"i think we've got a floater..."

***

it is in the things that people think are nothing, or what's worse, close to nothing. i believe in, i care for these things.

have you ever stopped to wonder why you do that?

he became sheepish.

isn't it because they never talk back. not with their own independent words. it is always please and thank yous. yes, a lot of thank yous. it is because nothing, or close to nothing, ever hurts you. because you don't want to be hurt, ever again.

he looks up, his eyes suddenly afraid. then suddenly, he clutches his head, and his gut clutches his body, so he looks like something wounded, doubly folded over.

***

and thus it was that the boy looked upon his life with different eyes. he saw all of the things he had collected, all of the things he had talked to, with different eyes. he put all of those things in a dark plastic bag, all of the words he had written, all of the memories, and with tears blurring his eyes, he threw it all away.

and last of all, he lifted owlie and donald duck from their vaunted thrones on his bed, and, carrying them under his arm one secret night (walking very gingerly so as not to sound owlie's water bells), he took them to the high canal, the one at the very top of the weedelia field, and he dropped them one by one off the bridge, into the cold, dark flow of the waters. you are better this way, he whispered to their invisible, disappearing forms.

and then he sat on the bridge crying for a moment, but only for a moment, because he now hated everything he was, and hate was a cruel master that didn't allow you a moment of rest; it was waiting to throw a rubber slipper at your head if you weren't always treading the water.


***

i- i thought you were a healer or something. that's what my dad said. but all you've taught me is to- to hate myself. and i think, i think that's how i was already sick.

look, you misunderstand me. you seem to think that i am some kind of caring, benevolent creature. i'm sure your dad told you other things about me: about how i drown children, or rape women, or steal their innards (particularly their livers, yum!) through their anuses, and eat them fresh and bloody while the victims watched... how i would steal a person's very soul, their shiki-dama, just so i could have it, and just so a person couldn't... why, pray tell, would i ever heal you? why would i ever care to heal you?

people are funny.

if you walk around carrying your own personal distance and innocence, eventually (most) people start to reveal an impatience and distaste. there is only a small window of time, a season, for a person to open themselves to the world like a flower or a bomb. if that season passes, then you're considered a bud or a dud. nothing revealed is nothing concealed as far as the general populace is concerned.

i carry good intentions, and a smiling yellow face painted on my head. but it isn't enough. i have a disarming slouch and a genetic bow, and i always make self-deprecating statements and apologies. but it isn't enough. people want something else. people want a person who sets them at ease, not through withdrawing, but through showing up a complaint or an insult or a joke. they want you to give by taking...

at this point, i don't care. a person who knows himself to be just a bumbling fool, somehow i believe that that sort of person has the secret to turning the world around himself into "what it is in itself." in the process of being oneself, there is the possibility, the allowance, that others will be themselves... somehow, i think that not responding to the "games and fictions" reveals the emptiness of most social machinations. people don't know what to say when their words aren't echoed back to them...

yes, i'm falling into the adolescent stand-apart trap. i'm still very immature in that sense. but what's worse is i'm jaded, and have come up with a whole slew of justifications for the way that i am. and yet... honestly, i'm fine with the way i am, quiet and awkward. i just wish the rest of the world were fine with me too.

***

i hope to sleep soon, and that sleep will kill me off completely so that i am born as someone else, motivated and relevant, like that quantum leap guy. i hope i become someone else, so i can run me in a better, optimistic light... we all need, at times, to be someone else being ourselves.

today i watched as the kids "played" at their last capoeira practice for the time being. i laughed as they did a version of "duck duck goose", using some sort of rattle to indicate who was the "goose." i noticed aiden practicing a couple of cartwheels in between the games. i intend to have the kids continue capoeira; they have a besoura (sp?) or batizda (sp?), some kind of ceremony where they get to meet and work with mestre kinha, the teacher of the kids' teacher...

i wish i were a kid again. i could have the chance to learn capoeira, with all the flips and kicks...

as i helped the kids with their homework afterwords, i couldn't help but start to pass out. after a while, i just sprawled out flat on the floor, falling asleep for a few minutes. it felt inevitable, like gravity.

i haven't been getting much sleep lately. there are a lot of things i have to do overnight, so much so that i at times despair of ever getting it done. and yet, i can't just sleep; my obligations prevent me from fully relaxing... it's hard. this morning, i was kind of "zombie-ing" through everything, going through the motions...

i took the kids over to my parents, and then drove over to icaom, where i taught the acupoints class. i enjoy teaching acupuncture point location; it's something that is somewhat precise; i like introducing people to the topography of the human body, finding all of its secret points...

***

now i'm back after the long drive back home... i want to take a shower to wash off the world, and then collapse into bed... at least for a few hours, before i wake to prep for tomorrow.

the monster i've become

i am discovering the monster within me...

***

today, we visited the psychologist to receive a formal diagnosis re: my son. and, with some relief, i learned that he is add-combined type (due to inattention and impulsivity issues) with some aspects of pervasive developmental disorder (another, newer label for autism spectrum disorders, i suppose). his iq is average in most aspects, except for processing time, which may be attributable to attention deficits... with the diagnosis, there is a name for my son's issues, and perhaps a way forwards.

