Saturday September 16 2017
Five years ago around this time, I was in my head, sitting by an empty pool and reeling from my half-epic road trip across the western states. Half, because I made the trip too quickly and, also, I started started in the middle of the country. Slightly pressured by an ex-, who wanted me to ‘just be here already’ and feeling the deeper pressure of trying to save as much money as possible, I cut my trip short. But, I saw what i needed to see.
When work is slow and i’m nodding off at my desk, when I’m preparing breakfast in dim-lit mornings, walking to work among the tattooed youth, or trying to sleep with a light from across the street shining— somehow—perfectly, directly onto my face, I draw up the map in my mind, lay it in front of me and I drive the route.
This story isn't going anywhere, but I'm connected to the memory of that trip. It is present in me. I remember some parts of it vividly and then some parts of it I remember in the way one remembers childhood memories through pictures--it's unclear where the memory actually came from. For instance, south of Yellowstone on Highway 191 I crested a hill and I saw shadows of entire clouds blotting the green valley below me and then I drove into it. The memory i have is like being in a tall building in an unfamiliar city, unsure of how to get between two points, unsure of the relationships of landmarks to one another and unsure of even where you are in relationship to everything else. Where is east? Who are those people? What street is that? And at some point during your visit, you see something and in a moment your surroundings makes sense. You not only know where you are, but you know your whole path and you see where you will be going soon.
So, yeah, it felt a little bit like that, but only for a moment there on the high plains weaving through foothills. I felt everything make sense and that's the memory I hold on to. Not what made sense, but that it did.
Montana
I think
Friday September 29, 2017
Writing a blog entry once every two weeks is simply unacceptable. A quick thing about what this blog is supposed to be before I go much further. I've set a goal of writing everyday. When I can't settle into the project I'm working on-often, lately-I'll come here to write some thoughts. So there's that, but , I've set a lot of goals this last month. I'm supposed to lose 20 lbs. in the next two months after losing an initial 10 lbs. in September. I'm also working on finding a new job by the end of the year and then there's the great goal of finishing my 'project' by the end of November. More details there later. And I've set a goal of learning Italian and being of 'intermediate' proficiency my the end of November. This may be a bit of a stretch and I get to define what intermediate means, but it's my goal and so I'm studying Italian everyday. Today, as a kind of treat, I listened to a few scenes from 'The Great Beauty' and I was so proud of myself for recognizing words independently of the subtitles that were running at the bottom of the screen. I doubt I'm alone in this feeling, but the language has a soothing quality, not just in its the flow of consonant sound to vowel sound which is appealing in itself to the ear, but even in my broken toddler-level recitations of 'My name is Bradley' and 'These 14 bowls are yellow', I feel like I'm meditating; I'm focusing on my breathing. 'Do I have enough air to make this sentence? What is the rhythm?' I hardly can hold in my mind the words Rosetta Stone is telling me to repeat. It's just a breath and a beat.
I have two favorite Italian words: Ciotola (CHO-toe-la) and giallo (JAH-low) and I will find a way to use these words whenever I can.
Saturday September 30, 2017
Today in the sun, I walked to a bakery that's three blocks from my apartment. I counted to twenty, over and over, in Italian trying to remember just where in the order of numbers the 'ten' switches places with the other number. Undeci, dodeci, tredeci, quattordici quindici, sedici, ah, diciasette.I ordered a sandwich and coffee and walked home, thinking of numbers one through twenty. It's pleasure in the mind to think of the words and a pleasure to roll the 'r' or try. I've been practicing for over a month and it sounds asunnatural in my head as it does when I quietly roll aloud as I pass the woman with the shaved head as she sits, enjoys her cigarette and looks at her phone. How long will I be able to live here in this city that only gets younger. Maybe there are only two kinds of cities: the timeless ones and the others defined by their youth.
Seattle is a strange city. Perpetually finding its limits; perpetually adolescent. I've learned that Seattle is the kind of city that can't support a gyro restaurant, but it can support a hummus bar. A brewery is always a good business. A raclette restaurant next to a brewery cannot be sustained. It's a city that's ready for somethings and not for others. It's constantly pushing and trying. It's an exciting time for people who like new things--and expensive and exciting time.
There are also a lot of men walking around. Traditionally, this is a gay neighborhood, so you expect to see more men, but a certain kind of man. Now, just in the last year there are the kind of men that walk in packs and dress alike on their way to bars to apparently hang out with other men who also dress like them. All of them wondering when the women are going to show up.
Sunday October 1, 2017
It has been cloudy, sunny and rainy at different points within the hour that I'm writing this. It is a good day to read and something clicked in my mind today that has helped me because although I do enjoy reading, I don't read as much as I could be and when I think about that, I feel guilt. But I've changed my perspective on this whole matter recently, because often in my adult life I have lacked for work. For reasons of my own choosing and many without, I've not been able to strike up the same growth in industry asmy contemporaries have that accompanies the adult into adulthood. i've had to find my way into being an adult (as opposed to 'adulting'-the contemptible phrase) with my own companions. I've been disappointed by my lack of work and my inability to relax when I haven't had work. It is equally exhausting to not have work as it is to have work. It is the weird relationship that I continue to have. To feel relief that at least I can support myself and then guilt that I'm not supporting myself enough. I read a few things, talk to friends and write down my thoughts. It makes me feel better about the choices I've made and how I like to live my life despite not traveling as much as I would have hoped, been known by strangers for my work, or have a child who I can tell about my life, who could then tell them to their own (Mark Helprin wrote about that in one of his short stories: The doubled sadness of a dying father and then the second loss when memories of the deceased die with the son).
Sorry, went on a tangent there.
The problem I had about the anxiety of not working and not being 'at leisure' is solved with this little realization that came along since I've been planning out my day with purpose. Everything is work. There is nothing that I don't do that I think of as outside of my purpose. Reading is work. Traveling is work. Some work is enjoyable, some work is necessary, and sometimes it's actual fun--so much fun that I don't even think about how muh fun I'm having. In the end, though, it all needs to be done.
Monday October 2, 2017
I'm realizing that 'another mass shooting' is a horrific way to frame events like what happened today. The end point is the same, with an identifiable shooter and a range of victims. In the coming days we will learn of the secret resentments the shooter, his secret reality in which he truly lived. Also, we will hear of heroism and victims on this day. And we will learn of the many dimensions and facets by which the loss of life will affect the lives of so many others all throughout the country and maybe we'll contemplate for a moment on the waves of loss and heartbreak this event will cause for generations beyond us: pebbles thrown in a pond and such. But anytime something like this happens it's easy to moralize because we are a country of moralizers. As individualists, we like to do this; 'After all', we say 'I manage to live my life just fine, you should listen to how I do it'. But this story, with its familiar elements and characters offers us yet another chance to not speak and even stop listening to the familiar parts, but to think and process and know our minds before we step into our own roles in the outraged chorus.
Monday November 6, 2017
It's six days into National Novel Writing Month. I can't say that I've started actually writing, but a lot of thinking has been going on. I think a lot of Raymond Carver and what constitutes a story.