I have babbled, I believe, at great length about the list I have made for my life. I recently found out that it can be called a bucket list. Unfortunately for me, I find the very sound-quality of this name distasteful and trivializing. Nuff-sed.
I have been recently adding to, explicating, and regrouping this list. Actually, I should say it in plural, these lists, as it is really more than one. There are reading lists, travelling lists, learning lists, etc. Sometimes the handling of these lists is nothing more than a mental vacation - a quick visit to fantasy land, a reshuffling of the cards, and mental fondling of fantasies - at other times I consult or work with the lists in order to check on a goal, or add to, or modify it. I don't mind, I don't criticize myself if I find myself using the lists for a momentary bit of fantasy fuel and escapism - I don't discourage this at all - because if I am escaping into a world of my own goals for my life, then at the very least I am keeping my dreams in front of my eyes that I may not forget what aspirations I have.
In doing so, a number of questions have occurred to me, regarding the nature of the list. For example - what value is there in the fulfillment of a goal? As a specific example - If my goal was to climb mount Kilimanjaro - what if sudden illness or accident took me at 500 meters from the top - would I count that goal achieved? If the goal I wrote down was to read the Masnavi, and after finishing a gruellingly nasty book-length translation I note that this was only book six of the entire poem - must I continue? If my goal was to achieve conversational fluency in a total of 5 languages - if I end up with three, was it a total wash? If my goal was to learn to cook five things really well - does french toast count as one? If my goal was to earn a black-belt, but the martial art I have fallen into does not have belt rankings - do I need to take up a new sport, or once I achieve instructor status, is that enough? Furthermore - what if I don't fulfill a goal - how much of a failure is that?
By asking these (no doubt trivial to anyone with real things on their mind) questions, I am pushed into examining the reasons FOR the list - the role I expect it, want it to play in my life. I realized at one point that the point of entering a marathon was not to be able to cross the finish line. Were that the case, they could just start everybody 20 meters from the finish line and be done with it. The finish line exists only as an arbitrary marker to delineate the defining edge of an experience, with the experience, the achievement, the value within, located in the experience that is in every step of the way. Minus the experience of the pain and sweat and cramps that dog your every step of the road, the finish line is meaningless.
Thus - if I become sick 500 meters from the top of Kilimanjaro, I shall regard it as a success to have travelled to Tanzania, to have talked with the people there, to have confronted the logistics of planning, to have learned about the mountain, to have felt the pain of the climb - all of that, even minus the summit, makes it a success.
On the other hand, if by counting French Toast as one thing I can cook, I learn nothing, then this goal was meaningless.
Which reveals to me that the main goal of my list is to establish arbitrary points, far enough removed from my present condition that by the time I am near that point, I will have travelled sufficient distance to have (inshallah) learned sufficient or experienced sufficient that I am left changed by the experience. In other words, the end goal of this list is not to do the thing, but to mold myself.
If my goals stay largely unmet, but in the process of struggling I have molded my body and my mind into a finer tool, or molded myself into a finer person, then it was a great success. The man is molded by his experiences, and the goals are but arbitrary points established sufficiently far removed from myself that in the process of there arriving I may find myself changed by the experience.
Today, by the way, I will be working toward my goal of 100 pushups - (website here: http://hundredpushups.com/) and studying the constellations (I have picked 18.) I may even crawl through my ceiling and see if I can spot any stars from my roof. And in between I will be reading "Culture and Imperialism" by Edward Said - (or, failing that, I might just watch "Game of Thrones" on my computer - we shall see!)
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Of the wealth of nations no end
I cannot adequately express, without descent into cloyingly trite-sounding language, the depths of gratitude and joy that walk with me through my day to day life.
Of course, I have moments many of annoyance impatience apprehension daily, but the emotion dominant my days throughout is the feeling of deep and abiding gratitude - thankfulness - recognition of gifts given undeserved to me.
From the sun upon the skin to the shimmer of the water the raven black in silhouette that perches upon the marbled minaret rail the coffee so common the flowers profusion the salad I lazily consume.
