a rectangle of sky

this morning, i visited my sister over at the women's correctional facility in kailua. it was good to see her. we spoke about everything, and nothing in particular... a lot of things about family. i got some snatches about life in prison, but all i really needed to do was look up at this rectangle of sky above me, surrounded on all sides by dorms and other buildings, to get this sense of bounded desperation.

my sister seemed a lot more self-aware and strong than before. for one thing, she told me she hardly befriended anyone in prison, at least, not to the point of truly opening up with anyone, because she knew that everyone wanted something from her. she said that it was true of the world outside of the prison as well, but within the confines of the prison fences, that desperation and need was so much more close and obvious... she also spoke about how people in prison tend to do the stupidest things (she was definitely not exempt), that, to put it in her words, "the elevator doesn't go all the way up." she mentioned about how one of the girls in the bridge program (a program where a prisoner can go to work in the outside world, and then check in to prison afterwards) didn't return last night; she only had 2 more months to go, but not returning automatically meant that she would get 5 more years. if it was by choice, it was a pretty stupid choice...

i left feeling kind of blah. i love my sister, even though i don't really show it much. i wish things could be back the way it was... the world looks at my sister and probably doesn't see anything special. but there was a time when we were so close, and there was such a beautiful spirit in her, a strong spirit. i can still see it within her, in the way that she is so open with me... but it is confined by these circumstances, by her bad past choices...

"i'll be the judge of that." really? people are not in any role to judge anything... the world is so- opaque. opaque and transparent at the same time. opaque because everyone has a secret something concealed beneath their faces and their circumstances. transparent because everyone has a secret something concealed beneath their faces and their circumstances. it is not something so positive as hope, but it has something ordinary and natural about it, something which i think is essential to being human. if you feel it, and see it, then you can despair when people turn their backs on it, but you can never deny it... yes, that was one impression i had, the lot of us, visitors and prisoners, all sitting on chairs that lined the edges of this blank rectangle of concrete and asphalt... we looked like we were all there, having some sort of large family gathering or something. when you looked at people, speaking about family, crying, smiling, laughing, hugging, you would not know that you were in a prison. it was just people trying to feel a sense of normalcy again.

sleepless eurydice screams to be heard

in some cornered hour.

i pretend not to hear her.

it was so long ago when

she was a part of my life.

i have other concerns now,

that i straddle like a bridge over a heady height.

no time for faces and ties

that i barely remember,

with a vague nostalgia.

i wonder at this, the deadness of me

and the deadness around everything.

this very world

a restless shifting crust

trying to cover up some

burning insubstantial

with dirt and cracks and landfills-

so deep as to almost not exist-

except as accident and catastrophe.

a murmur, like hate, a railing at

inertia and momentum

the way the world resists a will

to start or stop, or even listen:

something

so vague, so tinny and blurred

i can't tell if orpheus sings to calm the harpies

or my sister screams up her furies

to an uncaring ceiling

lost again to shadows.

blah. required field must not be blank.

i just watched "perks of being a wallflower."  good movie...  if not for the "mix tapes," i would've mistook it for a contemporary film (but then again, i'm out of the loop, fashion-wise...  and maybe teenage angst and reflection are passe, and went out with the breakfast club).  i of course kept springboarding off the movie to my own life as a wallflower (movies put things so well; in reality, they just called me a nerd), but of course, in real life, things are so much more watered down that you can't taste the wine.  i had no intense secret, i had no colorful upperclassmen friends, i had no cool mentor teacher... and, while i did have crushes, they were more pathetic than life-altering.  there's a point where your isolation/madness can define you for good or for evil (or, to put it in less stark, high contrast ways: pathos or pathetic).  i think i fell more into the wastelands, or t.s. eliot's the hollow men; in my highest moments, i was the heighty ambiguity and ambivalence of w.b. yeats's irish airman.  i remember so many times when i went off into the wilderness (kipapa gulch, or, later, into snowy graveyards), there was no one who would find me, and no one who would give enough of a shit to write me into some kind of narrative.

i suppose in that sense, and for a certain kind of story, it is your friends who make you.

***

we put together my son's b-day party this weekend.  he's into minecraft, so i tried to make things minecraft-related.  i drew pictures of different things from the game onto post-its, and put the post-its into black balloons.  then, for one of the games, these kids had to grab the balloons and pop them.  there were scores associated with the different post-its, so the team with the most points won a prize.  i think the kids liked it.  i noticed all the kids (and there was a kind of range of ages) were getting into it.  which was the point.

***

at times, i'm not sure if i know where i'm going.  but i try to assure myself that, at least, my heart is in the right place.

resentment

every morning, to wake to the same nightmare.

