Keep it simple, silly

Monday, July 31, 2006

Back to life

Back to life again. I had a few days off there where life looked a whole lot different. Now we’ve returned home and it looks just like we left it: disaster area mess; cat lying on the bed; cobwebs in the corners; work to attend to; moving to be done; house to build; breakfast, lunch and dinner to provide. Kids telling us what to do.

I awoke to all this this morning and my response was one of frustration. Whining, demanding children were the trigger, but it looks to me as though the source was life’s grand reentrance into my field of view.

Oh well, at least it’s dependable.

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Dancing the night away

A cool, light breeze sweeps the clouds away and reveals the blue of a brand new day. Movement has commenced around the FloydFest site and I am again the last one out of the tent.

We had a late one last night – it's our anniversary. Anniversaries, actually: a year since we met and a month since we got married. We met dancing early Sunday morning at FloydFest last year, and we danced until early Sunday morning once again this time around.

And boy, we danced. I used to do a radio show on Melbourne's PBS FM with a guy called Big Al Watts. He called it Blewz Blast and loved playing what he termed 'ball-tearers' and 'ass-rippers'. It was rough and heavy white boy blues, the type that causes your body to move involuntarily with its driving rhythms.

Well let me tell you, the Lee Boys just stole it back. Smoother than a bowling ball and just as hard, the Lee Boys pumped out two non-stop hours of high octane rhythm and blues that self-started every engine in the room. It was exhausting.

These boys have taken down and dirty rhythm and blues and pimped it up. They've given it style, injected some black magic, and turned it into an experience that no mere white boy could hope to reproduce.

What a way to celebrate an anniversary! Thank you Lee Boys, for the sore legs and the ringing ears.

Saturday, July 29, 2006

The voice of sanity

It can be so easy to get caught up in life and what it all means, taking it seriously, believing the stories, and then someone like Gabby La La comes along and blows it all out of the water. Last night we saw this woman dressed like a parakeet, with a fluffy tiger in her bright green wig, playing children's piano a la Schroeder, sitar, theremin and ukulele, and singing about the silliest things. It just made so much sense.

Ah, the voice of sanity. I love how the voice of sanity laughs so gleefully in the face of insanity, how it says with a twinkle in its eye, “Oh, you're so silly, how could things possibly be so bad?” How it can say, “Sucks to be you” in the nicest possible way.

The voice of sanity speaks, and last night her name was Gabby La La.

Friday, July 28, 2006

No drama

In Australia we have an expression, “No drama,” which roughly translates to other colloquialisms like “No worries” and “She'll be right.” Here I sit for my first opportunity for a break on the official first day of FloydFest, and I'd have to say we've had our fair share of dramas. We had two medical emergencies and an arrest yesterday, and the festival hadn't even begun!

I'm fortunate enough to be working in the office, which is the hub for the entire event. I get to see it all: I got to transport one of the medical emergencies to the ambulance, was point of contact with the US Marshals and have been right in the middle of a lot of action. I'm loving it!

There is something about having all of this drama going on around me that helps put everything in perspective. I get to be the observer, I get to be the one who sees that there really is no such thing as a problem. I get to be the one who translates that to the person who thinks there is.

I notice that when there isn't any drama around me that I make some. I find something to get upset about, something to take seriously, and I make it my own. Then I think there's a problem; and what I also notice is that if I think there is a problem when there really isn't one, that I've got the perfect ingredients for insolubility.

No problem! No drama.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

No-man's land

It’s official: this is no-man’s land. Yesterday I my receipts from the Immigration Department arrived and now I’m a resident of nowhere. I’m not a resident of the US until – if – my application is approved, and as I’m now living here, I’m not an Australian resident either. I’m an Australian citizen who’s not allowed to go home, not even classed as a visitor anymore in this country. And the thing I like best about it is that it’s official: I am nothing!

