letter to a friend: Transgression

Dear Screams,

It is eight o'clock and I am still suffering the effects of last night's revelry. Why did I go to a party full of late 20-somethings and drink like I was one of them? Was I trying to be inconspicuous? I think they probably noticed I wasn't a peer. Don't let the label fool you, "The Kraken" is not the sea monster from Icelandic folklore but instead is a onomatopoeiac warning describing how your head will feel the next morning after drinking it. This is what happens when you are a lonely person accepting invitations to parties from strangers.

Though only time will cure the cruda, I have at least removed the psychological component from this familiar experience by adopting a trick that eases my next day anxiety about possible manifestations of my disinhibition as stupidity, obnoxiousness or offensiveness. During the episode I periodically {about every twenty minutes} check in with my brain with the following survey question: "Are you doing or saying anything you'll regret right now?" If I find that I am, then I stop. If not, then I answer with an emphatic "no". The next morning when I think "oh crap, what the hell did I do"? I can refer to my mental checklist and feel comforted.

So why do I feel so bothered today? Guilt, I think, because I live the same way now that I've lived since I was in college. I have grown up in the sense that my thinking has evolved and my emotional maturity has increased, but life-style wise it's the same old thing. Not by choice. I go out into the world to quell my loneliness, and do this significantly less when I get what I need at home. Still, I would never be a homebody. I am a restless spirit drawn to measured iniquity. These characteristics are sealed in my brain's immutable rock, the progeny of the blank slate, an impenetrable foundation, not innate but formed in the first few years, months, weeks, days, hours or even minutes after and during the birth process. I have to listen to it.

I know, Screams, I promised I would embrace my loneliness, accept it as fate. I am trying, but the night falls so early now and my heart starts to beat like a drum, and then the churning in my chest: I call it the gerbil on a treadmill. It is a physical sensation, not a mental one. I cannot rest or concentrate even on tasks I usually enjoy like painting, knitting or baking. Some projects, like reading, writing and cartooning are less difficult because I can do them while being out in the world and through them I can imagine a world of good friends.

I must get back on schedule. Early to bed, early to rise will keep my flying right. I am planning to do some volunteering and regain my political activism soon. This will also make a difference. The party threw everything out of whack since I stayed up until four and slept until eleven. On the couch. My clothes scattered everywhere across the floor. My head Kracken open. My mental checklist at least releasing me from regret. Living as I did in college. It is not by choice, Screams. Not by choice.

Love, Lara

Oops

Here it is, the long awaited return of Approaching Zero. Perhaps it has been revived...or perhaps it is only taking its last futile gasp before expiring. Who knows? Apparently Squeak has a boyfriend now. I had no idea. Quite an interesting development but he appears to be a neurotic freak. You'd think she would have better judgment considering her cognitive capacity and I'm very surprised she has the time.


(For those of you that are not aware of this aspect of my artistic life, I have written over 100 of these, the last about five years ago. This one I created yesterday.)

letter to a friend...continued

Dearest Screams:

Today was rainy and warm, and my kitchen has been invaded by fruit flies hatching from the vermiculture bin. It may be the last breath of fall, so I celebrated with an extra long walk. Now, as I write to you, I am thoroughly soaked since I was ill-prepared for the weather.

Walking and thinking go nicely together. My thoughts jumped from car alarms to Christmas lights. From decomposition to rust. I listened to the news on my MP3 player for a while and thought I might detour my June Gypsy plans for a few months in Liberia volunteering as a nurse. I'd leave now but I started a new job, as you know, and I have my bridges to consider. The one's you aren't supposed to burn.

I reflected, also, on the people in my life, from the trivial to the significant. I thought of my day in orientation working with matter-of-fact Scotland, who is highly skilled at her craft of teaching new hires, and plain old Pillsby, the man who is my preceptor and who reminds me of a ball of lifeless white dough. His thinking is flabby and soulless and tells me everything I do is "great",  while Scotland finds a million errors and tells me how to correct them. Then says "good effort" with a sincere and encouraging smile.

As I walked along the patch of concrete, where a lone stroller's footsteps are preserved, defiantly deeper as they go, I thought of the Blasphemer, who initially drew my scattered attention to this observation. He had to return to his Hinterland alone, since he could not extract the essential oils he needed from our relationship. As my gaze turned to the shimmering silhouettes of naked trees I thought about the Mantid, who's unexpected flight has left behind a ghostly exoskeleton for me to puzzle over. The children's toys behind the streaked windows of closed shops reminded me of my inaccessible childhood conducted by my parents, who sent me off to the school of life, my Pandora's lunchbox packed with insecurity and anxiety. I am still sitting on the steps after every one else has gone home, waiting for them to return.

But, Screams, you know, as I ponder these relationships I realize how, despite the lingering impatience and anxiety that plagues me almost constantly, my heart in regards to others has become less damaged. There was a time it was a gaping wound, reopened over and over, purulent, bleeding, swollen, painful, but now, it has healed up quite nicely, with no callous scars. What is my evidence? In the past I would have wrung my hands over Pillsby's incompetent tutelage and I would have begged the Blasphemer to put aside his own feelings in order to nourish mine, and I would have chased after the Mantid, and I would have yearned irrationally for my parents to come pick me up.

