work on nothing

i am in a wandering mood this evening. met the kids at the piano teacher's house, sitting reading about reading comprehension and musing how i was going to incorporate the "reader's workshop" conception and system to a special ed class in which instruction must be individualized... helped the kids with their homework between attempts to snatch baby lizards from the tops of the neatly trimmed mock-orange hedges (i think the secret is to grab before you think about grabbing)... then home with a head full of idle thoughts on how to decorate the house for halloween, and what to do for friday's school halloween party...

the sky is pleasantly dreary, and i love the sound of rain as it insistently hushes the earth loud and quiet with white noise. the wind, loud and at times disturbingly violent, somehow feels clean, as tiny minced fingertips of breezes happen to stir through the barely open screens, stirring things gently... i am comforted by the way the vertical blinds will click softly, rattling like old bones at the touch of the storm outside...

i feel sorry for birds. i recall how, one day, after a particularly blustery storm, i walked across the parking lot at waikele with my kids, and we noticed a finch stricken dead on the ground. a few footsteps found another, and another, until i counted a total of ten such birds, all adults, all otherwise perfectly healthy, but all definitely dead, their talons clutched. it was somewhat traumatic to my children. i explained that when the wind blows, the birds have nowhere to hide, and they are tossed from their homes in the boughs and crashed against the earth... (not in those terms, not in so harsh a manner).

sometimes, when the rain takes over, and gets really loud, i swear i can hear voices shouting from the deep rain drainage ditch behind our house, as though someone were trapped down there, yelling for help...

***

i am a man full of plans. idealistic. but i am old enough to understand the limits of time and endurance. i also have come to understand that a single person contains many, many voices, and many, many motivations, and the higher motivations sometimes only win out after time is patiently doled out to the "lower" motivations. a lot of time is wasted. but i've come to understand (grudgingly, or complacently) that there really is little alternative: people are like blossoms, or crumpled paper, or origami (take your pick), and we only reveal our true shape through a slow, sequential unfolding process. we aren't in control, necessarily, of which fold will open first, or what shape everything will take in the process. in a way, the process of unfolding occurs through us...

and we have only to behold, in wonderment, at who we are, and what the world is in response to our flowering.

***

i look forward to halloween, but this year, there are no new heroes/villains to emulate/copy. i think i am going to recycle costumes. i am dressing as kakashi for the kids in my class, and for sunday, i may revamp my old crow costume. but we'll see...

in the meantime, i hope you, reader, are well, and take respite, and "work on nothing"...

tired, out of focus

today was kinda a bad day. it all started last night, when i kinda blew up at my daughter for going to buy ice cream from the ice cream truck when it was late and dark, and i had explicitly told her not to... i felt really bad after that, so bad that i just kinda wrestled with my own inner demons for most of last night. there is a whole lot of self-hatred seething beneath the surface, and with just a light scratch, a horde rises up to pull me under.

i couldn't get to work, to focus on the things i was supposed to do last night. i kept putting things off, thinking that i'd sleep for a couple of hours and wake up to get things done. but i wasn't sleeping, i was just lying there twisting and turning, my guts clenching with anger, like my whole body was some fist. i kept wanting to drift into oblivion, but it never happened...

the morning came like an unwelcome guest. i rushed out without saying an adequate goodbye to my wife and kids, and found a day disordered and panicked waiting for me. it was a feeling of impending doom that hung over my head the whole day, a day of feeling empty and unprepared and a minute late and uninspired... i hated it. i worked with the kids, who seemed restless and argumentative today, and felt so very tired. i do love the students i work with, but this day was... tough.

i feel dirty with the grit of the world on me. i want to take a shower and then envelope myself in oblivion. but there is always tomorrow looming... dread.

***

i did hear an interview of keith richards (guitarist of the stones), and i found him jaded and wise and interesting. one thing i thought was funny was his description of his fans early on in the stones' rise to fame, consisting of girls 13, 14, and 15 years old, who were desperate to touch and cling to any part of him... but didn't know what to do with him once they had him. keith had had many brushes with death, but he made an endearing statement, something about having no regrets or fears; "everybody has a knock up, a brush up, with death every now and again."

i hope to have that kind of humor about life when i am that age. nowadays, i just feel hunted by my own shadow...