I remember my foreign friends in Australia – Tiff, Martina and Tomas – all going through a similar process. It was hard for them to wait for someone else to tell them what they were. And I imagine that if I have to wait three years before I can go home – like some of them did – then it could become hard for me too (although I guess the whole point of this exercise is to be able to call this home instead). But for the moment I am reveling in being officially nothing, a glitch in the system, a nobody from nowhere. No thing.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Storytime

My eyes close and I struggle in the search for something to write. A short story awaits editing beside me. I started on it last night, but sleepiness prevailed. It’s amazing how many changes become apparent after a few weeks. When I wrote it I thought it was largely sound, but now it seems very much like a rough draft.

I have to admit I like writing better when it’s easy, when it just comes to me. The story was more like an assignment – not something I’d normally write – and tough to get through. It was a good exercise, though. It showed me how the story writes itself if you have the basic ingredients – in this case a situation.

I’ve shied away from writing stories since I was at school. I remember writing one but being told it was predictable. Looking back, I think it was just poorly written, because it was anything but predictable. That was enough to put me off, though. A lack of confidence doesn’t need much to be convinced.

It’s funny, because I was a good story writer for while there at school. Again, I’d just need to be given the ingredients and the story would follow naturally. I already knew this!

Maybe I should start taking story submission: give me the ingredients and I’ll see what I can come up with. Hmm, looks like the elements of a new blog could be brewing.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Fortress of hypocrisy

I am a hypocrite. I espouse The Work, but when I’m most in need of it I shy away from it. I have been absorbed in A Course in Miracles, but I do not live it. I expect to be understood, yet understand nothing myself. I see that atrocities are being committed and do nothing about it. I surround myself with forgiveness opportunities and pile them into a wall, lock myself in an unforgiving fortress.

This is the crux of my hypocrisy: my unwillingness to forgive. When I look closely I see that I have forgiven nobody. And this makes sense, because in essence forgiveness is an all or nothing thing. Forgiveness is not saying that you did me wrong but I’ll let you off. Forgiveness is acknowledging that what I thought happened didn’t. It is the great undoing.

There is a fortress wall three feet thick that needs undoing. It is obstructing my view so that all I see is the wall. Beyond the wall freedom lies.

Today I watch the wall crumble as I unwrap the fabric of the stories that enfold each unforgiving brick and see that behind the story is nothing. I can pop these bricks like balloons!

Tumble down, my fortress. Tumble down.

Monday, July 24, 2006

Unhurried

We are supposed to be busy. In a week’s time the plan is to move into the house we’re building: the house in which the wiring and floorboards and plastering are still being done; the house that has no running water or gas (we’ll use E’s folks’ place for these until the time is right). In between times there are the four days of FloydFest, in which both of us are quite heavily involved. Ah, FloydFest, the place we met; our first anniversary approaches.

It all seems so unlikely, and yet this morning we found the space to sleep in. Empty boxes everywhere, debris strewn across every available space: southern Lebanon without the terror and devastation.

On Saturday we emptied three carloads of goodies at a yard sale and still it’s hard to find a dent in it all. Man, we got a lot of stuff. So much more of it needs to disappear too, over the coming week, as the space we’re moving into would not be a quarter the size of this house. Sure, there’s another half of the place as yet unready, but that still leaves a lot of stuff that simply don’t fit.

And here I sit hypothesizing while boxes wait, unhurried.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

If I had a ladle

The days are warm now. Thunderstorm days. Warm mornings, cloudy afternoons, thundery nights with enough moisture in the air to give it a solidity all of its own. Humidity creates a kind of wall, like every water molecule is another thing to push through, turning the air into soup.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Insect anthropology

The fireflies’ light is different now. In late spring and early summer they were bright white flashes filling the night sky like fairy dust. There are fewer now, and they are yellow, more intense and longer lasting. I am told that they use their light to attract a mate. When mating season started it was more fun, carefree; with thousands of potential mates abounding. Now mates are scarce and the light looks more desperate, pleading, “PLEEEAASE!!” Each flare-up looks as though it could be the last, as though all the insect’s life force is being put into it.