The books upon my shelf the bag my books surrounds the endless cups of dark sugared tea consumed in gardens green sheltered in shady by floating ivy trellis the photos of her eyes heavy-lidded locked in an embrace with death made manifest in brass - the muscles (mine) that scream or creak or cry - whiskey glass rum glass small cherry tomato walnuts.
The sweat slicks and neck aches and wrist cracking - for these I am grateful - the hip hand-hollowed, the tenders exposed - the dust and the ants that own my kitchen - the jeans my ass over, the blanket my bed upon - sniffs, yawns, sighs, even students complaining - for all this, Lord, I give thanks.
Of course, I have moments many of annoyance impatience apprehension daily, but the emotion dominant my days throughout is the feeling of deep and abiding gratitude - thankfulness - recognition of gifts given undeserved to me.
From the sun upon the skin to the shimmer of the water the raven black in silhouette that perches upon the marbled minaret rail the coffee so common the flowers profusion the salad I lazily consume.
The books upon my shelf the bag my books surrounds the endless cups of dark sugared tea consumed in gardens green sheltered in shady by floating ivy trellis the photos of her eyes heavy-lidded locked in an embrace with death made manifest in brass - the muscles (mine) that scream or creak or cry - whiskey glass rum glass small cherry tomato walnuts.
The sweat slicks and neck aches and wrist cracking - for these I am grateful - the hip hand-hollowed, the tenders exposed - the dust and the ants that own my kitchen - the jeans my ass over, the blanket my bed upon - sniffs, yawns, sighs, even students complaining - for all this, Lord, I give thanks.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Ay, there's the rub
I am haunted by something which I cannot name, and am therefore powerless against. For if naming provides identification, and identification aids in classification and if classification could assist in finding similar examples and if similar examples could provide a solution which when taken might apply also to my own problem - it is the namelessness that matters.
But what am I saying – it does have a name, and a well-known one at that. They recur – my dreams – they are recurring dreams, and by their unpleasantness we know them, they are nightmares. I can no more stop them than I could stop the a wave in the open ocean. Not every night (thank heavens for that - to wake with this feeling that I have now, and will carrry with me for much of the day – to have that everyday, that would be too much – what I have now is not too much – is is much nonetheless more than I would have,) but not every night they come to me.
There are a few – a menu – you may choose if you like. Do you dislike men without skin, whose muscles visible to the air red and angry across ligaments come beckon to you as you sit with friends and only you can see him – no one else notices – and you would notify them, but when you go to speak ofyou’re your voice fails and is not your tool – he turns off your voice for you because he knows your thoughts, and he would not tolerate your dragging others into this intimate moment of stark terror shared between you two, old friends of many nights since childhood. Eventually he will beckon, and I will go – I have no choice – I am not mine own. There are also the lizards, of course – the large, muscular-bulging variety, slate gray often in color, but possibly green – they wait for me with mouths of pink, and move but rarely and then to the purpose.
Am I afraid of heights? Indeed, in waking life, I am, but not so much than I cannot swallow it and push forward and continue – but in my dream, and it is always structured the same – in my dream it overpowers me, the fear, and leaves me – cowering on a finely graded ledge, one foot-slip away from . . . But I should begin with where it begins.
Always, always, I am always in a strange place – and usually, I want to get out. Last night I wanted to get in – but only to another builidng, and to that end, rather than go down into the very narrow and oh-so-inconveniently placed drainage ditch between the two buildings, I thought I could save time by going UP the small steps located on the side of this building, on this side of the ditch, and then cross over on the small walkboards that are strung between them.
Quickly up I go, the easy stops on the outside of the building. As I get to the top I begin to notice that I had failed to notice that the top few steps are dangerously minimal, and angled in the not-healthy 4 story drop direction. But ahead is a landing – then the crossing – yet somehow when I get to the landing, either the changing nature of the dream, or my own cursed lack of attention earlier result in me finding myself upon a landing that, while safe, makes going back down a fool’s errand. There are no handholds now, and the steps are very dangerous, so I must got forward. But when I turn to look at the walkway in front of me, there are details I had not noticed before – it is cracked, the wood is rotten, it was thin to begin with, has somehow grown yet thinner with proximity, and it will surely not carry my weight.
