6/4/2020

it was heavy stuff, the last posting, but i, more and more, feel as though it was necessary. there, i said it. it's out there. and now i can move on. now the world can move on.

for so long, i held that secret, like this heavy, sonorous burden within me, dragging me through life (or me dragging it). it was like a hot metal ball stuck in my throat, that i could neither spit out nor swallow. this ball of hurt, that would not melt or dissipate. it made me angry and spiteful for so long.

so anyway, i'm moving on... to what?

*****

i've been viewing videos posted from "the other side," aka the conservative viewpoint. and it's quite laughable, actually. false arguments, whataboutisms. hah, is that the best that you can do? it's clearly a bunch of distraction ploys, all flash and bang, to sleight-of-hand you out of seeing (and feeling) the true moral dilemma. same with their support of trump. clearly wrong, but they will obfuscate it by pointing fingers everywhere except into their own navels.

*****

i've been contending with pests and parasites. my plants have, over all, been doing well... well, that's not entirely true, i still have had problems with certain plants... but at least they haven't been dying in large scales... but now, now that the moths have come and laid their eggs on my plants... well, it all goes downhill, and rapidly, from here. the little bastards have eaten holes in the stalks and chewed out the piths, leaving some green mush where the heart of my plants were... and now, the plants have no choice but to die. for you cannot live with a hollow in your heart.

*****

i was thinking at one point of memories... there was a moment when i was standing outside of the bathroom at kailua beach park, just sort of leaning against these bicycle rails... the sound or the light hit me... well, not quite hit me... but i almost felt the film of reality blur... and other times, other moments, started to creep in. i couldn't discern precisely what those times and memories were... but it was a palpable feeling.

actually, lately, i've foregone purposeful writing and instead have written largely about memories. it's astonishing how little i recall about my life. and it's interesting, in its own way, when i start to reexamine those dead parts in my head, and start lighting them up, lighting them on fire. i get interested in the topography of places. like, heck, i lived in certain places for years... and still, it's like most of my life is shrouded in fogs. and there are tiny islands in the fog, but the ways in which they are connected... sometimes all that i do in a writing session is just summon up memories, like ghosts, out of the fog. the color of my bedsheets when i was in college... the shape of the holes in the metal grates of the heaters... a lot of tiny little details. and people, too. people, i have always had a hard time with... i never really looked closely at people, or took the time to really understand them, or their motivations and feelings. like most things in life, i kind of looked at people through a lens. i always tried to be good to people, to serve them, to make them happy... but that's hardly really getting to know people. it's in fact, quite the opposite most of the time. there were times when i chose not to feel the sadness and loneliness of people, for instance. i know i sometimes mention times when i could have been seduced... and that's always a draw, past trysts that never were... but it's more than that. i suppose i could have been a real friend, and spoke honestly and frankly about feelings with people. but i didn't. i didn't want to. i wasn't really able to look into myself, and so i wasn't willing, was too impatient to, sit with someone and be a real friend. a heart to heart.

and that is sad.

there were so many people that, i suppose, could have been great friends. but i was afraid.

i DO have friends, people i still keep in touch with. but i never really saved their lives. i was just someone who- i always have this image- someone who lived on a mesa, and who saw other people who lived on similar mesas- we left each other alone, but it was nice to have them around. maybe that's all friendship really meant to me. i mean, i would, and i have, risked everything for them. but i think there's a comfort in not getting too close, not getting in each other's business, and i think, for me, that that was a big part of what made people friends for me.

i could be wrong, of course.

*****

shame begets shame. if you can't share of yourself, then you get ashamed of that very turning away. it is like a plant reinserting itself into the ground, burrowing deeper away from the light, and back into the darkness. an awkward, unsightly thing... and if life is a repetition of this, a looping back into darkness... how shameful a life! i wish, i wish, i could stand in the light. i wish i could just be simple and accepted. but it's hard. it has always been hard. i'm learning now, and maybe all this writing is just to that end... to let it out, to put it out in the sun, and to learn to tolerate that.

that's my hope, anyway.