Summer for fireflies is like a night in a pickup joint.

Friday, July 21, 2006

This is a thought

Seeing what it is that I want is an interesting exercise. I thought what I wanted was to be living in abundance, and in a sense it is – but only as a consequence of what I really want. When I look at this from the perspective that it has already been received, what I find is that I want to be free, at peace; in love with all this, joyful and awake. The rest of it becomes irrelevant – just a trivial form of attachment – when I see what I truly want.

I want what everyone wants. For a while there I couldn’t see what I really wanted, and I’m sure it’s the same for most of us. Life seems so immediate that our desires for what seems most real mask our true intentions.

I want this because I don’t have a choice. And in wanting this I am coming to see that this isn’t what I thought it was. I thought it was a bunch of stories bound in a volume called The Life of J, and it turned out that it was a work of fiction. This is just that from another perspective, and even that’s not true. This is a picture, a dreamscape, a mystery, a joy to behold, and not a bit of it actually real.

This is a thought.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

House keeping

The walls are bare. Various pictures, tapestries and fabrics adorned the fake timber walls of this house until yesterday. Now they lie in piles and boxes, awaiting decisions on their future. Some will be trashed, some will be cushion covers, some will be sold and some will make it to our new house, where E proposes to use them as a makeshift downstairs ceiling until we have the wherewithal and desire to make it appear more permanent.

E wants the house to stand for 500 years. In this knock ‘em down put ‘em up world, that is quite an objective. I remember visiting my hometown of Perth a few years back and stopping at many of the significant places in my life there. No less than three houses had been knocked down and replaced: my grandparents’ home, my babysitter’s, and the first place I lived when I moved out of home. The latter had to go, it was a hovel. But the others were comfortable homes replaced by soulless monstrosities. Perth is not a city renowned for paying homage to history; Perth is all about new, new, new.

The community of Floyd has an advantage for our house over the suburban streets of Perth: it is a rural area, and houses tend to get left alone more in the country than in keeping up with the Jones’ cities. So it may survive at least a little more than a few decades.

And who knows? Change is the only given. What happens beyond this moment is beyond our control. There is a house that is almost ready to move into, and one that we are on the way out of, and that is all.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Tired

Awakening has been difficult this morning. It is as though I could sleep for a lifetime, Sleeping Beauty prematurely awoken from the spell. I have been up, sat, back to bed – drifting in and out and everywhere, the most awake I’ve been right now as my eyes focus on the page.

I am tired. It seems that when we’re not house building or working or looking after kids or cooking or cleaning that we’re packing. I don’t know where to start with the packing -none of this stuff is mine. I notice the energy drain from my being as I think about it, the enormity of the project, and I see that what is making me tired is not just the work, but the thought of what is to come.

Guess it won’t come if I just keep thinking about it. Better get to it!

Maybe.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Don't tell me what to do

“Don’t tell me what to do.” Living with headstrong kids can be challenging, especially when this is the first thing you hear from a five year-old in the morning. But I’m getting used to it.

I like that they can be so strong and self-assured. I like that they have the confidence to be able to talk to a grown up in this way. I may not particularly enjoy it being said to me, but I like that they are able to.

Fear is such an integral part of so much child-rearing. If you can scare a kid through threats of retribution and punishment, if you then follow through with them, then you are likely to have a well-behaved child, too scared to speak up and ask for what they need. Without E here to guide me, there is a good chance that to some degree I could be this kind of parent. I probably am anyway.

Fear and love are opposites: it is impossible to experience both at the same time. Obedience can be a form of dishonesty: I behave like you want me to in order to avoid your wrath, not because this is who I am.

And Y has a point when she says not to tell her what to do. I can tell anyone what to do, but the moment I become invested in the outcome I am setting myself up for a fall. She’s such a great teacher.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Tacklin' Declan


Okay, he may still be a little too young for footy, but he's taking his first steps. And at this rate, little Declan will be ready for a game in no time.

