Dear Someone,

I am out here on the edge of the earth. You could hear crickets, if there were any. But crickets seem to prefer being in company, and out here, there is none to speak of really. I’ve been sizing all things up lately, perpetually seeking the remedy for ailments so plenty, that one cure creates the new disease. I’ve been reveling in this land of plenty and have concluded that excess is not any better than deficiency. Atleast with the latter you strive for more, whereas with aplenty you only resent your self induced boredom.

At nights the cold metal sign on the liquor store below sways back and forth on its long un-oiled metal hinge. I imagine this only adds to its discomfort in being a metal in the freezing cold. Not sure if this abused sign is made of iron or perhaps aluminum, and I wonder if this industrial blue-collar metal, envies it’s kinsman of luxury metals who will never be left out to brave the elements of the very earth which created them; the gold that sits warm as an indicator of promise upon a married woman’s cozy, well manicured finger; the bronze sculptures that rest so well adjusted within museum walls, who are only demanded of for their beauty by passing eyes and never, absolutely, never asked for any utility in their form.

The winds blow formidably at this hour in Greenpoint. I don’t know what their message is, but whatever they are trying to get across, they deliver with fervor. We’re less than a half mile from East River, and the gusts from her belly would make you think we must be in a far more exotic place, with much greater peaks, valleys, trees and things. Though, there are trees here actually (a rarity in nyc), the kind of trees some hard working immigrant probably bought from the k-mart agriculture aisle many years ago, on discount due to it’s sickly size & stature (the trees are still slightly sad looking, sunken, a little behind). I can hear these trees sway, with great clarity, just from sitting in my living room with the windows closed. And when the liquor store sign starts to dance on it’s hinges, these noises combined sound strikingly like the ocean’s breeze and dainty seagulls chirping. If it wasn’t below freezing outside I might even be able to convince myself I was somewhere tropical, Florida perhaps (okay, Florida isn’t exactly tropical, but it’s the closest one can get state-side, plus most décor in its hotels and restaurants employee the color sea-foam green. If sea foam green doesn’t insinuate ‘tropical’ I don’t know what does).

Sometimes, like right now, the moment keeps me awake into a far later hour than I had anticipated or desired. This seems to be when clarity comes, with its greatest precision and purity. My mind is a circus most days, filled with sonic booms and color kaleidoscopes so enrapturing, it’s often hard to climb out of their grips. The infinite possibility of the entire universe and my human form within it, run around my brain like carousels of cotton candy and unspoiled children giddy on sugar and the immeasurable love in every atom of the earth around them. I, unfortunately am no longer a child, so such (relative) delusions and mind excess, bring me the most worried heart when I take in the world that actually exists outside of my internal play land. I worry, how I worry. Though ultimately, in some more final & absolute way, I always know everything is going to be just fine. Then I worry some more. And I pace back and forth in my apartment in this state of progress-less motion.

So, it is late at night, when all else is so quiet that the only things I have left to consider are inanimate objects (limited in the amount of time a person can spend speculating about them), when the truth of life in both mind and matter come together and seem so seamless and graceful. When it all seems all right. And alright.

I don’t feel the need to find some esoteric answers to questions that I never even knew to ask. I don’t feel like I’m forgetting to do something, I don’t feel like my last chance (for what? – I don’t know) is passing me by, I don’t feel like I need to jump ship and become a hobo roaming free in the world. I finally feel like sitting here, now, is a fine place to be.
How unbelievably fortunate I am to be here right now with breath in my body. How I don’t really need anything more.

Recalling the past with too much regret or considering the future with any amount of speculation is really quite a waste of time. It distracts from the only thing which a man does have any say in, the here and now, right now, right exactly now. That is all I can take part in really. Tomorrow is just speculation and yesterday is mere memory. It happened, but it has no holding on what can or cannot happen this very instant. Every instant is a clean slate, a new world, an absolutely open earth to explore as is called for in that irreplaceable moment. This idea is far harder to remember and employee than it is to comprehend and believe in.

So I am leaving a paper trail, to remind myself of this.

Longing & Desire

The things I want, are the same, and have changed little since I can remember even having desires. The context and the execution has changed, but not the root of the desire. And I wonder if we sometimes keep ourselves from embarking upon those hazy eyed desires, for fear of knowing the likelihood that the magical will vanish once we are upon it.

The funny thing about this human condition, and how we begin beneath the earth and steadily rise to reach the sun, as so many things, dandelions, pear trees, magnolias, shrubs, weeds, oaks, vineyard lines. We all have out varied forms. And from the moment we are born, we begin to scurry away from our roots, beneath the soil of earth's sleep, scurrying to reach up above, to where the sun and company of others illuminate our limbs and eyes. Our clandestined paradise. Our forms twist and stretch, and become almost entirely new entities. We become such magnificent things by the light of the sun and warmth of those by whose company and wisdom we are nurtured. And at some point, we are cut down at our knees, picked, ripe, ready or not. And our forms are in no sight upon the ground. They have been taken by hands of strangers. Consumed, admired, annihilated, or mistaken. Our stalks and stems are no longer, and those circumstantial vestiges are recycled back into the cycle by mouths or smiles or compost piles. The soil is barren, flat, and without us above.

And just below what has been reaped, the quiet root remains. Still and steady as it came. And we can remember where we came from and why, and see clear again. And so we begin again.