today we went to the zoo. lynn, aunty joan, the kids and i. we took a slightly different route, and serendipitously, we were able to see a lot of animals that we had not (sometimes never) seen: a sun bear, a cheetah, the hippos, the sloths, the marmosets. the kids had fun. i enjoy the kids' enjoyment. it is what the world is for, at least in my eyes.

this evening, i tried to do the violin lessons with the kids. it has become my regular responsibility, my chore, to take them through this. lynn hasn't attended the violin lessons, and no longer knows where the kids are at. and besides, if i don't do it, no one ever does. my patience is always short. i hate the person i become when i work with the kids, but it seems like i am paying attention to all of these details that the kids need to work out, and they seem to pay very little. i don't know how to command motivation. i suppose i shouldn't, in any case. i should make things fun. i should take things easy. but when you care about anything, all of a sudden, you almost have to get riled up. i don't know...

this gets to the heart of things, i suppose. caring about something, someone, it "embodies" you into the human realm. and you have to get upset. if you didn't, then you either didn't care, or you insulated yourself somehow, which meant you were a step removed, which implied (although not always) that you didn't care.

i am someone who no longer knows what to care about, or perhaps who cares too much about the wrong things, and too little about the things that matter. i'm not sure. the world goes on either way.

i read somewhere once: perhaps it was in some astrology book or something. i read somewhere that i was not unlike a shield. a shield has a bright side and a dark side. a shield has two surfaces, one burnished and battered, and another concealed and concealing. a shield therefore knows an ambiguity, that the world is a place of impossible forces and collisions, in short, of ceaseless conflict; and it also knows that in the world, there are vulnerabilities that must be protected, must be kept intact. what self does a shield have, if any? it is a border. it is a darkness. it is a mute and deaf piece of metal that only sings its name when it is hit, only knows its purpose when it has stopped the intentions of one and furthered/protected the intentions of another...

i recall in that astrology reading that those who are shields were ceaselessly drawn to the darkness. it is almost a reflex. in the heat of battle, in the clang and clash of war, it is easy to know oneself; my name, for example, means "shield wolf," and i imagine the "rand" is the sound of metal on metal. in conflict, i would know myself, for i would hear my name echo and vibrate within my being.

but when all is quiet, and shields fall to disuse and rust, there is a sinking into the deadness within. if even the echoes die, what does a shield become?

the darkness is vast. and it has no heart.

i often wonder if i have a heart.

i talk about context. context is my battlefield. it is how and where i find my purpose. i complain about context, claiming that it "cuts" me from who i really am, but i also am aware that without context, perhaps there is no answer. i am a border that falls into the fray. without a fray, i am nothing.

***

freud, in beyond the pleasure principle, once described the "original" organism as a cell. some parts of the cell (the cell membrane) had to die, or in some aspect become inert, in order that the interior portions could survive and carry out the living processes. death, in other words, was essential to life. it was from this theoretical beginning that freud posited the existence of twin basal instincts, inextricably tied to one other: thanatos, the need to die, and eros, the need to love/unite.

i always loved certain passages from this book because they echoed something within me, that dead something, and the conflict within me that it inspired...

life sometimes can feel like the compulsion to repeat, a sort of post traumatic syndrome... ultimately, i sometimes feel we are always repeating, even when we think we are being "original."

there is nothing new under the sun.

***

from the apple store, i bought an electronic drawing pad. i hope it will make drawing easier and fun for willow. i want her to get into electronic drawing. she is an excellent artist, and i hope to encourage her to expand into this new and more dynamic medium.

(i also want to use it myself, someday)

if there is one thing i hope for, aside from being better at what i do (teaching, treating people), it is finding ways to express myself artistically, in a variety of media. it is the only way i think i can keep myself "alive." or at least pretend that i am. i don't necessarily do it for any sort of recognition; at least, i don't necessarily care if anyone recognizes worth in my work (although it would be excruciatingly nice). i do it as though i were wielding a dark mirror, to see my own shadow... or perhaps i just want to create a shadow, in order to prove that i exist.