Suddenly the fear just rises like a sneeze – you could fight it, but once it is upon you, it has a life and determination all its own, and you would be best served to get out of the way. The fear sets in with a sudden downswooping of panic, and I clutch onto – there is always something there to clutch on to – and usually it is mostly stable – I clutch it and I absolutely cower in agonizing fear of falling. Sooner or later, though – it is not so long – 20 – 30 seconds in the dream – I have to get on, and there is always a door or a window available to me.
Last night it was a door. I knocked on the door, and then looking across (while waiting for the door to open,) I saw two people from work, the assistant director and her assistant, stuck in a similar plight on the rooftop of the house opposite. And – oddly enough – I recognized that rooftop – I had been there about 2 or 3 months before. One of them was waiting on the other while she collected her courage – they had just come out of a gable window, and I knew the route they would have to take – up, across the faded cedar shakes that came loose and slid clattering down the roof to dissappear off the edge – they had to transverse the roof – but I couldn’t remember what came after that.
The woman who answered the door was quite old – probably in her 70’s. She had me wait while she fetched her husband – all I wanted was to ask for a set of stairs – can you show to the hallway so I can take the stairs down and out of the building?
When her elderly husband showed up I was nude – except for a cap, and the bag I was carring with me – it was rather embarrassing – I was keenly aware of how inappropriate this was – but what is one to do – apparently I wander naked today – I asked for the stairs – he did not seem to understand, which is odd because I know the words for stairs – it doesn’t seem like such a far out request – but he wasn’t at all sure. He walked away and came back – and using his hands he asked me if I wanted the riser (up) part of the stairs or the tread (flat) part of the stairs. He had obviously misunderstood – I explained that I wanted to WALK DOWN the stairs. Can he just show me where the stairs are? He eventually agreed,and told his wife to do so – as she was showing me the way – first down this set of stairs in their apartment, through this room – she used a couple of slavic words. I was in the middle of asking about this when her husband came back, and now I could hear the slavic words he was using, as well – they were immigrants here – perhapst that explains the misunderstanidng about the stairs. But after a down staircase, now there were also winding up tightly two up staircases, and still no sign of the main hall of the building, where I can acess a stairwell and go down to the ground level. And now they are taking me to these internal, UP staircases, that are terribly rickety to boot – but I don’t want to go up – but they seem to be telling me that up is the way to get out.
Now in case I have not bored you with this topic before, this is ALWAYS the case. For one reason or another, I always end up travelling UP, trying to get down. And the means by which I am travelling up get progressively thinner, smaller, and less secure. I cannot believe this is happening to me again.
I think these people are Bulgarian immigrants – they certainly aren’t Turks – I follow their advice,and go up the staircases, squeezing myself out a hole at the top and emerging half-way out a window only about 10 feet off the ground. I am in luck.
I throw my backpack to the ground first, and then prepare myself to vault out the window. But in that moment, a young boy scurries through and seizes my bag, and runs off. I jump.
The family below are gypsies, I think. They are . . . malformed . . . unsympathetic, and one of them stole my bag, and I know it is somewhere nearby, and all that needs to happen is a quick word from the right guy, and it will reappear. Unfortunately, my first few inquiries leading nowhere, I decide to adopt a more straightforward approach. I seize one of them, a kid of about 20, and tell him to get my bag here or . . . I’ll burn him. He is not sufficiently pro-active and motivated, so I seize him by the neck, flick my lighter, and hold it up to his cheek – but it goes out. So I try his forehead , and then his hair with slighly better success. But really, this lighter sucks. His friends and family are all watching – some of them offer their lighters to me – mine keeps going out. I am glad, (albeit slightly bothered) by their happy willingess to help. Eventually I get my hands on a properly functioning lighter, and hold the flame to his ear. He wiggles, but the ear does not do much – the hair dissappears, the color changes, it crinkles slightly - I don’t recall seeing smoke, though I am sure there was. The main effect (he doesn’t squirm nearly so much as would be appropriate,) is that the top half of his ear shrinks, and practically disappears, leaving a bit of a shrunken, half-ear behind it.