***

shadows sucking marrow
leaving me hollow and skin barely standing
shivering within and without
scared of the slightest puff of the fake dragons
or the cuts from paper tigers.

it is not enough to do good things.
it is not enough to be good.
the hate finds you where you stand unawares
it finds you because it never left
it reminds you who's boss
who will always be boss
and whips you to do deeds
without the satisfaction of knowing
you're in the right, and
you're okay,
you're fine in someone's book.

it rips out the pages.
it spits out the words in garbles.
no one wants to read between the lines.
no one saves the man behind
it is too bored and disinterested a thing.

the kindness of strangers

tonight, i was reminded of how kind people can be. while i was driving home from a party with my son in the backseat, i ran out of gas on a main stretch of road. i had been riding on fumes, it turns out, unaware of how close i was pushing the envelope. i only had enough to drive on the side of the road near a turn, a very dangerous place. i turned on my hazards, and debated for a time how i was going to address the situation.

i had run out of gas before in more precarious situations. once (not very far from where i ran out of gas tonight) i pushed my then mazda glc over a couple of hills (kinda like sisyphus, urging the boulder over the hill and then slipping into the driver's seat to control the acceleration on the downslope), all the way to the nearest gas station. but tonight, i couldn't do it. different car, and my son was in the backseat, and there were too many cars zipping by to my immediate right.

i had just decided that my best option was to walk with my son over to the gas station (it was really really close - tantalizingly close in an empty gas car), buy a gas can, fill it up, and walk back to the car. just as i was exiting the car, another car stopped behind mines, with its hazards on. this big guy walked out of the car, and asked if i needed help. i briefly explained my situation.

"get in," he said, "i'll push you. this place is way too dangerous."

i was about to object, but he put his hands on the rear bumper. so i got in, and as he pushed, i steered. soon, we were just pass the turn where i ran out of gas, in a much safer location. i got out and shouted my thanks profusely. i shook his hand. he smiled, got back in, and was off... that was kind stranger #1.

so i walked over with my son to the nearby gas station. i asked to buy a gas can, but the two cashiers said that they didn't have any. i was kind of stumped in disbelief. there was a whole shelf full of automotive stuff, from antifreeze to brake fluid. and this was a GAS station. and they didn't have a gas can!? just to get my hopes up, one of the cashiers recalled that they had an emergency gas can in back, but warned me that they would need collateral, $10 up front. luckily, i had the cash. but unluckily, as it turned out, they couldn't find the gas can. desperate, i saw one of those huge 44 oz plastic mugs with the gas station's logo printed on the front. i also spied a large funnel. i decided to purchase these items in a desperate try to get enough fumes of gas into the tank to carry the car the last few yards over to the gas station, where i could fill in the tank properly.

make a long story short... it didn't work. the funnel, long though its shaft was, wasn't curved properly. while there is a small drainhole to catch gasoline to take it to the tank, i think that most of the gasoline from the cup was spilling out rather than going to the tank. i think i still might have had enough to start the engine, but when i tried, i think i must have flooded it, and caused the engine to sputter...

i was at a loss. i thought about walking further to a foodland, to perhaps see if they had a gas can there. it was just then that another car stopped behind mine.

this guy and a girl were in the car. the girl was in the car. the guy came out (looked like a typical local guy, just like the other dude), and said, "need help?"

before i even explained my situation, he said, "need a gas can?" and as though he had been watching my plight, he went to his backseat, where, voila, there was an old gas can. i accepted it, and told him i would hurry back with it after i was done.

"keep it," he said, his girlfriend laughing in the driver's seat. "i have more."

i was speechless. for the second time tonight, i found myself shouting "thank you" over and over again. the smile on that guy's face was priceless. he drove away, his hand raised high, as if to say, "take care."

so, with the gas can, my son and i were able to fill up the tank to a quarter full, and drive home...

