__prayer scribbled into a notebook:
__almighty God! I thank thee for my soul;
__& may I never die spiritually into a mere
__mind through disease of loneliness.
________ee cummings
San Diego Snow Story, -Antoine-
PART I: HOW WE GOT HERE
There was a haircut, perhaps the best ever, this began it. A few minutes later, amidst a flurry of phonecalls, most of them reproaching the protagonist of this tale, an immediate trip to a pathology lab, some flirting with an elderly woman, and eventually, a plastic vile filled with a dark, viscous sample of his blood (which after much trouble, would eventually go on to prove immunity to two variants of hepatitis).
Two homes were packed and cleaned in two days. Our hero lay languishing on a bed by the afternoon of day 1. Approximately 8 weeks of assiduous study, rote-memorization, and lugubrious, melancholic yearnings for a more meaningful life had sapped him of all earthly will and left him in a crestfallen lassitude which not even the promise of smashing wooden structures could dissipate. (as an aside, it did turn out that in an anomalous moment he did find the strength to stand, fetch a mallet and ravage his little sister's no-longer-needed desk into approximately 8 medium-sized parts. She has yet to completely forgive him for the obduracy he demonstrated in doing so). It is in between these fits of compensatory anger (redirected from the insipid, monotonous life of flash-cards he had led for nearly three months consecutive) and bouts of tres fatigue that the necessity of haircut was mentioned by his mother, the necessity of evidence of hepatitis immunity was mentioned by his nefarious institution of education, and the necessity of rest was curtly ignored by all.
In conclusion of these preliminary days, he stumbled, mumbled and dreamt his way from sitting in the school tavern after his final exam drinking bubbly grapefruit juice (in contrast to the smell of beer having spilled liberally over floor, chair and table alike, and which acquires a certain novel smell after making contact with the sole-surface of too many inebriated patron's footwear) through the mayhem of the packing travesties to the gate of some international airport or another.
He awoke momentarily twice during the flight, once to drink a plastic-cup of water- some portion of which dribbled down his numb lips (a categorical lack of kissing perhaps the cause), a second time to wonder where on earth it is he was. Finally some 10 hours later, the plane landed in a humid, dank and miserably smoke infested Hong Kong. Some noodles, windowshopping, and exhausted boredom later, the plane took off again- our hero having barely made the flight after having fallen into deep slumber and dreaming dreams made up of the possible variants of these words: THE FLIGHT TO ______ WILL BE BOARDING FROM GATE (any combination of whole-number, double or triple digit, positive integers) FINAL LAST CALL PROCEED IMMEDIATELY MR MRS TRAVELING TO crap Jo, that's us!). On a coldish, grey morning, he arrived in Beijing. Sat in a cab. Arrived in an apartment building, put down his large bag (which in Prague would crack, in Hamburg would be dragged, in Prague (revisited) would resolutely break, and would be cursed and sworn at until the second day of death-by-Vienna (a.lonely) would be replaced by a doubly-priced (but) inferior model) and collapsed into a nearly 20 hour stupor.
The rest of the China-Diaries would pass by in a mixture of dirt, smog, elated carelessness, soul-crushing indigents, walking aimlessly around in Shanghai dressed like a mendicant (and treated as a rock-star), solicited regularly for paid and unpaid sexual intercourse- of which two instances went considered and two instances were humbly and politely declined by our heart-broken, love-martyred, self-pitying protagonist; instances of running across long tortuous walls smiling ear to ear with more teeth than the moon, kicking the thinnest fall-seasoned, tree-fallen starfish (translation = autumn leaves) ever seen and the constant packing and hiding of the thoughts of exam-results into the darker closets of ones mind. China passed in a mixture of illness, suffocation, animated bargaining, strolling, staring.looking.seeing, praying and the first-ever intimations of an understanding of how diverse and how multifarious humanity is. All in all a mixture of death-by-drowning, heart-swollen by the probity and candor of the people encountered (and at very least the taxi-drivers).
It was not until arriving in Haifa that the world begin to spin at least 14 times faster on its axis, the particles of moisture in the air began to take on new properties so that atmospheric pressure began to exert unbeforeknown amounts of pressure (our hero grew sniff-necked. His inability to suck-in enough air, it having grown more particulate than gaseous left him blue-faced). In between minutes his beard would regrow, time having begun to sprint from morning to noon, and hurdle from noon to evening, and then stop altogether between evening and twilight again. Broken, dispirited and unable to manage timepieces anymore, he grew his beard; considered an ascetic life, death-by-drowning, arsenic (kick-it-old-skool); growing a beak and wings and flying away to the island of the Lotus Eaters; never speaking again, and... finally, after 5 days of being voodoo-dolled by Fate's forceful fingers- crushed by having rekindled (only temporary) that long since missing panacea for all his ills (including his now brittle, plasticated heart)_ l_o_v_e_! _the bravery to abscond from medical school and begin clearing a new part of the field to call: life.