And still no sign of the bag. It is time to move – they are moving – they push me into one of the waiting multi-passenger cars, and smile a not nice smile at me. As one of them leans past me – a man of perhaps 55 or 60, I see a piece of broken glass bottle bottom pinned between thumb and forefinger, and as he leans past me to put something in the back, he takes advantage of the moment, and the opportunity, and grinds the piece of broken glass into my back. I don’t react, and so he starts cutting long lines down my back – I wonder what my shirt will look like in an hour, but say nothing.
I say nothing because I can see something – everyone in this family keeps constant vigilant half hooded an eye on the guy who is the leader – he is the one sitting in the driver’s seat of this car – and when another guy tries to get at me with a screwdriver, he does so with both eyes watching the driver, to be sure he does not see it. I twist the screwdriver out of his hand, and plunge it a short way into his leg – only a short way, because I am beginning to catch the fear of the attention open conflict might draw. The man I stabbed makes no noise, just rubs it and stares malevolently at me – I can only imagine what is coming later.
But what interests me most is the fact that the driver, the leader, seems to be aware of what is going on – he has a slight smirk on his face all the time, and yet the others seem deathly afraid that he will actively notice – which, given what we are doing now – what does he do to people when he gets lathered? The longer I wait, the more I realize this guy is Vesuvius on a coffee break – the pressure and heat are slowly building, and he is enjoying it, and when it comes, we will all suffer exquisitely, and horribly, and we will pretend it is all fine, because we are so afraid of what else may be inside him, waiting to find its own creative realization upon us.
Over time, (and there is much,) I see that many of these people are trapped, like me. They want out – but slowly the leader’s mind and their own captivity has twisted them into stunted sadistic beings who can no longer think their way out. We go to church, the whole group of us, a lot. It is there that I realize one of the women in the group is working for law enforcement, and her contacts are here in the church – it is the only place we get to interact with anyone. As we leave, in the parking lot I walk past basement windows and realize that it is far too busy down there – emotion-laden sounds come up from below, and the the sound of much machine clanking – none of this bodes well, and slowly I feel myself losing my confidence that I can, when the moment comes, screw my courage to the sticking point and finish one or four or all of these fuckers. I know when the moment comes my strength in my hands will fail, and I will fear and move too slowly and then I will be caught, and I will throw myself at their feet in abject fear of what is to come, not so much the death as the losing, not so much the death as the pain, the pain not so much the pain as the helpless grinding humiliation exposed, and I will beg and I will be broken and thus one of them.
With my hands upon the keys
I have drowsed upon the couch –
Today I will write no more
I must go and close the door.
But what am I saying – it does have a name, and a well-known one at that. They recur – my dreams – they are recurring dreams, and by their unpleasantness we know them, they are nightmares. I can no more stop them than I could stop the a wave in the open ocean. Not every night (thank heavens for that - to wake with this feeling that I have now, and will carrry with me for much of the day – to have that everyday, that would be too much – what I have now is not too much – is is much nonetheless more than I would have,) but not every night they come to me.
There are a few – a menu – you may choose if you like. Do you dislike men without skin, whose muscles visible to the air red and angry across ligaments come beckon to you as you sit with friends and only you can see him – no one else notices – and you would notify them, but when you go to speak ofyou’re your voice fails and is not your tool – he turns off your voice for you because he knows your thoughts, and he would not tolerate your dragging others into this intimate moment of stark terror shared between you two, old friends of many nights since childhood. Eventually he will beckon, and I will go – I have no choice – I am not mine own. There are also the lizards, of course – the large, muscular-bulging variety, slate gray often in color, but possibly green – they wait for me with mouths of pink, and move but rarely and then to the purpose.