Today, however, I just shrug and say "okay", I accept, this is what I have to work with. If these people have malnourished me in one way or another, I will just have to find another source of food. I will keep my attention on the dwindling supply of moments I have left on this floating rock, beneath the stars that surround it, among the hungry life that swallows it and marvel at the existence of my feet, which enable me to walk upon it. I will no longer worry, and beg and chase and yearn. Inaction is not always passivity, more often it is strength.

Well, except maybe in the case of Pillsby. I think he'll have to go.

Goodnight, Screams.

letter to a friend part IV

Good Morning Screams,

This day finds me behind schedule getting off to the grind. I had a slight reprieve from the isolation last night and saw some old friends (I can't believe I've lived in the Arch City long enough to have old friends). We listened to a wonderful concert for Ferguson businesses. I dreamt of music and showers and that I was bathed in some sort of light that made my veins appear as though they were outside my body and had graceful parasitic worms swimming in them. Obviously, the music was a hold-over from the night's events and the infected external vasculature a manifestation of my omnipresent anxiety. I don't know why I'm dreaming about showers but I think I'm mildly irritated with my present choices. All of the showers in my life are evidently suffering from malaise and simply do not leave one feeling very refreshed. A hard shower would do my dreary soul some good. The cats help with their irrepressible ebullience.

Anyway, the expectations are nipping at my toes like a winter wind forcing me inside. I will write soon.

Love, Lara.

letter to a friend: part III

Dear Screams,

So I managed to get up before the sun so now I am settling in to write you a letter and then I must turn in my final grades for that class I told you about. I'm tempted to give all of my students an "A" just to buck the system because I'm fairly irked at systems in general these days and the ubiquitous Christmas music is stirring rebellion in my brain since it feels like a happy pill being shoved down my melancholy throat without my consent.

Yes, it is true, as I have said that I am finally positively alone. Rosalind is busy with family, the Blasphemer is exacting cruel punishment on me for my fastidious heart and, lastly, The Mantid has scurried off into the horizon, leaping entire branches in his haste to make distance. I think he thought I might bite off his head when I only wished to copulate. Anyway, these are my kindred spirits and they are unavailable. Loneliness by circumstance, not choice, since likewise I didn't choose to be introverted or scrupulous.

Last night I dreamt of travel, airplanes and strangers' beds. These are restless dreams since my alienation has set me to pacing the cage. I am browsing RVs and school busses and making calendars to mark the days to my departure from this failed experiment with the Arch City: vowing to perform at least one task a day towards the goal. I had the opportunity to leave so many times and then something would pull me back in. This time I'm not falling for schemes.

The trip is scheduled for June. Where I will go is still uncertain, but living on the fringe is appealing to me: with few modern conveniences and an outsider's view. Time to create which is my calling. Not nursing or teaching or waitressing or giving my tacit approval by participating in the absurd capitalist nightmare America has become.

If I must be lonely then I must accept it as my fate and embrace it whole-heartedly. As an agnostic, Screams, you know I don't believe in such nonsense, but this trajectory has taken on the appearance of fate, since I have fought it so doggedly and trained myself so thoroughly to eke out an existence within the system only to keep landing on my back with a bloody sword lodged in my chest.

Sorry, Screams, for the darkness this morning. I will regain my strength, only this time I will train myself not in the weapons of survival in this endless war, but instead to run fast, away from the battlefield entirely.

Do not listen to sages, but only to your own voice, says Emerson...a sage.  

Love, Lara.

letter to a friend part II

Dear Screams,

There are people who are born to be lonely, then there are people that have loneliness thrust upon them. I am of the latter camp since, despite what I said in my last letter, I am, in fact, social and quite a nice person to be around. But I am always alone and quite tired of it, actually. I mean, tonight...tonight, what did I do? I went to the gym, which was nice, because I was really angry and was able to sustain extra time on the fucking stair stepper and my MP3 player really made a difference getting me pumped up with the classical music and all. Then I went home and did some stupid shit around the house. Then I went to the book store and bought "Plutarch: The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives" because I'm somehow obsessed with the purity of Athens, living, as I do, in a failed, fake, farce of a democracy with a failed, fake, farce of a monotheistic religion at its core. I sat for a while and gazed at the beautiful paintings in a book about the Louvre, pausing specifically on Leonardo, because its so dark and lovely. Then I went to the Stone Spiral and read about Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (AKA TORTURE), and then a little about  Romulus and Theseus and listened to some dude play maudlin songs on a piano. Then I went home. And here I am, writing to you, Screams.  I've decided I'm going to start going to bed early and getting up WAY early, you know, like 4:00. I'm more productive in the morning. At night I just tend to pace and drink and think too much. In the morning I'll pay my bills, maybe do some painting, reading, cleaning, listening to political radio, cook, etc. But this is not the life I wanted, Screams. Not at all. I never asked for this life. I'm facing Christmas and New Years alone. I have acquaintances that invite me places but they all have real lives, with kids and spouses and the like. I saw a dude tonight I always see walking around alone and I think "that guy wants to be alone". My friend The Blasphemer from the Hinterland wants to be alone. The loners I know WANT to be alone. I don't. I just have to be alone. I am in the best shape of my life, beautiful and daring and confident and ready to splash into the world with lust and adventure and the people around me are like fragile ballerinas in a jewelry box worn out and winding down while the world just wants to strap me with its chains.