Sluggish

The lingering taste of cream cheese and jelly bagel washed back with a hot flush of Wild Berry Zinger and the day comes alive again. An hour ago I wiped a mountain of sleep dust from my eyes as I got up to sit, but this morning’s meditation was – shall we say – restful. The wakefulness is still coming: gentle waves of life lapping at the shore in an incoming tide.

It seems quiet this morning, as though the birds are sleeping in. The latening morning sun reaches over the trees telling a tale of another warm day and nature prepares by finding a shady spot in which to rest. A fly buzz somewhere, or was that an added tone to the ring in my ears? That is the loudest sound right now: the soft-sharp ring that becomes imperceptible the moment noise enters my existence.

The dust dances, settling in the sunlight, and my nose wonders how much passes through it unnoticed. I wave my arm through it to watch it swirl. L’s interpretation of a four-legged beast, head shaking, does more to move it, though. And then, like dust, she settles and quietude once again prevails.

Limited movement. The sluggishness of summer.

Sunday, July 16, 2006

(Don't) be my guest

There is a plantar wart living on the underside of my foot. My body is its host. From time to time it causes some discomfort: a wart growing inwards at a place where my whole body weight can be exerted will do that.

What is the role of the host in such a situation? A guest has arrived uninvited and made itself at home. The guest chooses an inconspicuous place to set up, where it is not noticed except when revealed by the host. But the longer the guest stays, the more discomfort the host is apt to feel.

The obvious answer is to kick the guest out, but an interdependence of sorts has developed and this option would likely cause more discomfort to the host, if only temporarily. And it doesn’t help resolve the issue of why the guest arrived in the first place, why it was able to settle in so easily.

I know someone who once had such a guest, and she starved it out. Just stopped feeding herself, and the guest starved to death as a result. This is getting closer, and it would send a message to other potential guests that they’re not welcome here.

But I don’t intend to punish myself for being a host. That seems unkind to me, though it could well be time for another cleanse, to flush out the system once again.

I think a good host is a clear host: “This relationship isn’t working for me any longer. I would like you to leave.”

“But I’m comfortable here.”

“I hear you and I would like you to leave.”

“You’ll have to make me.”

“If that is your choice I shall do so, and I will give you a chance to consider your options before I do.”

Right royal garb


My ex-defacto stepbrother Brendan with his wife Jodie, appropriately attired at Royal Ascot in England. The word is that Jodie is now three months pregnant. Congrats to both!

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Message received

Whatsoever things ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them and ye shall have them. (Mark XI, 24 RV) The Bible isn’t a book I’ve gotten around to reading yet. I’ve looked at it and saw so much fear, vengeance and violence in it that I was unable to reconcile it with my vision of the man Christians name their religion after. Having said that, I am more than aware that many pearls exist within its pages, and this purported quote from the man himself is one; one that seems consistent with my understanding of what he had to say.

It’s another way of saying we create our own realities, only it takes it a step further by saying that we don’t create our own reality with hope, but with faith.

Faith is a much maligned word these days, and deservedly so with the manner in which it is being used. Blind faith is necessarily unseeing; true faith sees all. The difference between the two is considerable, a polarity unmatched. True faith comes from understanding, blind faith comes from belief. Belief leads to hell in the mind (where all hell resides); understanding is the path of peace.

At this point I believe a lot and understand a little, and as of now I believe that I receive understanding.

Friday, July 14, 2006

God's gift

A bright yellow bird greeted me by the purple flowers this morning. It flew into the snowball tree where another bird, duller in colour, sang beautifully. The yellow bird flew away, outclassed, ashamed that its preening had not improved its singing.

The woman goes on a diet, gets a boob job, does everything she can to be that yellow bird. Then someone comes along whose beauty shines from inside. What do you see, the pretty plumage or the beautiful song? The insecurity or the self-assurance?

