can't talk

 

oh but they can.

 

they sing all the time, just like most everything... most people just don't take the time to listen, but there are songs everywhere. a sail can sing about it's weariness in a storm. an ice cube can sing about relaxing into oblivion. the wind can sing about the frustration of trying to grab the world without fingers. a dam holding back a great river can sing about dreams.

 

there is a voice for everything and anything can have a message that can anyone can understand... a poet or writer or songwriter is just a translator.

 

so yes. everything is ok. i feel a little far from the world at times, but i always was one to look for distance from time to time to regain my perspective. there are a lot of thoughts running around in this little head of mine, more than one of them is related with what i am doing over here and where that fits into the scope of the world, the universe, my life, my karma, and my future.

 

so many thoughts are not easily organized or easily shared. i am continually learning the extent to which i guard my thoughts, and i am constantly trying to relax my grasp on them. it would be nice to know what is going on in my center. in the meantime, i may ask a tree what it thinks... or a door... or a CD even. if you have any questions, let me know... i may answer here or perhaps in an email, but i'll answer if i can.

 

thank you. i love you too.

p

integrally obsolete

i am an overspecialized memory.

i am the cd you bought years ago because i was popular at the time and you listened to me a hundred times, but not anymore. i sit stacked on your bookshelf or in your cd case next to Bel Biv Devoe or David Bowie.

 

you know exactly what i sound like. you know exactly what part of your life i remind you of, and that time is not now. i don't fit.

 

you've tried to put me in the player on one of those days when you were feeling nostalgic, perhaps to impress someone with the breadth and diversity of your music collection... only to get part way into the first song and realize it was a mistake... i don't fit... you'd be much better off with some hooverphonic or kate earl or ekova. i'm a old emotion that you've outgrown; lacking the complexity of the life you've created, i no longer apply.

 

but you hold onto me. i stay there in your collection. another ring in your musical tree trunk... another layer that was once your skin that you wore, but that now is just another hidden layer above your core.

 

my purpose no longer to sing, but to remind and support... silently.

white noise

i tried to sleep without the air conditioner on, because i got too cold. it was fairly cold outside... more cool really, enough for a pair of running pants and a windbreaker (if you wear that kind of thing), but definitely not the kind of weather where you need an air conditioner. i mean, it's january.

i couldn't use the heater though. the prior occupant was very clear on that account:

"if you turn the heater on, it will smell like something is burning. then all of your clothes and things will smell like burning, and you will not like it" (he e-nun-ci-a-ted)

i didn't believe him at first... smell like burning, HA. he probably didn't clean out the filter. i opened up the access door and Voila! it was filthy. so i gently removed it and carried it outside so as not to knock even a modicum of dust onto my rug. once outside however, i beat it against the railing for a minute in the somewhat unchoreographed ballet style of a drunken swashbuckler.

i returned back inside, somewhat disheveled and all-together covered in dust, replaced the filter, turned the heater onto the lowest setting, and waited all of 4 seconds before i could smell the burning. it was all of 10 seconds before i smelled like burning, and i most definitely did not like it.

it smelled as if the whole thing would blow at any minute: coppery ozone with a little of burnt dust and hair thrown in there for good measure. it tingled my tongue and stuck in my throat when i inhaled. there was no question, the heater was definitely not turning back on. so it was off then... if a/c is too cold and heat will burn the place down, then i wasn't going to use the damn thing at all. so off went the light, and into the bed i went.

i heard the door down the hall open, someone took 23 steps to the end of the hall and opened the far door into the wind, slamming it into the railing. then someone two rooms down coughed. then the person next door came home, and i heard every single article of their clothing hit the floor. then i heard the music they were playing... in their earphones. someone else left their room. someone else came back. someone told a funny joke, and somebody didn't sleep.

me

so the fan came back on, filling the room with a soft teddy bear of a noise that hid the world from my ears. i put my running pants and windbreaker on, pulled the covers up over my head... and fell blissfully asleep.

sweet dreams.

a shiny tool

if i were a screwdriver...

i would aim to keep my edge. i would seat myself firmly in the screw and torque evenly, so as not to slip out of my groove and strip the head. i would dedicate my existence to it, being there for the screws: making sure they can all remain firmly seated, so that none work their way loose, to be lost forever. i would watch over them and make them my responsibility and i would find my honor in that.