Am I afraid of heights? Indeed, in waking life, I am, but not so much than I cannot swallow it and push forward and continue – but in my dream, and it is always structured the same – in my dream it overpowers me, the fear, and leaves me – cowering on a finely graded ledge, one foot-slip away from . . . But I should begin with where it begins.
Always, always, I am always in a strange place – and usually, I want to get out. Last night I wanted to get in – but only to another builidng, and to that end, rather than go down into the very narrow and oh-so-inconveniently placed drainage ditch between the two buildings, I thought I could save time by going UP the small steps located on the side of this building, on this side of the ditch, and then cross over on the small walkboards that are strung between them.
Quickly up I go, the easy stops on the outside of the building. As I get to the top I begin to notice that I had failed to notice that the top few steps are dangerously minimal, and angled in the not-healthy 4 story drop direction. But ahead is a landing – then the crossing – yet somehow when I get to the landing, either the changing nature of the dream, or my own cursed lack of attention earlier result in me finding myself upon a landing that, while safe, makes going back down a fool’s errand. There are no handholds now, and the steps are very dangerous, so I must got forward. But when I turn to look at the walkway in front of me, there are details I had not noticed before – it is cracked, the wood is rotten, it was thin to begin with, has somehow grown yet thinner with proximity, and it will surely not carry my weight.
Suddenly the fear just rises like a sneeze – you could fight it, but once it is upon you, it has a life and determination all its own, and you would be best served to get out of the way. The fear sets in with a sudden downswooping of panic, and I clutch onto – there is always something there to clutch on to – and usually it is mostly stable – I clutch it and I absolutely cower in agonizing fear of falling. Sooner or later, though – it is not so long – 20 – 30 seconds in the dream – I have to get on, and there is always a door or a window available to me.
Last night it was a door. I knocked on the door, and then looking across (while waiting for the door to open,) I saw two people from work, the assistant director and her assistant, stuck in a similar plight on the rooftop of the house opposite. And – oddly enough – I recognized that rooftop – I had been there about 2 or 3 months before. One of them was waiting on the other while she collected her courage – they had just come out of a gable window, and I knew the route they would have to take – up, across the faded cedar shakes that came loose and slid clattering down the roof to dissappear off the edge – they had to transverse the roof – but I couldn’t remember what came after that.
The woman who answered the door was quite old – probably in her 70’s. She had me wait while she fetched her husband – all I wanted was to ask for a set of stairs – can you show to the hallway so I can take the stairs down and out of the building?
When her elderly husband showed up I was nude – except for a cap, and the bag I was carring with me – it was rather embarrassing – I was keenly aware of how inappropriate this was – but what is one to do – apparently I wander naked today – I asked for the stairs – he did not seem to understand, which is odd because I know the words for stairs – it doesn’t seem like such a far out request – but he wasn’t at all sure. He walked away and came back – and using his hands he asked me if I wanted the riser (up) part of the stairs or the tread (flat) part of the stairs. He had obviously misunderstood – I explained that I wanted to WALK DOWN the stairs. Can he just show me where the stairs are? He eventually agreed,and told his wife to do so – as she was showing me the way – first down this set of stairs in their apartment, through this room – she used a couple of slavic words. I was in the middle of asking about this when her husband came back, and now I could hear the slavic words he was using, as well – they were immigrants here – perhapst that explains the misunderstanidng about the stairs. But after a down staircase, now there were also winding up tightly two up staircases, and still no sign of the main hall of the building, where I can acess a stairwell and go down to the ground level. And now they are taking me to these internal, UP staircases, that are terribly rickety to boot – but I don’t want to go up – but they seem to be telling me that up is the way to get out.
Now in case I have not bored you with this topic before, this is ALWAYS the case. For one reason or another, I always end up travelling UP, trying to get down. And the means by which I am travelling up get progressively thinner, smaller, and less secure. I cannot believe this is happening to me again.