What do I see? I would hope that I saw it all, and I imagine that I miss a lot: if that bird had not sung when it did, I would have remained mesmerized by the yellow one.

And if I continued to look, even deeper, maybe I would see that each was exactly the same gift, wrapped differently. God’s gift presents itself to me every time I open my eyes, but I am so used to receiving it that I have come to take it for granted.

Discriminating between Gods gifts – beautiful songs versus pretty plumage – is completely missing the innocence that underlies it all.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Hall of mirrors

Phhhh. It is done. The immigration papers, the cheques, the supporting documents are on their way to Chicago and all that is left for me to do is wait. Wait and forget, get on with life as it presents itself to me.

I am glad for it. Relieved. A little tired. More relaxed than I have been. Less reactive.

There is a freedom in this. It reminds me somewhat of the freedom I felt when Dharmananda told me I would have to go: no more trying, no more living to others’ expectations.

And that is, after all, the essence of applying to immigrate: living up to the expectations of the nation. Not that most people here could care less whether I stayed or left, but the government does find itself in the position of needing to live up to the people’s expectations: keep those undesirables out!

It is a hall of mirrors: me living up to the expectations of a government living up to the expectations of the people living up to a multitude of expectations from lovers, bosses, children, churches living up to more and more and more and more expectations until all that’s left is the illusion of expectation.

The best way to not get lost in a hall of mirrors is to not enter it in the first place.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Rolling, rolling, rolling

I feel rushed, as though there is more to do than there is time to do it in. The rhythm of life has reached a crescendo.

And the good thing about all crescendos is that they do not last. All things must change; this too will pass.

Passing, passing, past. My time has come, gone, and come back again. Cycles.

And like a cycle, this is going nowhere. It thinks it’s getting somewhere, gets there and just keeps going. Perpetual motion.

Watching the wheels. I can ride them or watch them, it is essentially the same thing: riding them is busier, is all.

Rolling, rolling, rolling. Time is a second hand ticking.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Weighting

Clean-up day. We have a visitor coming tonight, and an entire house to relocate over the coming weeks. It is exhausting just to think of it, I am finding. I sit here between breaks – between breaths – and try to find just what it is that tires me. I am puffing, and as far as I can see there is no valid reason for it. There must be a valid reason, but I cannot see it.

Weighed down, possibly, by thought: contemplation that I never realized could be so heavy. Though I already knew that thoughts were a burden, I did not see that they carry a physical weight. But they do. My shoulders feel as though they are being pushed to the floor while a separate force pushes against my forehead, making each step require the effort of three or four normal ones.

There appears to be a lot happening with my life at the moment, and the more of it that remains on my mind, the more it takes on the nature of a quagmire. And in the middle of the quagmire all I want is to rest, but if I do not proceed I shall sink.

Monday, July 10, 2006

Time is on my side

The clock ticks. One week today ‘til my immigration papers are due. The line is very, very fine.

Today I see the doctor for all my blood tests, for my medical. Today I process some photos. Today I get a step or two closer. But that fine line gets closer too. It is a race. A race to the line: me versus time.

Or maybe it is me with time. Competition doesn’t work for me the way it used to. Today I am more inclined to find the place where everyone’s a winner. Can time and I be on the same team? Can we reach that line together? A three-legged race with time as my partner.

Why not? If it is as illusory as they say it is, why not play with it? Let’s stretch this week out and make it an aeon. Let time not just stand still, but move sideways, backwards, every which way but marching on.

Let the framework change. They say there is no time like the present: let it stay here. For it is not the time of my life that I seek, what I want to see is the life of my time.

I am watching.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Time for a change

Another Sunday. They just keep piling on top of one another like cards in a game of Snap.

Maybe weeks should be longer: add an extra day or two. I like the idea of a nine-day week. Seven is too messy: a prime number, indivisible. And too short: give The Beatles a chance to love me eight days a week. With nine days, they can even have a day off loving me and maybe love you instead.