 

i would pray at night that the hands that held me would honor me. i know sometimes a screwdriver is used to pry up a lid... or chip away at something with a hammer. i know sometimes they are used to shimmy locks or punch holes or to break something apart.

 

you can tell when you see them. they are twisted, gouged, and bent ever so slightly... just enough that they no longer quite seat; they slip from the groove. they are passed over for another. they are discarded. they are lost. they are forgotten.

 

oh what desires are there for a tool other than to be used with respect and good purpose?

book report

i am listening to Tricky in my room and thinking how i
would like to meditate.
i just finished reading A Fortune Teller Told Me by
Tiziano Terzani.

i would recommend it to my closest friends. it is an
autobiography of the international correspondent
during the year 1993 when Mr. Terzani was warned by a
fortune teller (back in 1976) that he faced a grave
risk of dying if he chose to fly that year. choosing
to honor the possible danger, he travels by boat,
train, automobile, and foot, all throughout the far
east and relates his travels and insights in this
book. i liked it because he is honest and open with
his voice. he does not sugar coat, nor does he
apologize for, his opinion.

so now i just recommended it to you.
with love
p

Needs

I need a cave.

I have to be able to extinguish the fire to stop the movement across the walls. I need to be able to feel the breath from my nose as it touches my upper lip. I need to close my ears.

I want there to be vibrations in the stone at my feet that i can press my forehead into. I want to feel earth against my skin in gritty units of age.

 

I would swallow huge spheres of ice, as large as my head, and i would enjoy the inner numbness as i melted them away, all the while concentrating on my breathing.

All the while concentrating on my bones relaxing...

 

I want to read the wall with my fingertips. I want to interpret the eons of movement and pressure in the braille cracks and fissures. I want to walk barefoot on the rocks and remember the sharpness before the skin callouses.

 

i need a cave that i can leave... so that even the moonlight blinds me.

OUT OF TOUCH CONTINUED...

HA!

that relatively buffoonerous act was me hitting send before i was even done. (not like that has ever happened before) although it could have been the doings of THE MAN, being the all powerful entity that it is.

 

so here is the deal. there will be no responses of mine in the comments section... not because i don't wish to respond, but rather because, in my somewhat ethereally-handcuffed state, i am unable to get to the page to respond... so therefore, i will have to respond here:

 

elijah,

i love you too, and i feel your love and support and the love, peace, and harmony that accompany it. i arrived here a just after the new year chimed in to find the land much muddier and a great deal colder than when i last left it. it is a strange thing, this place. it is easy to forget what day it is because i go to work everyday. it's groundhog day in a strangely communist world where everyone is wearing the same clothes and shows up to work at the same time everyday and does the same thing. everyone has health care. everyone has shoes. everyone gets paid about the same. we all live in the same little trailers with two beds and two cabinets and two desk lamps and two bedstands. instead of monday tuesday wednesday, we have curry day, and taco day, steak and lobster day, and chicken cordon bleu day. i measure time by how many pairs of clean underwear are in my cabinet and to a greater extent, how many times i have done laundry. it's a silly little world that i find myself in. yet the silliest thing is that part of me craves this while i am far from here. i will talk to you soon.

 

heather,

love of my love. right now you are navigating the streets of istambul with your walking feet and your looking eyes. how i wish i could be walking at your side with your hand in my hand and your scent in my nose. my feet feel too heavy when you aren't standing on my toes and dancing through the kitchen with your blinding smile. i am jealous of istambul and of all the other strange lands that feel the touch of your toes instead of me.

this is a strange life, and i do not know why i so hunger for things that challenge me. nor can i explain my affinity for contradiction and opposition. i am reading and thinking. i am feeling my way out again and searching for the part of me that i haven't seen since school. i know he is around somewhere.

speaking of school, i ran into a splendid gentleman who also went to santa cruz. it is a strange thing in my world and we both had to admit that we were both the first people that we knew to share that in common. not only that, but we were in the same dorm... we were both residential advisors... and we both had responsibility of the SAME HALL.

we spent all of our middle meal (hard to call it lunch when it happens at 4am) reminiscing about the school and the area and the people and the magically unique environment that we left for this world.

the exchange was a bittersweet, and it helped me remember a little more about who i am.