Easter-Europe can be summed up in the story of the luggage-bag: strained, almost-broken, broke, crushed. To this we need only add: paranoia. fever. a sort of noisiness that causes one to wake in the morning trembling and continue the day being vibrated (as though he were a tuning fork being continuously slammed slammed slammed slammed against some hard counter-top). The author summarized it himself like this: I unraveled as a man.
Our history can pick up again in the quiet of Seattle's mountainous ports and docks and fingers of water constantly picking their way more and more inland. There he slept. Maintained a fairly austere diet of clam-chowder one day a week, and tomato soup and a grilled-cheese please the second. A inchoate ability to function again in social circumstances was slowly encouraged by Martha's incredible ability to say tomes with eyes and gestures and a perfect mastery of how to share a cup of tea on a balcony (and indeed a gift for selecting a felicitous time to do so). Having been propped up on stilts and wearing a scare-crow's 4th-dead-hand overalls and a straw hat, he boarded the plane once again (this time with crosses as eyes and a dread that turned his blood nearly black- which was probably overdoing the look somewhat though in accordance with) the intention of attending his grandfather's (now-dead) funeral. (cue-the dirge now). He was well prepared for this since having taken full advantage of (telecommunications) h(im)e had written already two eulogies and a fairly courteous draft of introductory remarks to be recited at the commencement of the program.
From here we pass through strange landscapes made up of prayer, agitation, despair, complete annihilation and a sort of rebirth that is the skeleton of platitudes everywhere from Phoenix myths to retellings of Passions to several billion Bildungsromans.
And what of this arduous tale other than it ends at 11:42pm on Saturday, the 26th of April, 2008?
PART II: PUTTING APRIL 26th 2008 IN CONTEXT
Dear future. Dear infinitum. Dear: new friends, eventual-lovers, perhaps pet-cats-or-dogs, pizza pieces eaten, walks taken, bones broken, hearts broken, hearts mended, people spoken to, children laughed with as held close to my chest so thee can hearest the only pure sound I have left that I can make (bu-boom, bu-boom, bu-boom, bu-boom), love made and enoyed/perhaps love made and left-feeling guilty.alone.poor.smiling, Bach inventions heard by good.bad.mediocre pianists, pianos left to be touched, pianos I must walk past and ignore, vacuum cleaners fixed, spoons held, hands shook, hands held, hands kissed, hands worked besides, hands communicated to, hands put rings on (hand), prayers read while sobbing and groaning in complete humiliation (I am not too-man to admit), prayers said while semi-nude laying in the sun in Santa Monica by the pool while listening to Mozart and smiling, carrying my sister into the bathtub, carrying my own babies into the bathtub, learning again how to be happy enough to dance, learning how to manage faith, blueberry muffins, tests, pieces of paper, near-perfect-pens, terrible can't-touch-this-lest-it-adulterates-my-soul pens, ALL-that,
Dear ALL-that:
you now exist. You now exist because I had my heart broken twice, and failed at a bunch of stuff, and spent a few months ceasing to exist, and spent a few months translucent (somewhat), and spent a few months certain I was going to move to Nowherville, Nowhere and get a job in a gas-station and renounce the having of dreams, life or fun, box the future (everything) into a shoebox (need her to suffer) and put her in that closet (next to my test-results) and spend the rest of my days "cash or credit" "it does work, just press harder" "we're outta twinkies" "isle 4" "we don't have that here" "I don't know" "the maps are kinda outta date", and then, woke up one morning. This morning perhaps, and decided against that.
Dear ALL-that:
I fixed the vacuum last week. I can fix it again. I still like blueberry muffins. And all else... well, I did find a new suitcase. __eventually.
Dear future-wife, thanks for now existing a little more. Dear future-babies, you won't have a TV unless you're watching the news and you have to play at least one musical instrument, and read Macbeth by 13. Other than that, I promise to wrestle with you lots and tickle your baby feet and listen to you and be your friend so we can talk about why God is more important than anything. Dear future pancakes, you will taste sweeter. Dear future cities, my feet look forward to your acquaintance.
Dear ALL-me:
please come soon. I have worked hard for you to be born. I sense you are worth the effort, I just hope there's enough of me left to host you when you get here.
*__*__*
dear readers,
my apologies, I kinda got bored through this thing and so it lost some punch. I'll probably not write anything so long again, cause... I'm as easily deterred from prolix manuscripts as you are.