***

let it never be said that people around here only look out for themselves. these people actively sought to help me, a perfect stranger, and they did so quickly and with utter generosity. i will never look at other people the same way. within the faces of strangers, there is the possibility of such kindness and generosity and love, that it would astound you. don't look far away for your heroes. if the situation were right, your heroes could be your next door neighbors, the people that pass you by on the street...

... and, i hope, if there ever is need, that hero could be me or you.

you know the rest

flight

it is 2:50 am right now. the alarm would have gone off at 3, but i stopped it.

the moon is bright tonight, casting its light with wanton abandon upon the blind and sleeping landscape. it paints a broad and spreading quadrilateral through the window, reaching all the way to my forearm, as i lie here on the carpet typing. maybe the moon wants to see me. maybe it wants to burn me with its cold reflective light.

it has been a trying, somewhat surreal week. there have been events occurring at my school that have been strange and traumatic. i've approached those events at a distance, and with a feeling (if you can call it that) of detachment and disbelief. a school is a community, a community that is built and woven out of the fabric of the larger community it occupies, and knitted and stitched tightly by the faculty and staff who work there. it is a community founded on the highest aspirations, to care for and nurture young souls. it is a shock when something happens to that community, when an act of senseless violence occurs... such an event sends shockwaves throughout the community, fraying the ties that hold the community together. in short, it makes us all feel alone, if only partially.

that is why there are so many efforts (worthy) taken by the counselors and administration to help us to feel that we are NOT alone in this...

my greatest concern lies with the individual who was directly involved in the attack. i hope that person is well. i hope that person realizes that the community of the school would like to help, to heal... we all pray for that person.

***

at times, (several, in fact) i feel as though my life is in a rut. don't get me wrong, it is a comfortable (more or less) rut, and i am thankful for everything within it, especially my family. but there are only so many ways to recycle thoughts and reflections from this little valley of mine...

i think of the children in mad max: beyond thunderdome, itching for a messiah to take them away from their "happy valley" and the forgotten trauma of the "pocky clips", into "tomorrow-morrow land." i think of them waiting for the winds to stir up, and uncover the buried 747 from out of the dunes, so that some stranger could summon up wings and allow all to fly...

this, even though what lay outside of the valley was desert and destruction...

i think, no matter what, that humankind must venture out. it is an instinctual need, even though we do not have wings, the need for flight. we must see outside of ourselves, we must learn how the edges of our horizons connect to other lands, other places, other ideas, other people. it is our way of not feeling alone and decaying. it is our way of feeling, of renewing ourselves. that is how i view flight, not as an escape from the world per se, but as a way to broaden a vision of the world, to discover something new.

after all, we all need to feel that this "isn't all", if only to appreciate what we have.

i rarely dream of flight, and even rarer these days is the dreamless sleep that carries me bodily from the old day to the new (daedalus glides unwaveringly over the glassy sungilded waters, having sacrificed the fecklessness of his only son, having sacrificed all dreams, concentrating only on navigating his manmade wings to the shore beyond)... i want that dreamless flight to happen, to allow the world to turn, and turn away, to keep the darkness of this night behind me, and awaken with the sun, a new person, in a new day.

i pray for this, the capacity to forget. in forgetting, we remember who we are.

(and in remembering, we forget who we are.)

recovery

i wish i didn't have to suffer my own ignorance. at times, at each new revision, i find that i cannot forgive myself for the mistakes i've made. i chant a mantra, "i hate myself," whenever i think of the person i was, the presuppositions i operated under...

i could flip things too. instead of looking at correctives from a more or less positivistic perspective, it could be that i am a fugitive, desiring peace, but constantly and relentlessly pursued by this baleful eye and mocking voice, constantly ridiculing me, staring holes through my naked innards. because, quite honestly, i feel that way all the time... guilt, shame, for my indelible imperfections, peccadilloes...