 

there is a lot of sarcasm and negativity sometimes when one is surrounded by others who are separated from their friends and loved ones for hundreds of days at a time. i endeavor to keep that in check, and to foil the sour emissions from others as i am able. this is a serious work that all these men and women have undertaken, and i pray that they do not forget the little bits that make them individual and beautiful. nor that they forget the implications of their actions, as i endeavor to do.

with all the hurt, pain, disillusionment, and destructive elements in this world, i pray my actions do more to alleviate these things rather than inflame them. my fear is that i will never know.

 

with all of my love,

p

out of touch

i am officially out of touch.

for one, my internet/email access is limited. the man has got me down. when i can get online, i can't even check out my own blog. why you ask? because it is BLOCKED! FORBIDDEN! VERBOTEN! OUT OF BOUNDS! STAY OFF THE GRASS! DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS!

 

dear anonymous blog reader whom i do not know and will never meet,

here's the thing:
i don't really really trust you. because i don't really know you. this essentially comes down to a lack of faith in myself, but i am going to project a little for now, so humor me or find somewhere else to browse.
i have had a problem with writing about how i feel. truthfully writing. i'm not quite sure where it comes from. it is easy to ramble on about something. to get words down on a white screen and hit PUBLISH and feel like you are writing, but anyone can do that. i started doing this because i wanted to write and vent and purge and have cathartic release. well, whatever it is that i have been doing has failed to effect that result. i've been putting pictures in with the words as i take them. they are loosely associated with words if at all. more often than not, i am actually just happy to put the pictures up. the photos have an anonymous energy that is more effective than the words anyways. they are safe.
those who have ventured close to my heart have often told me that near to it lies an impenetrable box. some have used the word fortress, some have used the word chest, and someone told me it was a room with no doors that hides something that she so wished with all her heart that she could see.
i knew the whole time that i had a sense of what they were all talking about, but i was unable to define it then, just as i am unable to define it now.
heather sometimes scratches at my chest as she lies up next to me and whispers "let me in, let me in" if it is particularly conspicuous. all the while i feel as if i am laid open and bare to the whole world, and especially her.
this blog will never tell you who i am. it may reveal what i am thinking at a moment. it may show you a glimpse of my beliefs or how my mind works, but it will likely never define the box.
this is most likely because i keep it closed for a reason, whatever that reason may be. for the time, it seems, i keep it closed even to myself.
while i say that it is you that i don't trust, really it seems that it is myself whom i need to convince.
i don't really trust me, because i'm not really sure how much i know me right now

one third

i'm driving myself a little bit crazy today. i've got loads of things to do but the only thing i've been doing is breathing. i made a pizza earlier. it was beautiful, with asparagus, eggplant, peppers, and other assorted vegetables. quite enjoyable. i think i just needed a day to decompress. My folks have been visiting for the last week with my cousin Sara. it has been awesome to have them out here in our home. it's a funny thing when one moves out of the parental housing unit and into their own. granted, it happened to me a long time ago, but nonetheless, i still remark on it. the big day is when they finally visit and you find yourself going into the rooms and turning off lights after people leave. you catch yourself closing the front door when you find it wide open, and you laugh to yourself when you find the milk on the counter and you put it back in the fridge.
my dad said this day would come, but i still can't admit that i'm a grown up. i'm not yet. i still count my age in fractions... eight and a half... seventeen and five sixths... twenty nine and forty-seven fiftieths...
i figure no adult would count their age in fractions... so i'm safe.
what's the big idea anyways. it's not like i'm afraid of being old. i've got twice again as long to live as i already have... and i can barely remember the beginning of that. that's a long time.
with all of that time left i guess i just needed a little of it to myself.