start at square one

It’s raining in Southern California, and there is a razor blade perched on the window sill of the cafe where I am sitting. It has rusted through to a red-ish brown, a mere shade or two darker than the brick it sits atop. Radiohead and Bjork pulse a delightful timbre into my ears. The streets are as lively as ever on this New Years Eve day. I don’t understand this holiday. A celebration of the passage of time, right? But time moves always, so either we must celebrate with the same fervor every day, all the time, or we must expose the truth of our motives that we simply want another day off from work and an excuse to get soused. Which, in all respects, sounds alright with me.

I find myself hard to live with at the moment. Soft sentimentality and aesthetics -- all couched as righteousness -- are falling away and giving way to a sort of angry cynicism as this ruthless self-inventory commences. It feels like a deevolution process, taking two or three or thirty steps backward, down out of the clouds, all with the goal of taking one honest step on solid ground. It is change, and change hurts. As glacial as this process has the potential to be, I remind myself that glaciers leave mountain peaks and lush valleys in their slow, inexorable wake. There is joy in that thought, even if it is a murky, watery joy.

The Dude does not abide...OR...I'm sorry, did I hit you? Pardon me, there seems to be a gigantic log in my eye.

NOTE TO SELF: Please stop spending so much time at your childhood home, it’s no good for you, but every year you keep going back.

Home is a cycle of boredom and stress. Home is perpetual adolescence. I’m prepared to say that as much as I love my mom, I can love her from a distance. Being in The Dalles is no good right now. When I get there, I act out of memory and not the growth that I’ve had as a person. My mind is reduced to the function of a wet noodle. Who cares if it’s the “right” thing to do. I question whether it IS the right thing to do.

So this Christmas season, the first without dad, turned out to be a somewhat upsetting experience for all involved. But it's the kind of upset that leads to good. Admittedly, I could have shown more tact, but instead decided that now would be a fantastic time to stop putting on the charade that our family does not have problems. It does have problems, lots of them, and if there’s any hope of them getting better, then they need to be brought out, exposed.

Step right up folks to watch the train wreck of 25 years’ hostility come out in two day’s time!

Awesome.

But let’s get serious. It was always hard to get a bead on what’s gone wrong, since everyone seemed to get along so well. And dad, who acted as the sweet creamy filling in the center of the cookies is gone, leaving rough cookies to collide, leaving three people who never learned how to talk to one another attempt to “have a good time.” It’s hard to admit whole lifetimes of problems and mistakes, especially when the problems weren’t as overt as physical abuse, they were the more subtle uglies of resentment and hostility, which is just anger kept in the dark. This is not going to work forever, and it's time for change.

The clincher of the week came when my mother revealed that she had been, to a large extent, afraid of my anger, or potential anger, so she always kept her mouth shut when she should have spoken up. Why? Who’s the parent here? It surprised me a bit (maybe it shouldn't have) to understand that I can embody both sides of an antithetical relationship. Fun. I scare my own mother, she allows me to control her with my anger -- why?

What drives me crazy is when my mother says “well, that’s just how I am and I’m probably not going to change.” Not change? I don’t know about her, but I feel like I’m changing all the time. When she says that it sounds like a cheap excuse to not put in the effort. At the end of the week, she did say that she wants to at least try and be more upfront with how she feels about things, to confront things that bother her right away. I appreciate that, and I know that this will take a considerable amount of effort -- a sea change -- to get things in proper order. Sins of the family are never easy to face. But it’s a generational thing. My mother’s family functioned much the same way. She grew up in a time and place where children were not heard from. Her father was something of a public figure in their small Estonian community, so appearances were kept up for outward consumption -- never mind if the family was rotting on the inside. She grew up terrified of confrontation -- because to her, confrontation signified a lack of love. Love is the opposite of fear, though, as I’ve slowly, slowly, slowly been learning.

Let’s all just get along boys and girls, 'cause as long as everyone smiles and laughs and talks, then we're all okay.