***

last night, my wife and i talked about resentment.  she had just learned that a classmate (to be specific, someone a couple of years her senior) had passed away.  now, my wife is a very kind person, but upon hearing this news, she was completely unsympathetic; she had no inclination to attend the funeral, despite urges from her friend, who argued that she (my wife) knew the family.  she told a story about how, on the very first day of high school band, this person (who was a senior at the time) offered my wife a seat he had prepared just for her.  after sitting on it for a few moments, the seat fell apart and collapsed, to the accompaniment of sniggers and laughter from this person and his friends...

after the call, my wife spoke about how she felt guilty for not caring about this person's death.  i thought she was being ridiculous.  the man had painted himself as an ass with that thoughtless act committed so long ago in the past, and whether he had changed or done good things in the meantime, in my wife's understanding, he would always be defined by that act.  it had nothing to do with forgiveness.

i cited people in my past, who had done cruel and judgmental things to me, and how, to me, they had boxed themselves with the shit of their actions, and that the onus of responsibility for their actions lied with them, NOT ME, to redeem them.  i was, quite frankly, surprised at the ferocity of my passion on this issue.  there were/are A LOT of people whom i could cite.  like my wife, middle school was quite a cruel time for me.  in many respects, i still haven't moved on from that time.  it has influenced my outlook on people in general.

to wit: i am no longer surprised (or as surprised) when people are assholes.  in fact, in many cases, it is the baseline expectation.  i have learned to recognize a kind of soul, perhaps someone who is weird or outcast by nature, and see in it a kindred spirit.  i have concurrently learned to (by nature) distrust anyone who is "cool" or "together" or "judgmental" (in any of those combinations), without a touch of understanding...

once there was a boy with a hole in his head. it was not in an obvious place, where everyone would see it. and it did not interfere with his major life functions, like his heartbeat or his breathing. no, it was a rather subtle hole. the boy was not even aware of its existence, until someone (or should i say, something) pointed it out to him. he had, nonetheless, been made aware of its effects. from the beginning, he noticed a difference between himself and everyone around him. for instance, when other children his age were effusive and brimming with life, expressing themselves through their words and actions, he was not. he had no obvious thoughts or feelings about anything. when questions were pointedly directed at him (for there is nothing that makes others so uncomfortable as silence), then he struggled to draw something out from within himself. sometimes, he would succeed in placating his audience by saying some words that he had somehow managed to remember from somewhere else, and on the rare occasion, he would succeed in coming up with something entirely original. but when he was true to himself and to the world, he had to admit, sadly, that he did not know. he did not know a single thing. you see, this hole drained away all of the boy's thoughts and feelings. now, he did not run empty all the time. experiences and words seemed to fill the emptiness within him periodically. but inevitably, inexplicably, these thoughts would seem to dry and dessicate within, leaving empty husks that disintegrated with less than a touch. one might argue (as he had, quite often) that this hole took away his soul. but even he had to admit that it did not, because there was within him something that still stirred and railed at his situation. there was something that made him curse himself, and apologize profusely to others; he was, for all intents and purposes, like a boy beside himself, ...

another day...  last night, after finally replacing a broken garbage disposal unit, i thought of yet another way i fucked up in college...  how, in the fledgeling days of my attempt at starting up a "japan society", i had the bright idea of showing anime, and the movie i chose was "legend of the overfiend", a brutally raunchy film about demons raping women.  i have no idea what was in my head at the time...  i guess my ideas about sexuality, even at that age, were so- naive.  i can think of a few other times when i sort of went off the deep end (or shallow, perhaps, with regards to this topic) about sex.  going to some winter study seminar about, i believe, heroes, and in some obscure discussion, trying to articulate views about how the sex act itself represented the different roles of the sexes (i know, the very description itself sounds misogynistic at the very least)...

i truly don't understand myself...

sometimes i wish i could've given in to advances.  there were a few times that women were (i realize now) practically throwing themselves at me, but for some reason, i couldn't.  i had pretty set ideas about who i would "fall in love with" (jeez, even now, i can't say "fuck"), and the proper order of things.  so, even when a girl asked me, with a lilting tease in her voice, if i wanted her cherry (-while eating ice cream...), or if another girl came to my room to study, but instead only wanted to lie on my bed (-said she was tired after walking across campus), i just sort of played along with the surface interpretation.  didn't go deeper.  honestly (?) didn't see an opportunity.  sometimes i wish i could go back to myself and give myself a flying kick to the head.

it's not that i regret it so much.  the way things turn out is the way things turn out.  it's just that i can't understand it, how i could've been so- such a blockhead...

***

i truly understand, on a daily basis, what a hollow thing life is.  if you are not initiated into the struggle to recreate yourself daily, even moment by moment, not in an idealistic, existential sort of way, but in a desperate sense, to meet basic responsibilities, particularly for the sake of those around you, whom you purport to love with all of your heart...  well, you probably just think what i write about is just pathetic horse shit.  it's reminiscent of discussions surrounding people who are depressed...  when you're in it, it is hard to even explain what a terrible chore it is to even do the simplest things; the way your perspective on life is colored some awful shade that you can't shake; to others around you, out walking on the surface of the so-called real world, you probably look mad, or at the least, pathetic...

i invent things to do.   i guess that's one of my attempts at a feeling of normalcy.  but i move slow.  it is sometimes like i have a bowl of water on my head (cued tie in to kappa!), and i have to keep ripples from disturbing the surface of that water.  i move slow, and ease into tasks...  i hate decisions, especially in rapid succession, i like just following my momentum, and perhaps breaking down obstacles...  things that are clear, the path of least resistance, all of that stuff.  just "being myself" is a myth, or a lie, or something i'm just not sure of, just not sure how to be...  the absolute buddhist perspective would just bracket this self-doubt and say that that is my realized expression of myself.  but, relatively speaking, i'm a bucket of bolts without nuts, rattling loosely, barely held together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp1ZGW9MdbI