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...