("---" indicates omissions from the narrative)

For one flash, the Mommy had seen the mountain without thinking of logging and ski resorts and avalanches, managed wildlife, plate tectonic geology, microclimates, rain shadow, or yin-yang locations. She’d seen the mountain without the framework of language. Without the cage of associations. She’d seen it without looking through the lens of everything she knew was true about mountains.

What she’d seen in that flash wasn’t even a “mountain.” It wasn’t a natural resource. It had no name.

“That’s the big goal,” she said. “To find a cure for knowledge.”

For education. For living in our heads.

---

Ever since the story of Adam and Eve in the Bible, humanity had been a little too smart for its own good, the Mommy said. Ever since eating that apple. Her goal was to find, if not a cure, then at least a treatment that would give people back their innocence.

---

“I figure if Eve could get us into this mess, then I can get us out,” the Mommy said. “God really likes a go-getter.”

---

“The cerebral cortex, the cerebellum,” she said, “that’s where your problem is.”

If she could just get down to using only her brain stem, she’d be cured.

This would be somewhere beyond happiness and sadness.

You don’t see fish agonized by wild mood swings.

Sponges never have a bad day.

---

“My goal,” the Mommy said, “is not to uncomplicate my life.”

She said, “My goal is to uncomplicate myself.”

---

Every addiction, she said, was just a way to treat this same problem. Drugs or overeating or alcohol or sex, it was all just another way to find peace. To escape what we know. Our education. Our bite of the apple.

Language, she said, was just our way to explain away the wonder and the glory of the world. To deconstruct. To dismiss. She said people can’t deal with how beautiful the world really is. How it can’t be explained and understood.

---

“We don’t live in the real world anymore,” she said. “We live in a world of symbols.”

The following is an excerpt from a conversation that 15 year-old Donnie has with his therapist:

Therapist: Donnie, what did Roberta Sparrow say to you?

Donnie: She said that every living creature on Earth dies alone.

Therapist: (pauses) How did that make you feel?

Donnie: (pauses thoughtfully) It reminded me of my dog Cali. She died when I was 8 and…she crawled underneath…the porch…

Therapist: To die.

Donnie: To be alone.

Therapist: Do you feel alone right now?

Donnie: I…I mean I’d like to believe I’m not, but I just…I’ve just never seen any proof so I…I just don’t debate it anymore, you know, it’s like, I could spend my whole life debating it over and over again weighing the pros and cons and in the end I still wouldn’t have any proof so I just, I just don’t debate it anymore. (chuckles ruefully) It’s absurd.

Therapist: The search for God is absurd?

Donnie: It is if everyone dies alone.

Therapist: Does that scare you?

Donnie: I don’t wanna be alone.

Sorry that I haven’t been blogging so much of late. Lots has been going on in my life, which I promise to update everyone on soon. Also, my notes and journals and other ongoing pieces of writing have been gaining most of my attention. I have a two-week period of vacation coming up, so I should be rambling again soon. :)

warm bodies, I sense

are not machines that can only make money

past, perfect, tense

words for a feeling and all I've discovered

I'll be along son with medicine supposed to,

designed to make you high

I'll be along son

with words for a feeling and all I've discovered

old, bad eyes

old, bad eyes

old, bad eyes

on loneliness comes

go see the foreman, go see the profiteer

on loneliness drives

we're takin' our time movin' shit for this holy slime

old, bad eyes

old, bad eyes

old, bad eyes, almighty fear

the shepherd won't leave me alone

he's in my face and I

the shepherd of my days

and I want you here by my heart and my head,

I can't start till I'm dead

[Background Lyrics:]

here I am locking horns with the stallion

failing to hold my head up, I'll go back again

pillar of davidson feeling too hard to go down

cheaper than all the souls he will walk upon

deeper and deeper in love so I hold my head up

cheaper than all the souls he will walk upon

pillar of davidson feeling to hard to go down

Please, mother mercy

Take me from this place

And the long winded curses

I keep hearing in my head

Words never listen

And teachers never learn

Now I'm warm from the candle

But I feel too cold to burn

He came from an island

And he died from the street

He hurt so bad like a soul breaking

But he never said nothing to me

So say hello to heaven

New like a baby

Lost like a prayer

The sky was your playground

But the cold ground was your bed

Poor stargazer

She's got no tears in her eyes

But smooth like a whisper

She knows that love heals all wounds with time

Now it seems like too much love

Is never enough, you better seek out

Another road 'cause this one has

Ended abrupt, say hello to heaven

I never wanted

To write these words down for you

With the pages of phrases

Of things we'll never do

So I blow out the candle, and

I put you to bed

Since you can't say to me

Now how the dogs broke your bone

There's just one thing left to be said

Say hello to heaven

So having never read any Hemingway, some good friends of mine have stepped in and gotten me on the wagon. I'm starting with The Sun Also Rises. Started a little slow for me, but that may be because I haven't read regularly for a while. After a bit, I started to 'find the rhythm' of the author, so to speak. I'm really getting into the almost slang-like, from the hip style. It's nice to read a good author again. :) I really enjoy that 'finding the rhythm' process. It's like getting know someone. You get to know them in a certain environment. Then, as your relationship continues (i.e. reading more of their books), you see them in a different light. After some time, you get a feel for the person.