I think these people are Bulgarian immigrants – they certainly aren’t Turks – I follow their advice,and go up the staircases, squeezing myself out a hole at the top and emerging half-way out a window only about 10 feet off the ground. I am in luck.
I throw my backpack to the ground first, and then prepare myself to vault out the window. But in that moment, a young boy scurries through and seizes my bag, and runs off. I jump.
The family below are gypsies, I think. They are . . . malformed . . . unsympathetic, and one of them stole my bag, and I know it is somewhere nearby, and all that needs to happen is a quick word from the right guy, and it will reappear. Unfortunately, my first few inquiries leading nowhere, I decide to adopt a more straightforward approach. I seize one of them, a kid of about 20, and tell him to get my bag here or . . . I’ll burn him. He is not sufficiently pro-active and motivated, so I seize him by the neck, flick my lighter, and hold it up to his cheek – but it goes out. So I try his forehead , and then his hair with slighly better success. But really, this lighter sucks. His friends and family are all watching – some of them offer their lighters to me – mine keeps going out. I am glad, (albeit slightly bothered) by their happy willingess to help. Eventually I get my hands on a properly functioning lighter, and hold the flame to his ear. He wiggles, but the ear does not do much – the hair dissappears, the color changes, it crinkles slightly - I don’t recall seeing smoke, though I am sure there was. The main effect (he doesn’t squirm nearly so much as would be appropriate,) is that the top half of his ear shrinks, and practically disappears, leaving a bit of a shrunken, half-ear behind it.
And still no sign of the bag. It is time to move – they are moving – they push me into one of the waiting multi-passenger cars, and smile a not nice smile at me. As one of them leans past me – a man of perhaps 55 or 60, I see a piece of broken glass bottle bottom pinned between thumb and forefinger, and as he leans past me to put something in the back, he takes advantage of the moment, and the opportunity, and grinds the piece of broken glass into my back. I don’t react, and so he starts cutting long lines down my back – I wonder what my shirt will look like in an hour, but say nothing.
I say nothing because I can see something – everyone in this family keeps constant vigilant half hooded an eye on the guy who is the leader – he is the one sitting in the driver’s seat of this car – and when another guy tries to get at me with a screwdriver, he does so with both eyes watching the driver, to be sure he does not see it. I twist the screwdriver out of his hand, and plunge it a short way into his leg – only a short way, because I am beginning to catch the fear of the attention open conflict might draw. The man I stabbed makes no noise, just rubs it and stares malevolently at me – I can only imagine what is coming later.
But what interests me most is the fact that the driver, the leader, seems to be aware of what is going on – he has a slight smirk on his face all the time, and yet the others seem deathly afraid that he will actively notice – which, given what we are doing now – what does he do to people when he gets lathered? The longer I wait, the more I realize this guy is Vesuvius on a coffee break – the pressure and heat are slowly building, and he is enjoying it, and when it comes, we will all suffer exquisitely, and horribly, and we will pretend it is all fine, because we are so afraid of what else may be inside him, waiting to find its own creative realization upon us.
Over time, (and there is much,) I see that many of these people are trapped, like me. They want out – but slowly the leader’s mind and their own captivity has twisted them into stunted sadistic beings who can no longer think their way out. We go to church, the whole group of us, a lot. It is there that I realize one of the women in the group is working for law enforcement, and her contacts are here in the church – it is the only place we get to interact with anyone. As we leave, in the parking lot I walk past basement windows and realize that it is far too busy down there – emotion-laden sounds come up from below, and the the sound of much machine clanking – none of this bodes well, and slowly I feel myself losing my confidence that I can, when the moment comes, screw my courage to the sticking point and finish one or four or all of these fuckers. I know when the moment comes my strength in my hands will fail, and I will fear and move too slowly and then I will be caught, and I will throw myself at their feet in abject fear of what is to come, not so much the death as the losing, not so much the death as the pain, the pain not so much the pain as the helpless grinding humiliation exposed, and I will beg and I will be broken and thus one of them.
With my hands upon the keys
I have drowsed upon the couch –
Today I will write no more
I must go and close the door.
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