There was a haircut, perhaps the best ever, this began it. A few minutes later, amidst a flurry of phonecalls, most of them reproaching the protagonist of this tale, an immediate trip to a pathology lab, some flirting with an elderly woman, and eventually, a plastic vile filled with a dark, viscous sample of his blood (which after much trouble, would eventually go on to prove immunity to two variants of hepatitis).
Two homes were packed and cleaned in two days. Our hero lay languishing on a bed by the afternoon of day 1. Approximately 8 weeks of assiduous study, rote-memorization, and lugubrious, melancholic yearnings for a more meaningful life had sapped him of all earthly will and left him in a crestfallen lassitude which not even the promise of smashing wooden structures could dissipate. (as an aside, it did turn out that in an anomalous moment he did find the strength to stand, fetch a mallet and ravage his little sister's no-longer-needed desk into approximately 8 medium-sized parts. She has yet to completely forgive him for the obduracy he demonstrated in doing so). It is in between these fits of compensatory anger (redirected from the insipid, monotonous life of flash-cards he had led for nearly three months consecutive) and bouts of tres fatigue that the necessity of haircut was mentioned by his mother, the necessity of evidence of hepatitis immunity was mentioned by his nefarious institution of education, and the necessity of rest was curtly ignored by all.
In conclusion of these preliminary days, he stumbled, mumbled and dreamt his way from sitting in the school tavern after his final exam drinking bubbly grapefruit juice (in contrast to the smell of beer having spilled liberally over floor, chair and table alike, and which acquires a certain novel smell after making contact with the sole-surface of too many inebriated patron's footwear) through the mayhem of the packing travesties to the gate of some international airport or another.
He awoke momentarily twice during the flight, once to drink a plastic-cup of water- some portion of which dribbled down his numb lips (a categorical lack of kissing perhaps the cause), a second time to wonder where on earth it is he was. Finally some 10 hours later, the plane landed in a humid, dank and miserably smoke infested Hong Kong. Some noodles, windowshopping, and exhausted boredom later, the plane took off again- our hero having barely made the flight after having fallen into deep slumber and dreaming dreams made up of the possible variants of these words: THE FLIGHT TO ______ WILL BE BOARDING FROM GATE (any combination of whole-number, double or triple digit, positive integers) FINAL LAST CALL PROCEED IMMEDIATELY MR MRS TRAVELING TO crap Jo, that's us!). On a coldish, grey morning, he arrived in Beijing. Sat in a cab. Arrived in an apartment building, put down his large bag (which in Prague would crack, in Hamburg would be dragged, in Prague (revisited) would resolutely break, and would be cursed and sworn at until the second day of death-by-Vienna (a.lonely) would be replaced by a doubly-priced (but) inferior model) and collapsed into a nearly 20 hour stupor.
The rest of the China-Diaries would pass by in a mixture of dirt, smog, elated carelessness, soul-crushing indigents, walking aimlessly around in Shanghai dressed like a mendicant (and treated as a rock-star), solicited regularly for paid and unpaid sexual intercourse- of which two instances went considered and two instances were humbly and politely declined by our heart-broken, love-martyred, self-pitying protagonist; instances of running across long tortuous walls smiling ear to ear with more teeth than the moon, kicking the thinnest fall-seasoned, tree-fallen starfish (translation = autumn leaves) ever seen and the constant packing and hiding of the thoughts of exam-results into the darker closets of ones mind. China passed in a mixture of illness, suffocation, animated bargaining, strolling, staring.looking.seeing, praying and the first-ever intimations of an understanding of how diverse and how multifarious humanity is. All in all a mixture of death-by-drowning, heart-swollen by the probity and candor of the people encountered (and at very least the taxi-drivers).
It was not until arriving in Haifa that the world begin to spin at least 14 times faster on its axis, the particles of moisture in the air began to take on new properties so that atmospheric pressure began to exert unbeforeknown amounts of pressure (our hero grew sniff-necked. His inability to suck-in enough air, it having grown more particulate than gaseous left him blue-faced). In between minutes his beard would regrow, time having begun to sprint from morning to noon, and hurdle from noon to evening, and then stop altogether between evening and twilight again. Broken, dispirited and unable to manage timepieces anymore, he grew his beard; considered an ascetic life, death-by-drowning, arsenic (kick-it-old-skool); growing a beak and wings and flying away to the island of the Lotus Eaters; never speaking again, and... finally, after 5 days of being voodoo-dolled by Fate's forceful fingers- crushed by having rekindled (only temporary) that long since missing panacea for all his ills (including his now brittle, plasticated heart)_ l_o_v_e_! _the bravery to abscond from medical school and begin clearing a new part of the field to call: life.