That may be the single greatest reason I read. There's an honesty in the best of it that is unavoidable. That same honesty is there to be found among the best of people, and certainly not all of them are writers. I'm learning to love those discoveries as well. :) I think it's harder for me because there's more personal risk. A natural introvert trying to be more extroverted...is nothing sacred anymore? :)

You know what my ideal job might very well be? A rare book dealer. I’ve talked to a few recently. It’s a hard business to get into, but I can think of few better positions than book store owner. I could close shop for a season and travel, or turn business over to a trusted associate. I prefer a barebones life. I’m a no frills kind of guy, even though I admittedly enjoy them :). It’s just that I’ve learned to live without them. I know in my heart that the things that really make a life well-lived are the lives you’ve touched. I know this in my head, and feel it in my heart…now comes the daunting task of living this way. :) Nothing good is ever easy.

Gasp! I think I may actually be in a good mood! …And the world pauses to take its breath… ;).

Do you ever have that feeling when you're talking to someone that your words are turning to BS as they leave your mouth? Yeah, I had that feeling this weekend as I tried to explain myself. Every thought I had clear in my head went to mush as I attempted to communicate them. My conclusion was either that I have a communication problem or a thought problem. I'm not sure which scares me more.

Thanks to a lot of long, cold walks, some good conversations with friends, and a little sangria, I’ve been able to begin the process of ‘coming to grips’ with who I am. As it is said, one cannot be any more or less than one is. Sounds like meaningless tripe (:), but I’ve found new meaning in this truth….and in another truth, one that was spoken to me a long time ago.

”Only fools dream of the one thing they can’t have.”

I took it to heart then, or so I thought. I think a part of me didn’t want it to be true. I deluded myself, allowing myself to forget. Sort of like Memento, one of my favorite movies. You can want to believe, need to believe something so badly that it overcomes any kind of truth. In a way, you get to the point where you’d rather die than accept that truth. Death would be better than a life without dream. This dilemma will always be with me, but for now, I’ve decided to let go and try life. A life without me in the center of it will be nice, for a change. :)

Why is it that, in the face of an entire world full of people, some of us feel so alone? I ask only because I know that this is a sickness of many of us in the modern age. I can, of course, only speak of myself…so I will. I send this blog out into the echoing void that is the internet. I’m not even sure why. Maybe the same reason I like to people-watch, or wander among the denizens of downtowns and suburbs. I long for the connection that some part of me fears to make. Well, for a time I didn’t fear it. I reached out and opened up. But I paid the price for that. Oh, God, I’m still realizing how deeply that price was paid. So now, I’m caught in an, honestly, self-pitying place. I’m turned so inward, thinking so introspectively, that I can’t make any connections. Vicious circle? Yeah, right here. And the worst part is that I KNOW it. I know where I am, I know why, I know how. I feel like the prisoners from Pirates of the Caribbean, where the dog is just sitting there with the keys in its mouth and they’re all trying desperately to get the dog to come to them…meanwhile, Jack Sparrow just sits there, knowing the dog is trained not to come. Funny comparison, but there it is.

I’ve been doing some serious soul-searching lately. I don’t so much like what I’m seeing, but it IS truth. And I guess that’s a good place to start. Another good thing would be if people would stop leaving. Hepaestus and TracitaLynne, two of my four links and two of my very good friends, recently moved to Massachusetts. They are missed, even more than I thought. And they are just the latest on a long line of leavers. I’d like for that to change, but maybe I’m asking to much. After all, it seems that to be left is to be human. People move on, even when you’d really rather they not. Bah, I’m getting overtly self-pitying again. Enough. Why is it that I only post to this blog when I’m feeling whiny? Somebody send me a Shakabuku…

I'm out walking. It's just past midnight, and the moon is as full as it gets. The clouds are like ripples on a pond, the kind that give a sort of washboard look to the sky. The lights of the city are shining purposelessly, reflecting back down to me. For no reason I could see, I feel…strange, disjointed, like I’ve lost my place in time. I continue walking, relishing the feeling for its strength. Waiting, for truth only comes with patience. You could say that it finally ‘dawned’ on me, what I was experiencing. Pre-dawn light, but hours before expected. It felt like morning.

And, since I unerringly think in metaphor, I applied this to my life (I’ve heard it said that, “People who speak in metaphors can shampoo my crotch.” There could be some truth there). I had a strange and new feeling in my life not long ago. It felt like the dawning of a new day. There was light and love and hope. I could feel the sun rising. I lived inside of that idea for a time. It kept me blind to the truth. I lived like a child, filled with unwarranted expectations. I lived in a dream. When I was shaken awake, only to be greeted by the continuing night…have you ever had a dream that you never wanted to wake from? How do you feel, in that in-between? That tiny moment when you know what you just lost? Extend that moment, and there I am, gazing eastward. Trapped in the black amber of a false dawn.

That’s how I feel.

Nothing seems to fit

I know you'd hit out

If you only knew who to hit

And I'd join the movement

If there was one I could believe in

Yeah I'd break bread and wine

If there was a church I could receive in

'cause I need it now

To take the cup

To fill it up

To drink it slow

Can't let you go

I must be an acrobat

To talk like this

And act like that

And you can dream

So dream out loud

And don't let the bastards grind you down

-U2