***

but i am still wrestling with a newfound temper. i think i am a demon in secret. every now and then, when i least suspect, i show my true colors...

i want to stop caring sometimes, because it is the "caring," or the attachment borne of caring, that causes me to embody a demon (or a demon to embody me). there are all manner of evils committed in the name of caring. many shades of violence.

i am still figuring out how to care passionately about something, and yet not get drawn into fighting violently for it. i want to maintain some equanimity and peace, while still being involved... how to do it?

i love my children SO much. so much. and yet, i feel myself slowly (?) falling apart. i need time and order, i need things to fall and settle into place. but everything is going so fast, and demanding so much...

i would very much like to disappear for a time...

***

intermittent fuse
arc shaped flash, liberation!
moment satori

***

missing inaction

overflow
laughter and television
and the drawl of days too long

i prune abrupt
with bladed lids
and short words and shrift

i think
something waits for me
adrift
in drink
within some hidden sea

i'll weigh anchor with the broken chain
anchor with a broken chain
until a wake will
bring me back again

flotsam on familiar shore
broken, sick and sore

not wanting
wanting
more.

the past couple days have been pretty hectic. i am learning the finer points of my job, and trying to keep up with the responsibilities that accompany being a parent. it's been a bit overwhelming, so this afternoon, i just kind of cut the tether and let myself drift. i played a bit of piano (my latest preoccupation is a "kid a" cover i found on youtube), strummed the guitar that one of my acupoints students restrung (it's out of tune, or tuned in an unconventional way), and then felt the compulsion to do taijiquan (although i'm seriously out of practice). i think my energy wants to build and move... not in a compulsive way, but in a manner of fullness and heaviness, and in a manner which discovers the path of ease through its own gravity and weight...

my son mentioned to the persnickety neighbor that i am a mean dad; not sure if the idea was planted or not, but irregardless, it was kind of a blow to me. never imagined that i would be in this position, concerned about being thought of as "mean." but parenthood makes strangers of us all. the whole weight of concern over the well-being of a child and his future, well, it is impossible to address that in a balanced, "unmoved" way... i think that if parenthood does NOT change you in some way, then you either aren't being a good parent, or you're some kind of kangaroo, with a built in pouch for rearing... nevertheless, at present, i'm trying to approach things from a distance, floating like some unconcerned satellite. there is so little i can do from up here. and it is so easy to love and appreciate my son through the lens of the stratosphere...

i am really tired inside...

***

i was thinking about a day once when i drove over to queen emma park (nuuanu park), and it was a rainy, slightly windy day. i walked over to the basketball/volleyball courts, with the rock wall to my back, and performed all of the forms in my repertoire on the semi-slick asphalt. every now the wind would stir a fleet of raindrops from the branches of the banyan tree above, and there would be the slapping sound of their collective impact... i recall a peace in that place, but as with all such feelings, it was accompanied by a kind of loneliness, a kind of sadness...

this day was reminiscent of a thousand other days. i recall living in santa monica, and how, in the early days, i would drive alone to redondo beach, and try to rollerblade down the walk, just like all the other golden people. and i remember going to the pier at redondo beach (hermosa???) and feeling the sunshine and the grey green waves surging beneath my feet, and thinking how alone i was...

now that i am married with children, i realize the center, the heart that i was missing. i think i was always meant to be an accompaniment of some sort, the background to someone else's melody. i provide the structure and the undertones to bring the figures out and to life, in striking contrast to everything else... without my wife, without my children, i am nothing special to see. i am something that is slippery, that slides eyes away...

***

there is an eye and an ear that accompanies all art. but whose eye and ear is it? in the performance of art, the awareness of attention can be distracting and destructive, and it often becomes a practical necessity to "kill the buddha" (i.e., ignore the observers) in order to be true to an art. and yet, what purpose is art other than to be something worthy of an eye and an ear?

so again, whose?

art is a disappearing act. it is done, ostensibly for the ego of the artist and his vision, but in reality, for the purpose of killing the self as imperfection. it is to become lost in a process and an image and a sound that is larger than oneself...

is there really something to talk about? or are you just stirring the waters of a stagnant pond, picturing shapes and shadows in the outlines of ripples that you yourself invented? ...nothing speaks for itself... and when there is little feeling hiding within this empty receptacle, when the words cower before the gate of expression, shivering and naked under the scrutiny of the unseen eyes, there is no reason to believe that anything worth saying will be said, and convince anyone of anything...

maybe it is better to be quiet.

this is the way of the rat, to sniff the air for signs and portents, but trace the small shadows for crumbs and leavings. there is no overarching vision of the world, only hints and promises of a meal of refuse. there is no singing voice lifted up and uplifting, only the quiet of someone who has nothing important to say, and who does not really want to be heard in any case... mumbles and subterfuge.

folds, textures, details. the dimension of the small, microscopic, idiosyncratic. and prose and plotlines that are caught in the rut of a rat's haunting grounds, not daring to venture forth beyond the known and the long-since conquered...

i have nothing new to say today, tonight.

***