Our Lives

Our job is to sing our lives as praise of God.

And even if there isn't a God, sing as well as an ultimate God would deserve.

Love

Living with you seems like a dream come true. You do things I always hoped someone would do, but no one ever did, before you.

 

Even more, sometimes the experience feels like a fate long planned and predetermined coming true. Like everything that has ever happened, happened so that these experiences could come true. So that something on a much deeper level of reality could come true. A grand plan is becoming fulfilled.

 

I know this sounds irrational, even insane, but I seldom think it is. The feeling of destiny being fulfilled is infrequent and fleeting, but when it happens, it is so powerful, I feel sure it is true. It explains everything completely.

 

Sometimes this experience feels so beautiful and perfect that it seems artificial, like it is designed to convince me of something.  But if this experience is artificial, then everything that has ever happened has been artificial and contrived to convince me too. I feel a sense of swirling horror. It is so terrifying that my mind seems to involuntarily shy away from the idea.

 

But then, I make a gesture, I caress or somehow express affection for you, and your reaction is so loving, perfect, and beautiful, that I am reassured, and once again simply bask in the wonder and love of life with you.

My day

I had fried eggs and toast for breakfast this morning.
That resulted in a nap.

Then around two I had a chicken sandwich for lunch.
That resulted in another nap.

I wonder what dinner will bring.

I have a cold

I have a cold.

Until today, it’s been a bit different than most of the colds that I’ve had. Usually, my colds start with a runny nose, dripping into the back of my throat, which gives me a sore throat. Then, the infection migrates down, and I develop either bronchitis or pneumonia.

This cold has had very little moisture. Instead, my sinuses are inflamed and swollen, making it hard to breathe. The inflammation reaches down to the top of my throat, but there is very little dripping and the infection has not migrated down. I occasionally sneeze or couch, but it is more from the irritation of the inflammation rather than mucus tickling my throat or lungs.

I have had pneumonia, or at least bronchitis, almost every year since I was three years old. I can tell when I’m getting an infection in my lungs or bronchial tubes; I can taste it. I experience a particular flavor when I’m getting a bad cold that I never experience at any other time.

I remember when I was a kid, my eldest sister would first get strep throat and then I would get pneumonia. Of course, we don’t live together any more, but I do sometimes wonder when I get a cold whether she’s been sick recently.

I relish getting sick. It seems to me like a vacation from having to worry about everyday concerns. I’ve had conversations with several friends about this and they’ve said they don’t feel this way about getting sick. I suppose my Mom lead me to have this attitude; when I got sick as a kid, she took care of all of my responsibilities and let me focus on recuperating.

When I have a cold, I use several tricks to minimize the discomfort. When I have a tickle in my chest that makes me cough, I breathe carefully so I don’t move my lungs through the point at which the tickle makes me cough. If the tickle is deep in my lungs, I may breathe shallowly. If the tickle is higher in my chest, I may breathe using only the deep part of my normal breathing cycle. I also find that sometimes the position of my body affects my coughing. It’s as if my body or organs press on my lungs and stimulate the tickle. I roll over and when I find a position in which the tickle isn’t noticeable, I lay very still.

The most uncomfortable part is when I’ve been coughing so strenuously for so many days that my diaphragm muscles are sore. Coughing becomes painful. When that happens, I try very hard to avoid coughing. It’s unpleasant.

The first time I got pneumonia, it was quite severe and I was hospitalized. It happened when I was about 3 years old and my first memory is of that time. I remember I was in an oxygen tent which was a plastic cube, about 3 or 4 feet on a side, draped over the bed. I remember my parents gave me a wooden jigsaw puzzle with handles on the pieces. These memories have always been very interesting to me, I suppose because it was a traumatic incident in my life.

Recently however, I’ve realized something else about them that I find even more interesting: the incident happened before I knew how to read and write. Although I clearly remember the oxygen tent and the jigsaw puzzle, and I know I knew what they were called, unlike memories from my more adult life, I have no inclination to picture the object’s names as written words. In fact, as I was considering writing this essay, I found myself struggling to connect the English words with the memories. I realized it felt quite uncomfortable to think about writing words to describe the memories because it might distort the memories so they were no longer free and unadulterated by associations with knowledge of written language.

One more thing, in my memory, the jigsaw puzzle was new. I don’t remember it being something I had had at home.  It occurred to me this week, I wonder if my folks bought it in a hospital gift shop.

Caro Emerald - A Night Like This

Soundtrack for my recurring nightmare
that the world actually is
exactly as it seems

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74LXx0wSqMI

Grief

When I am reminded of my grief,
I am comforted by the knowledge
that most of the time
I remember only the good times

Relieved

I know a woman
She's so beautiful
It makes me sad
She's too young
And even if she weren't
I'm too heartbroken

I want her to be happy
I don't hope.
You can only hope if you can be glad.
I can't be glad
All I can be is relieved
I'm not disappointed
If she is



Draft 2

I occasionally see a woman
Even though I don't know her name
She's so beautiful
Seeing her makes me sad
She's too young
And even if she weren't
I'm too heartbroken

I can't even be glad
hoping she's happy
I can't be glad
So all I can do is want her to be happy
And be relieved
If I'm not disappointed

Sound and light

When I was younger
I could listen to music
and keep time
with the sound waves
reaching me
separately
from the light waves

The Beauty

The everyday
has subsumed
and hidden
the truth.
Sometimes I hear an echo
of the Beauty
buried deep within
everything we see and do.

The horror

The horror recedes into the past
unrepairable
subsumed
even forgotten
but still horror
true
forever
the horror.

Why we do what we do

We do not only signal fitness for reproduction.
We also signal fitness for social roles.

Speaking

I hope this does not disturb your reverie.
Rather, I hope it blends with and expands it.

Truth

I love the me that believes the wonderful things I see are true.

Sometimes I doubt they are and feel fear.

Perfect songs

This type of song evokes a feeling
This exact song is perfect for me;
it makes me aware of what the feeling is a remembrance echo

Greetings from across the void

Hello.
Is someone in there?
What are you thinking?
What does it feel like to be you?

Sacrilegious dance music

Music is sacred to me
Dancing that exists for itself rather than as part of music seems sacrilegious to me.

I look away

I look away
Sometimes to avoid seeing something unpleasant
or in disdain
Sometimes I want to look at you
but I can't
Either way
I have no choice
I look away

I'm lonely

Everybody my age is so damn old

Pictures of Dad

I just had a nice idea while watching a movie on television.

A character in the movie showed her boyfriend a picture of her Mom and said, "She lived a couple of years after that but we didn't take any pictures because she didn't want us to remember her like that."

I've wondered about that with Dad. I don't want to only remember him with pictures that show him frail and sickly.

But here's the nice idea:

I don't want pictures of him from when he was younger. He was just Dad then. Now, is when we're friends. I want to remember him as he now, my Dad who's my friend.