Cyclical Hunches

What are your beginning, middle, and end? This is how you unfortunately structure each blog and blah, blah, bl - oh hey guys. You snuck up on me! I was hoping you were some big corporation coming to swoop in on my blog and pay me millions to continue writing as these priceless memoirs can’t write themselves, but I guess not. Do you guys even remember me? Probably not, nonetheless, excuse the first sentence as I am trying to recall basic first steps to writing – you know, in order to keep my readers interested (ha!)

“Spill out everything onto the page,” they say. “Go for the jugular,” they say. Well, I’ve been missing in action for a while so here I go:

Today is a crappy day and I have a hard time focusing. I mean hard. I normally, no matter what, can just snap back into focus (especially if I am at work because I’m stone cold like that), but nope not today. A young lady named Sandra Bland is the topic or hash tag if you will. There is information about her coming in all at once. She was 28 from Chicago trying to move to Texas for a job. She’s dead now. Hearing this news led me to write. A lot of emotions are surging through me at rapid speeds after realizing she is dead and herein lies the thick of my anguish: I couldn’t catch her. Me - I couldn’t stop whatever happened to her. I would have had something amazing to say to stop the fate of a stranger, but I wasn’t there.

This was a journal entry from a while back that still rings poignant to me because it reminds me of why I fight for life and freedom so much. Machiavelli said it best when he wrote,“What am I here to reproduce at this time? I am only a figment of what has been to bring to the world something it has already seen just not in this particular timeline. What O’Lord am I to recreate that you so desperately need the world to see again? To remind us of what again? Please whisper loud enough for me to hear.” 

I’m unsure of the remarkable words that would have surfaced that day but trust me incredible was coming out. A trail of genius tends to slip out of my mind sometimes and what I want to say is too much to write down. Again, it probably would have been the most amazing crap I’ve ever thought but just too much to remember. A snapshot would be, “Look, like we’re all fucked anyway,” or something along those lines. “Capitalism is rotting this country. Black people don’t belong here, but we’ve been trying to belong for quite some time now. We’re all going to die,” yada, yada, yada – stuff like that. Maybe, “Read and utilize the past in order to shape, and understand the present.” Okay that isn’t me it’s Machiavelli, but seriously the advice would have been A1.

I hope to overly stress that in order to identify with yourself more you must identify with others. Try to stay alive, healthy, and sane in the process of identification, and in every situation give thanks. In every situation remember the situation before. Remember at one point you never really knew how the situation could or would change or when. Remember that it eventually did. Something happened one day, things shifted, and you slowly progressed into another part of your life.

Today I chose to identify with Sandra and let it be known that we’ve been stripped of our core ingredients (love, compassion, empathy, patience, forgiveness) for the all mighty dollar. I have to keep saying that until people start or realizing it. Being gone for so long has taught me how to stop correcting my intuition – not even slightly.

Basic Diagram of Vulnerability

As I hunch in this lumpy chair, weary of any work I've gotten done today, and typing my brains out like some mad scientist, I of all things have the desire to write about love. Great, I mention the word love and my shoulders instantly tense up. See! I can't do this...*takes a deep breath*. Okay, hopefully I can explore this physical manifestation before I hyperventilate and realize how much I despise talking or writing about this topic publicly.

Nevertheless, it’s like this: BE ALL YOU CAN BE TODAY. You know, Carpe Diem and shit – do that until the wheels fall off because one day you’ll wake up and love will be painfully staring at you with its fucked up eye. I mean staring you right-smack-dab in the middle of your face (I say painfully for a lack of a better more horrifying word.) When I think of love I stress out. I think of agony when I think of love. I think of worrying. No matter who is in this love with me there is a guaranteed heavy dose of stress, agony, and worrying. There are these super highs and super lows. There are these walk on egg shells days. These, "Don’t puke while I puke but you still puke any way days (oh great now we have to clean up the freaking puke!)", and there are these wonderful debate days about anything minus oblivion (okay, no, yup it’s now plus oblivion that was just confirmed.) It really beats the hell out of me sometimes. 

There are these, "I’m this close to leaving your ass days," and then something really funny happens and I don’t. There are these, "I’m literally so very tired and so very sick of you days." There are some, "What would I do without you days," (those tend to be my favorite), and some, "I just want to stick to you like white on rice days." There are even these days where we agree on the same thing we disagreed on a couple of days back (huh?) 