I don't know what to do.

Anyway, I'm going to bed. Early. I'll write to you in the morning.

letters to a friend: part I

Dear Screams,

Well, I officially have no one to talk to now except for you and my best friend Rosalind who lives far away and my cats who don't speak my language. That's alright. Who needs human companionship? I've decided to denounce humans all together as pathetically weak at best and pathetically evil at worst, and I'm fully siding with nature in that eternal war. And, by the way, when I sat down with nature to go over the details of our alliance, we decided that we're taking music with us. Humans can't have music despite being its creator. Music, nature and me against the rest of humanity sans Rosalind who I'll accept as neutral. Alright, were taking wine, too.

Fine! So, I'm too nice of a person to become outright hostile. Crawling into a hole is more my style. I know operation drop out was supposed to start a few months ago but I got side-tracked by hope: a teaching job that has now ended. So, operation drop-out is now back in full swing. I only have to fake it just a little bit longer in order to support my nasty food and shelter habit. Today I've started practicing, though, by purchasing a disconnection device. I think it's called an MP3 player but I was never good at identifying different species of horrible technologies. I've found it really helps to keep one firmly embedded in one's own head. The apathetic traffic doesn't seem so contemptible when Mahler is blasting in your ear. Tearing apart the turtle-lynching holes of a plastic six-pack holder that some asshole left on the pavement is much more dramatic during a Brahms symphony. Yes, despite my rock n roll roots lately I've just been blasting the classical.

Look, Screams, it wasn't my choice. I tried to operate in this farcical tragedy of errors that humans call technological progress or civilization or whatever, but I just keep getting shit upon. I can't do it any more. I'm tired. I was cursed with a recalcitrant brain that just wants to sense and feel and love and create all of the time. I've had it with human indifference and human frailty. To this end, I guess I was fortunate enough not to be born into abject poverty or a warzone, but unfortunate enough to be born into a society that doesn't seem to value the things that I value.

 I have to go find my home.

I'll keep you posted, Screams.

Love, Lara.

ApproachingZero:Get a Life!

t

The fable of the field

 

In the morning the field was asleep,

Crickets hummed, but only just enough.

The tune was captured by the lull of steady wind

Massaging the whispering tufts

Of grass.

 

The humble frogs hardly boasted

The dragonflies dawdled and swayed

Occasionally flicking their fragile wings

And dreaming of more dormant days

They rested on their tender reeds.  

 

The chrysalis blended with the blossoms

The butterflies preferring to linger before they flew

Patiently pressing relaxed quantities

Of their metamorphic dew.

Into thick drops.

 

The bees buzz was muted,

As the popping bubbles of the lazy creek

They paused on comfortable petals

Sipping a sumptuous treat

From a bloom.

 

 

The eastern sun illuminated an immense form in the distance,

It was you.

You were singing and waving furiously,

Stomping with thudding boots.

Towards the snoozing field that curiously

Opened one wary eye

And watched you come closer.

As you approached your wild arms whipped up a wind

So powerful that the grass thrashed like a frenzied loom

Shaking off the butterflies.

Tossing them from their blooms,   

They rose together like a cloud of steam in revelation

As if from a boiling kettle,

Elated by their elevation.

Into the noonday sun.  

 

The song sent sharp ripples across the pond

The frogs pumped up their balloons

Then broke into obstreperous chorus

Matching your frequency with tunes

In harmony.

 

The dragonflies tumbled from their bouncing reeds,

Righted themselves in midair,

Discovered their wings were fashioned for speed,

And took off in daring flight

The disturbance prodded the crickets

To pull their forewings tight

Grinding them forcefully.

The bees swarmed together

To compete with the ruckus

Of the suddenly turbid creek.

 

 Just before sunset you reached the western edge,

Your formidable shadow smothered the churning grass.  

First depleting its color,

Then the giant boot came down with a smash  

Snapping the cricket’s tender bows.

Broken stalks stuck in the tread as it rose

And smashed again.

 

The blow splashed the water out of the pond,

Drenching the butterflies,

Their heavy, soaked wings sent them plummeting to the earth,

Their paper bodies

Dissolved in the dirt.

 

The suffocating frogs flapped feebly

Along the cracked crevices of the thirsty hole.

The dried bed littered with desiccated bees

The dragonflies lost their orientation

Flinging themselves upon the parched stones.

You left the field without looking back,

Then, now whistling, marched over the hill,

And who knows why?

You were swallowed up

By the black curtain sky.