if one mantra is "i hate myself," another, spoken sharply and for mercy is, "god help me." i don't believe in a god i (or anyone else) can conceive, or i don't conceive (too much) the god that i believe in, but i like to think that it is a benevolent force that we (i) call on when i feel as though i am at the end of my spiritual rope. the "where i end and you begin." the blurry part where i am flagging and frustrated, and i need to believe that something or someone supports the ground that is falling beneath me... sometimes i talk to other "ideas" or "spirits" as well, including, most importantly, my own grandmother... shodo kawabe (who, if he knew, would probably strike me sharply with a stick for my incompetence and general wimpiness)... lao tsu... and, kanzeon sama, whom i always envision as this kind, benevolent, beautiful woman (i think i superimpose oyasama [miki nakayama] upon her as well)... kanzeon is the "one who hears", and i like to think that she hears me...

i don't expect a response, i don't expect anyone to move mountains for me... sometimes i talk to "god" just to let it out, so that i can continue.

the last mantra, spoken when i am strong and quiet, and decide to try for truth, is my koan: "who am i?"

***

i slept a lot this week. and the rest of the time, i drifted through familial obligations. don't get me wrong, i loved being with my family, i live for them... but i always felt haunted by the other things that i was failing at, always failing at... and i always have been pushing my kids (since that, i feel, is one of my failings) to practice, trying, in a meek and meager way, to keep them up to speed...

there are always other voices speaking through a parent. those who aren't parents don't understand. they think that you remain yourself when you become a parent, and you speak with the same "wisdom" you had as a child, the "wisdom" of one who believes in letting things go and grow as they would... no, when you become a parent, you hear so many other voices. and you pay attention to the world in a way that you never did before. you become concerned over morality, over the future, over a thousand things that you thought "went by themselves." when you are a parent, you realize that nothing goes by itself, nothing speaks for itself. you have to take all the voices of the world. you have to help your child to speak...

...and you don't. that's the paradox, i suppose. but those who are naive to think that parenting is just easy, take it easy, be hands off, well, they never had the kids that i do, and they never had the worries and concerns that i do.

***

anyway, i am drifting on tides. as time gets closer to pressing deadlines, i start to quicken, like water naturally builds its momentum and gathers itself together, just before the fall off a cliff. that's me... unable to churn myself, only circumstance can make me move...

dreams come and go. i wake every night at 3. i wander out of bed, still somewhat tired (or at least not motivated enough to face responsibilities in the empty and lonely time of 3 am, filled with persecutions and guilt). i go to the 2nd floor "art room," lie on the couch, sometimes with nothing to cover me but the pillows (buried, comfortably, as in a grave of softness), and pray. i talk to god. and then, somehow, as the sun is slowly coming up, i drift for a time into sleep. sometimes, the dreams that come to me in those last hours are happy, but i never remember them. they never sustain me. they are a brief respite from my pursuer, the hatred, the corrector, the revisioning of me... nothing goes without saying. nothing is said without a good editing.

***

tonight will likely be the same. the promises of all the things i sought to accomplish, left by the wayside in favor of other motivations, motivations that i cannot resist, because they are so apparent, so clear, so close, and so real. there is no will in me, just the appreciation of surfaces... sometimes, i justify this or am able to justify this lack of will by saying, for example, that it is good that i spend some time with my family, with my wife, my daughter, my son... and a part of me agrees, and believes this to be true... but really, it is because i am going through motions, there is no will left in me to move the sisyphisus stone. i must let life roll, and follow. for now, i follow the stone down the hill...

lately, i have been having aspirations to make my house and home self-sustaining. i have been peeking at aquaponics videos on youtube, and looking up how to start a honeybee hive (partially because of the whole colony collapse problem occurring worldwide, and partially because i enjoy seeing so many pollen-laden bees hovering over my growing allysum and portulaca fields - btw, allysum smells just like sweet honey!). i also idly think about installing solar onto our house (we still don't even have the basic solar water heater right now).