When I think of love I think of fake car chases and running to the Toyota quick because “they’re out to get us” – whoever “they” are, “Mash the gas! Let’s go baby! Hurry!” (ahh yes, invisible bad guys – jealous?) Love makes me think of scrounging for pennies just to make sure we make it to the place we always eat at (when we clearly don’t have enough money at the time and could easily downgrade or go somewhere else.) There are these days I dunk my head underneath a tub of hot water so that my entire body is immersed and I just float there lifeless wondering what the hell love is. 

Yes, love is patient, yes, love is kind, and yes love is unconditional. I love to love. I get that that’s love. I do. No one ever mentions the “other side” of it on the other hand. There is definitely another side. There’s the stress, the agony, and the worry – that tense feeling you know. As gut wrenching as that sounds it’s there too. Nonetheless, going through those feelings can be rewarding; nights are warmer, days are more promising, and the companionship is priceless because the love has gotten a chance to go through every crevice of your mind and heart; every peak and every valley. You’re all in this thing and you can feel every tick–tock of it so much so that you’re affected emotionally, spiritually, and physically. 

I’d say love is an investment; it’s abundant yet expensive. There’s a work ethic to love that I believe I can only pseudo master because I haven’t a clue how to really get in there and truly understand or figure it out (maybe there’s nothing to figure out.) There are some days where silence is appreciated, where certain looks are understood, and where a good, deep, long, and tight hug is really all the words you need. 

Wisdom is on love’s coattail and that dynamic appreciates with time. Love is falling in love over and over again. It’s not giving up on each other that day as to spare you another 24 hours to try and get it right again. I accept everything that comes with love as I mature in love (I say that now but don’t quote me on that) as long as I (as Stephen King put it), “…keep talking, arguing, making love, dancing…,” and courageously loving, it will be.

“We came from similar working-class backgrounds, we both ate meat…Yet what ties us most strongly are the words, the language, and the work of our lives.” – Stephen King

It's Sort of Magic Really

Job 5:19

What is my strength so that I should wait?

And what is my end, that I should be patient?

---

After taking a swig of water from my glass bottle I place it gently back on the table I’m working on, and sink a little further into my chair. As I sit here listening to a music artist named Common through my sleek ear buds that I have to constantly readjust in my ear, I can’t help but stare at the hobo across the street. Oh great, herein lies the beginning of this afternoon’s many distractions. It’s so hot and steamy out right now that the droplets of sweat creeping down my back are truly just getting started I’m sure. This is all worth it though. Getting fresh air outside of my favorite coffee shop is a viable alternative compared to eating fruit snacks and sitting in the bed trying to do work while dozing off every 15 minutes. I realize how comfortable I feel in this environment. The occasional cool breeze feels good on my skin, this oak tree above me is the biggest natural umbrella I have ever seen, and I could not be more content than I am right now because I am home. I am in a space I am used to that speaks to me. A space that makes me feel more of who I am which breeds implicit greatness. I think anyway.

I stare at the grass to the left of me and then back at the glass bottle on the table.

After staring I somehow muster up the strength to criticize my own work again: the stuff I write is boring. It’s the same stuff said in different ways. I am so sick of realizing that and coming to that inevitable conclusion. What is it going to take? A new wine? A nasty fight? A car accident? Great food? A good movie? Starting a family! What!?

The saxophones in this song are so soothing. It is literally massaging my brain. I stare again at the glass bottle.

To spice things up I want to take something simple like a regular day, a regular hour, a regular moment, or a regular thought and expand on it. Elaborate it a little but keep the essence of it there and capture the feeling of it so that there is a universal connection. Oh that’s been done before? Typical? No shit Sherlock? Fine, I don’t really have an angle or a gimmick or something unique to tell these days really. This cookie cutter thing is just not working for me and by “cookie cutter thing” I mean the way I am supposed to tell a story – how if I tell it the way I am “supposed” to tell it, it will make sense to you. The truth is nothing makes sense. LIFE DOES NOT MAKE SENSE. The moment it all finally comes full circle or tenfold you’re dead, let’s just be honest. So why, why I am forced to tell stories that should make sense? That couldn’t be further from the truth. It should be unethical really, and we’ve been told all of our lives that there is a linear way to say things, a certain way everything should eventually come across. Anne Lamott wrote, “Rationality squeezes out much that is rich and juicy and fascinating.” Thank you Anne – sheesh!

