April 2, 2005

  • There are endless ways to be.  Myriad forms of self-expression.  Ways to live.  Ways to die.  Ways to be amidst.


     


    Most usually, we just go about being who “we are” and fitting into the ‘amidst’ presented to us.


     


    Born-rebels, anarchists, revolutionaries preconditionally reject such an obvious path, however.  They see it, at best, as pablum.  At worst, as hemlock force-fed.


     


    Personally, being strictly non-doctrinaire and vituperatively  anti-ideological, I neither accept nor reject presumptively.  Rather, I try different ‘me’s on always.  As if, odd-sized, in the fitting room of a clothing store.  As if in an ice cream parlor licking a taste of this and that off of  different throw-away trial spoons.  I sample myself.  Ever in the realm of the imaginative potential. 


     


    But they say: “Sooner or later, you must choose. Own your course.  Make your way.”


     


    Must we?  What if my course, my calling, my vocation is to sample?  Peruse? 


     


    They ask me:  “Who are you?  What do you do?”


     


    I should answer: “I’m a peruser. I’m an empath outside looking in.  I’m the weighted concatenation of all influences roaming about, including you.  And, in expression, I’m an ever-changing exfluence reflecting all that has been, is, and will be.”


     


    So I imagine.


     


    Am I morbid?  Do I find comfort amidst desolation?  There are other worlds that I’ve explored that would beg that question.  But what does it mean to ‘beg a question’?


     


    I was born in a cemetery.  My father was a caretaker and I was to take after him.  My mother a simple housekeeper.  And I grew through childhood, and into adolescence and onto manhood playing, reflecting, and working amidst the graves of those who’d been. 


     


    I learned mathematics by calculating the age spans of interees: ‘born’ – ‘died’.   I learned spelling by sounding out names no longer to be spoken.  I learned architecture by observing the construction of mausoleums.  I learned ecology by noting that only humans bury their dead, though some creatures bury themselves when near death by hiding away, or staying underground.


     


    Oh, I blended with the living, from time to time.  With those who came to grieve for loved ones passing/passed on.  With my father whose hands were always dirty from digging graves.  With my mother always perfectly silent and respectful at the dinner table.


     


    But otherwise, I was a virtual Emily Dickinson in her hermit state, restricting myself to the bounds of my upbringing in my happy hunting grounds.  Apart, estranged, obscure—but happy.


     


    Then, one day, there interposed a maverick rent in my space-time continuum.  A discontinuity, in other words.  An unexpected interloper.  Some motherfucker appeared in my Dreamland not to grieve, not to bury himself, but to seek exuberance, to do unthinkable things in this refuge of sacred mourning.  Moreover, he appeared not merely once, but continually, almost daily and with excruciating predictably. 


     


    Did he leave flowers?  Did he walk, as others did, forlornly amidst the graves?


     


    No.  He ran.  And ran.  And ran.  Then drank beer.  Even pissed behind bushes.  And he took photos of everything.  Every fucking thing, I tell you.  Then he’d find some of the most scenic and serene places to posture and plant his ass on the ground, drink more beer, and drag a laptop out of a backpack he habitually hauled around.


     


    And he’d write.  Don’t ask me what he wrote.  Who the fuck knows what he wrote?


     


    I had the nerve once, while he tapped upon keyboard,  to confront him about his outrageous behaviors, his ridiculous deportments.  And you know what he replied?   “I’m merely imagining.  Allowing the flux of all-in-the-world to influence me.  And this keyboard tapping, this exfluence, reflects upon all that has been, is, and will be”


     


    Then, right there with me as a witness, he hooked his cell phone up to his laptop, dialed-up a relay that dialed-up a satellite, and sent his exfluence, referring to it as a “blog”, heavenwards. 


     


     And then a hawk streaked across the sky.

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