i worry deeply about the future of my family and society in general. hawaii is an isolated place. we need to import most everything we need from outside. even the majority of our electricity is produced via oil shipped in from outside. with fluctuations in oil prices, our energy infrastructure is extremely vulnerable. our food supply is also very vulnerable, as we don't have the agriculture to sustain our population, should something drastic occur, and shipments of food from outside cease.

there is talk of developing areas adjacent to the h-2 freeway. some of that land is prime agricultural land. there is also talk of developing the land along kam highway leading to the north shore, also prime ag land. now, i know that there is always a need for affordable housing here in hawaii, but let's face it, we live on an island, and we have finite resources and finite space. we cannot keep building indefinitely. there must be a limit to development. also, if we build over prime ag land, then we cannot "unbuild," and restore that land to its agricultural function. if we take away prime ag land, then we reduce our capacity to produce food for export, and, more importantly, food that could sustain us in the possible situation of a lack of food imports.

so i worry about that.

i don't like to be political about things, but quite honestly, republicans and the tea party are holding our country back in a time when intelligent and timely action is necessary. they speak of the national deficit, and somehow characterize themselves as "conservatives" (such a misnomer, and an ill-conceived political ideology), when it was their reckless policies that brought our country into the financial crisis it is in today. it truly disgusts me, the kind of blatant flat out lies and rhetoric that the republicans/tea party spew out in order to justify their baseless positions. they truly are the party of "no," as in "no future."

i don't understand the constituency of the republican party. in my mind, they consist primarily of the rich, who are selfish in the sense of attempting to safeguard their own wealth and prevent government oversight over their tax evasion and laissez faire economic policies (i.e. couched as "less central government"). and then, there are the helpless (and, i'm sorry, brainless) sheep (a lot of them poorly educated ["global warming and evolution are myths?!?"]) who are somehow duped into thinking that the republican party somehow stands for them. some of these people are convinced that the republican party is the party of morality; this, even though republicans have hardly advanced the cause of such hot button issues as abortion, and only pay face value to these in order to garner votes from the "christian conservatives." republicans try to say they are the party of the people, of the "small business owner," even though the tax cuts that they are all hot over would only influence the highest income brackets, and would have nothing to do with the so-called "mom and pop shops" that they seem to be speaking to and for. it's all a crock of s**t. honestly, guys.

i heard the end of the president's address this afternoon. and then, i heard the so-called republican rebuttal, delivered by the senator from wyoming (can't recall his name). he mentioned some platitude from the "west," something about how in the west, we all keep our promises. he then went on to say how president obama has failed to keep any of his promises. honestly. president obama has had to deal with a whole lot of crap leftover from the ruinous eight year republican rein, AND he HAS (unlike most politicians) actually delivered on several of his campaign promises, albeit in less than ideal form (largely because of republican bullheadedness and obstructionism)... i won't detail the senator's speech; let's just say that it was layered bullshit. same old same old republican speech strategy: a bunch of high-sounding lies, words taken out of context, no facts (or facts taken out of context and "spun")...

again, i don't want to talk politics, it is very bad to do so... but i can't stand how they are ruining our country, and ruining our world. if things head where they are going, then it will be a hollow victory for the rest of us to say, "i told you so" as the world goes to hell... thom yorke aptly captured the whole republican mentality in his song "idioteque": "take the money and run." yes, republicans, take all the money you can, and run... where? spend it... where? the world you deny and destroy is the same world you live in. you republicans talk about "tomorrow" (i.e., concern over federal spending, leaving a debt for "tomorrow") when it was YOU who created this problem; what about the environmental "tomorrow," the educational "tomorrow," the international peace "tomorrow?" all republicans are really concerned about, in my mind, is tomorrow's paycheck...

whew. sorry, had to get that off my chest. no one reads this stuff anyway... (hopefully?) and i'm not a politico by any means, hate politics...

interrupt.

***

poisoned as the tip
of a mountain
stabbing the belly
of the sky
dribbling clouds
scudding tears
unseamed pillows
let loose upon
a world thirsty
as cottonmouths.

***