I readjust my headphones again and stare at the glass bottle on the table.

I read that identifying with others helps you better identify with yourself. I agree with that truly and I can comfortably make this statement because the more I read and listen to the voice of a lot of these authors that started out similarly, they either push me closer to who I am, validate who I am, or validate who or what I’m not and this is nothing short of genius.

“Writing is about hypnotizing yourself into believing in yourself, getting some work done, then unhypnotizing yourself and going over the material coldly.” – Anne Lamott

What’s a good spot for you these days that puts you in your element, makes you comfortable as if you could stay there all day, and lets you really get a chance to think about your life, work, and dreams? What about a place that will help make you produce your best work? A good way to figure things out for yourself, whether it is to try to push out something great within you, to make things make sense, to second guess things, or whether it is trying to identify with others, is to ask questions – sort of like Job did. Go to whatever place that is home for you, relax, and ask what your heart desires, reflect, see what speaks to you, and go forward from there. Maybe drink some water from a glass bottle while you’re at it – a glass bottle you can stare at helps.

Additional 2 cents

Uninspired to write lately and I’m not really sure why. Going back and forth between thinking I’m running out of instinct, I’m running out of writing juice, or maybe this is just not for me. The more I go out and really live and take life by the horns so to speak the more I come up empty handed on paper. Funny thing is, the exact opposite should happen - according to, you know, what “people” say. Captivating sights and sounds, having fun, practically forcing, no, giving myself an excuse to have a reason to write. Recent experiences have been one in a million. Recent memory recall is, should be worthy of some sort of revelation, or some sort of spark to get the flame going, the wheels turning, the deep thoughts brewing. To no avail; I wonder why.  I wondered why and then the funniest word ran across the lens of my very closed, very shut, eye lids one night. Guess that was my intuition finally clocking back in for its shift.

The word I see is acceptance.

It doesn’t make sense to me at first so I disregard it only to feel  aware of one main principle that I promised myself to never ignore: respect your urges (in this case the urge is to pay attention to what my gut is trying to tell me)

I keep thinking about this word. It interests me now.

Acceptance? Hmmmm (my eyes keep shifting while squinting from one point of the room to the next) I see - feeling stuck, dull, or truly uninspired is okay! It doesn’t really matter! I realized I need to accept that about this time and this space right now and that when it is time to be filled with what I need to speak or write it will come. It will be there. Growing to learn that staying an open vessel for the good and the bad things in life is the best thing you could ever do because it opens you up and teaches you who you are. I have to be susceptible to things that I don’t like, the things that I do, the things that I don’t condone, the things that I do, dark feelings, happy feelings, feelings of regret, feelings of no regret, remorse, confusion, guilt, defeat, joy, happiness, hope, any of that, and all of that I have to be susceptible to as a writer because it gives me that voice. My truth in that moment, if I accept it instead of fight it, will help me understand it, which will entice me to write on it, thus enabling me to speak to someone else’s heart or situation. It’s sort of my duty to go through it and then try to accept it. One must have a third eye maybe even a forth when going through things and having to make certain decisions – I can’t say “oh I shouldn’t have made that decision” because I will be subjecting myself to shutting a part of me down that should be wide open. Now that I have made that decision there will be this urge to capture it on paper. It is my duty as writer. I have to go with it.  

Something else heavily dawns on me after figuring this much out, and that is that this word doesn’t just apply to your self assessment it applies to those around you as well. All most people want is for you to see what they see in themselves, for you to hear what they hear when they are talking, for you to get what they mean the first time, for you to accept them. The disappointing nature they may have accidentally or on purpose, the fact that they’re always late, or they’re nature to tell you up to just about everything but not everything. Whether they’re always asking questions, or always upbeat, whether they’re super optimistic or super pessimistic or always have to be the life of the party. Let them be them, why can’t we just accept? Accept, love, encourage more of themselves, and ungrudgingly, without judgment, watch them live their lives and smile. How beautiful they are. How happy we are that they’re alive, that they exist. Here, whether people will ever see or not, for a significant reason.

One can only hope you will at least accept that.