I know why I feel like connecting with friends is difficult. It’s because I never learned how to connect to my family. Why have I learned to apologize for my very existance? Because my mother still does it all time freakin’ time.

Admitting all this, publicly of all places, is not a way to scapegoat the pour souls that make up my familial unit, it is simply an acknowledgement of where it comes from. I don't hold it against my mother, or either of my parents. No mother or father can be expected to provide everything for their child. I'm not saying the whole 'growing up' experience was negative, but to keep these problems covered just perpetuates them, and I can't handle that anymore.

Man In The Moon

New Sensations

Thank goodness the brain brings back the occasional stray thought. A flash of annoyance at a careless driver early yesterday killed this thought, but I read something that brought it back.

And it is this. I find the world extremely rote at the moment. Everything I see and experience has a name, is identifiable. Doesn’t it feel like all that’s to be discovered as been unearthed already? How exciting would it have been to live in the times of discovery and innovation, when things were new. But as things are now, everything feels so...(sigh)...expected.

But how could that be? We humans apparently only use a meager 10% of the brains we have been given, and I find it hard to believe that at the relatively young age of 25, I have felt pretty much every feeling that I’m going to have for the remainder of my days.

So, what would the world look like if new sensations were imminent, if everyday I, and everyone else, were to wake up expecting the unexpected?

What if we were not limited by the confines of gravity, or time went in reverse for a week or two?

What if new colors appeared everyday -- ones without names like orange and blue and green?

What if new languages and new music were invented -- instead of “new” hybridized sounds and words that are so similar to something that’s already come before.

Chaos would perhaps ensue, if things were different or constantly changing. Things would never get done and progress might be a bit stunted. There’s comfort in the familiar, and humans do seem to function better with a physical framework to follow -- that whole pesky time/space thing. There’s nothing wrong with that in the long run, I guess, it just feels like a bit of a letdown. Either that or I’m feeling jaded at the moment.

Actually, as I’m thinking more about this, I’m realizing that this stifled feeling is entirely created -- by me. And that’s the beauty of life, is that it can really be what you make it, as absolutely and horrifyingly cliched as that sounds. But the confines I put around myself are entirely that -- self inflicted. And in that way, it becomes easier and at the same time quite difficult to do anything about it, ‘cause it makes my life my own responsibility -- which, I can already hear you, oh gentle reader, saying “well, duh,” but sometimes these things aren’t so readily obvious. It’s one of those “let’s shove it in the corner and don’t look at it” issues.

Okay, so these new sensations (cue INXS) can indeed be felt, it just takes a bit of effort. It’s like having blinders on, blinders to life, where I get very selective in what I think about or do or feel, nevermind that there’s a whole spectrum of thought and action and feeling that I’m indeed NOT choosing to experience, but could just as easily be experiencing. For a lazy kid like me, that’s hard stuff to grasp.

And as I’m thinking further about this, I’m thinking that perhaps there are already too many choices in this world, and that it’s not the sameness that I’m bored with, it’s the freedom that I’m terrified of. There, I think I just got to the crux of my own argument. Good job, me.

A lot of great art has been made about this very notion. In this way, I feel comforted that I am not alone with these thoughts.

My bottom line here -- this is a never-ending cyclical argument that I can’t really believe I’m airing publicly, and yet I sit here, laptop burning my legs, continuing to write...THIS exemplifies the Crazy Head Mill. Do you ever just feel crazy sometimes!?

The Swift Hands of Justice

I went to small claims court yesterday. The woman who bought my car this summer ended up suing me 'cause the car fell apart three days after she bought it. I suppose we dissagreed onto whose shoulders the responsibility of getting it fixed fell upon.