Easter-Europe can be summed up in the story of the luggage-bag: strained, almost-broken, broke, crushed. To this we need only add: paranoia. fever. a sort of noisiness that causes one to wake in the morning trembling and continue the day being vibrated (as though he were a tuning fork being continuously slammed slammed slammed slammed against some hard counter-top). The author summarized it himself like this: I unraveled as a man.
Our history can pick up again in the quiet of Seattle's mountainous ports and docks and fingers of water constantly picking their way more and more inland. There he slept. Maintained a fairly austere diet of clam-chowder one day a week, and tomato soup and a grilled-cheese please the second. A inchoate ability to function again in social circumstances was slowly encouraged by Martha's incredible ability to say tomes with eyes and gestures and a perfect mastery of how to share a cup of tea on a balcony (and indeed a gift for selecting a felicitous time to do so). Having been propped up on stilts and wearing a scare-crow's 4th-dead-hand overalls and a straw hat, he boarded the plane once again (this time with crosses as eyes and a dread that turned his blood nearly black- which was probably overdoing the look somewhat though in accordance with) the intention of attending his grandfather's (now-dead) funeral. (cue-the dirge now). He was well prepared for this since having taken full advantage of (telecommunications) h(im)e had written already two eulogies and a fairly courteous draft of introductory remarks to be recited at the commencement of the program.
From here we pass through strange landscapes made up of prayer, agitation, despair, complete annihilation and a sort of rebirth that is the skeleton of platitudes everywhere from Phoenix myths to retellings of Passions to several billion Bildungsromans.
And what of this arduous tale other than it ends at 11:42pm on Saturday, the 26th of April, 2008?
PART II: PUTTING APRIL 26th 2008 IN CONTEXT
Dear future. Dear infinitum. Dear: new friends, eventual-lovers, perhaps pet-cats-or-dogs, pizza pieces eaten, walks taken, bones broken, hearts broken, hearts mended, people spoken to, children laughed with as held close to my chest so thee can hearest the only pure sound I have left that I can make (bu-boom, bu-boom, bu-boom, bu-boom), love made and enoyed/perhaps love made and left-feeling guilty.alone.poor.smiling, Bach inventions heard by good.bad.mediocre pianists, pianos left to be touched, pianos I must walk past and ignore, vacuum cleaners fixed, spoons held, hands shook, hands held, hands kissed, hands worked besides, hands communicated to, hands put rings on (hand), prayers read while sobbing and groaning in complete humiliation (I am not too-man to admit), prayers said while semi-nude laying in the sun in Santa Monica by the pool while listening to Mozart and smiling, carrying my sister into the bathtub, carrying my own babies into the bathtub, learning again how to be happy enough to dance, learning how to manage faith, blueberry muffins, tests, pieces of paper, near-perfect-pens, terrible can't-touch-this-lest-it-adulterates-my-soul pens, ALL-that,
Dear ALL-that:
you now exist. You now exist because I had my heart broken twice, and failed at a bunch of stuff, and spent a few months ceasing to exist, and spent a few months translucent (somewhat), and spent a few months certain I was going to move to Nowherville, Nowhere and get a job in a gas-station and renounce the having of dreams, life or fun, box the future (everything) into a shoebox (need her to suffer) and put her in that closet (next to my test-results) and spend the rest of my days "cash or credit" "it does work, just press harder" "we're outta twinkies" "isle 4" "we don't have that here" "I don't know" "the maps are kinda outta date", and then, woke up one morning. This morning perhaps, and decided against that.
Dear ALL-that:
I fixed the vacuum last week. I can fix it again. I still like blueberry muffins. And all else... well, I did find a new suitcase. __eventually.
Dear future-wife, thanks for now existing a little more. Dear future-babies, you won't have a TV unless you're watching the news and you have to play at least one musical instrument, and read Macbeth by 13. Other than that, I promise to wrestle with you lots and tickle your baby feet and listen to you and be your friend so we can talk about why God is more important than anything. Dear future pancakes, you will taste sweeter. Dear future cities, my feet look forward to your acquaintance.
Dear ALL-me:
please come soon. I have worked hard for you to be born. I sense you are worth the effort, I just hope there's enough of me left to host you when you get here.
*__*__*
dear readers,
my apologies, I kinda got bored through this thing and so it lost some punch. I'll probably not write anything so long again, cause... I'm as easily deterred from prolix manuscripts as you are.
1 comment:
i was frantically eating the last of my cereal to this read. i want to read more dear future things...
I adore: "Dear future-babies, you won't have a TV unless you're watching the news and you have to play at least one musical instrument, and read Macbeth by 13. Other than that, I promise to wrestle with you lots and tickle your baby feet and listen to you and be your friend so we can talk about why God is more important than anything."
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