She thought the responsibility was mine, since when I sold her the car, I told her it worked just fine and was reliable. That was true at the time. That car, as shoddy as it was, had been a trusted ally for over five years (as much as an ally a car can be, in any case). I felt very badly that the car had suddenly come undone (Duran Duran style...), and had even offered to refund her money if she came back with the car the day after she called to initially tell me there were problems with it. Well, she decided to go ahead and get it fixed instead of bringing it back, whereupon I believe it then became her responsibility, since she chose not to come and get her money back, no questions asked. No one forced her to get those repairs done, not with an offer like that on the table.

I'd never been sued before, and I didn't know what to expect. The experience as a whole was mildly nerve-wracking. More so than going to the dentist, but not as bad as starting a new job or moving. The judge was very easy to talk to as well, as she had a comforting face and calming demeanor. She was no Judge Judy, thank goodness.

The judgement arrived in the mail today. I owe the plaintiff $500, which considering is only an eighth of what I was originally sued for ($4000), can definitely be seen as a victory.

Questions

It’s that time of year again. Lately, spiritual inventory has produced more questions than answers (most likely a good thing). Not just questions for myself, but also for the "spiritual community” in which I live.

Are other people asking these same questions, or is it just me? And if not, why not?

How am I making my faith about me and not about God? In what ways do I get frustrated because God does not exist to feed my own ego? Why are we not talking about these issues? Isn’t that what community is about? Is it going on in some underground conversation that I haven’t tapped into yet? Are people just working things out amongst themselves, in quiet little rooms, away from other people? Are we all holding true, life-giving community at arms’ length because it’s easier and less scary if we all only have to be ‘somewhat’ honest with each other? Do we cloister ourselves in our church and comfy apartments with our fancy holiday parties and Godly friends and call ourselves righteous because we’re too afraid to engage the world around us? Too afraid or ashamed to admit to one another that perhaps the darkness of the world is tempting and appealing, too afraid to admit it to ourselves or to God? Have we become incapable of humility? Are we trying to save ourselves instead of receiving the free grace of God because it maybe feeds our ego? Do we hold ourselves up to the false concept of self-sufficiency, fooling ourselves into that we can get by on our own instead of realizing that we need each other to get into the muck and mire of our daily lives and work things out together?

the elderly

I don't know why I'm so tickled by the elderly right now. There's something about people that age that I think is completely charming. For instance, today I was again driving down Wilshire Blvd. through Beverly Hills (it's L.A., I'm always driving) and next to me was this little biddy driving a Cadillac Seville as big a boat, with her head poking just above the steering wheel. She had two pillows behind her back to make her sit closer to the wheel, so her feet could reach the pedals, I guess. The sight of her made me laugh out loud. It was delightful.

I wouldn't lump my own mother into that category just yet, but I'm proud of her -- she just started text messaging, which actually freightens me in a way, as I picture her sitting in the car or somesuch, keying out messages -- hitting the "7" button four times for an "s," and the like. There's something incongruous there. Programming the VCR and email should be the extent of her technological prowess in my opinion. I don't mean that as a way to "keep her down," it's just that she shouldn't have to be subjected to the complicated savvy of modern life. Though secretly, I think it's cool and will hypocritically send her texts anyway.

She and I were talking the other night about dad and she says suddenly "I wonder if they celebrate Christmas in heaven. Do you think? Do they throw a birthday party for Jesus?" I shrugged, maybe. I pictured angels acting like heavenly elves, lighting 2005 candles on a field of eternal sheet cake. I also pictured dad as being the first one in line for the festivities, Styrofoam plate and plastic fork in hand.

Charming these old folk, I tell ya.

Romance

Driving through Beverly Hills tonight, I saw an elegantly dressed elderly couple walking hand-in-hand past Saks Fifth Avenue. The man had a wild shock of white hair, and the woman’s dress was green. A camera swung by its strap in his hand.

They parted momentarily as they waited for their crosswalk signal. She swayed and leaned in slightly as she laughed, her head tilted back. When the signal flashed permission to walk, the man, who stepped out ever-so-slightly before the woman held his hand out behind him for her to take.

It was a dramatic and touching moment, one that I was lucky to have been a part of, even uninvited from the warm confines of my car.