And I have a proposal for having more hours in the day. I hear too often how if only there were more hours in the day… Well, look at this: twenty seconds is nothing, right? Easy to miss. So, if we chop 20 seconds off each minute, then we’ll find ourselves with a 32-hour day. Just think: eight hours work, eight hours sleep, and still 16 hours to play with!

And with the nine-day week we could have a three-day weekend and then still only have to work seven hours a day. It just keeps getting better!

I think we should start a campaign to change time. It’s old and stale the way it is.

Are you with me?

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Headache

A headache overcame me yesterday, today still pinging me with occasional remnants. A sickness has spread stomachwards, and a general irritability outwards. There is also a tiredness, like exhaustion.

I would like to think this is some kind of bug, and maybe it is. But I can sense that similar experiences haven’t proved so debilitating in the past, and it occurs to me that at least on some level I’m doing this to myself.

I think maybe all this immigration business, the idea that we need to move house within a month when neither place appears anywhere near ready for it, that we’ve just bought a car that we’re already considering selling, that we’re recently married, that I don’t feel as though I’m getting results at work: I think that maybe all this is beginning to have an impact.

So what do I do? Savour the headache? Enjoy this moment? I guess if I look at this right now - man at computer – there isn’t a problem. Looking at this right now, I see that everything that’s stressing me is a story of the past or future. I don’t know if it’ll help the headache, but at least I can see that in this moment there is nothing more to this than this.

Friday, July 07, 2006

Cloud games

The clouds today are islands, a shoal, a virtual reef. Close knit they hover overhead, jumping distance between them, inviting me to stand on my head and hop.

There is a game the gods play when the clouds are so close. They play it because they know the clouds conceal them. It is a giant game of checkers, each cloud a square on the board, and the objective is to jump your piece to the other side of the world, one cloud hop at a time. They do not care that it could take a long time, for time is nothing in eternity. They do not mind that the clouds may dissipate before the game ends, for being gods they understand that nothing happens before its time.

Closer to home, God plays another game. He plays the game where I think I’m me and you think you’re you. This is more akin to chess, for each piece has a different role to play. And like any game, it doesn’t work without all the pieces. He plays against Himself, chuckling all the time, and does not care that it could take a long time, for time is nothing in eternity. He does not mind that we may disappear before the game ends, for He understands that nothing happens before its time.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Immigration blues

Ohmigosh, this immigration business is trying. You’ve really got to want to do it, I’m finding. I guess it’s a good test to see how dinkum you are: charge lots of money, make lots of red tape, give me umpteen hoops and see how far I’m willing to jump. If I get through all that, there’ll be some evidence at least that I’m not doing this for a lark.

I have no less than six (possibly seven) different forms that need to be completed by four different people, plus all the documentation that’s required to go with them (including five – count ‘em – five photos! (and one of E)). And then there’s the money: $325 here, $70 there, $180 for this, $190 for that, maybe another $170 there, oh, plus the medical, which shouldn’t give me much change for $265! Yikes!!

And all this needs to be signed, sealed, delivered by Tuesday week. Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have left it so late, I’ll grant you that.

And the funniest bit about all this? They could reject my application and I’d have to do it all over again – only this time in Australia. It wouldn’t seem so funny to me at the time, I’m sure – but I wouldn’t blame you for laughing.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Eating cake as the fiddle plays

This immigration stuff is costly, convoluted business. It looks like my health check alone is going to cost over $250. Coming from Australia, where going to the doctor can be free and rarely costs over $30, it can be quite a shock to the system to be told that blood tests cost a minimum of $75. A couple of days ago I spoke to a nurse in Australia and she was astounded, as I am.

What does it say about a society when things like health and education are so expensive, so prohibitive? To me, it demonstrates a good deal of disrespect for the people within it. Surely, if you are running a nation with the good of the people foremost in your mind, then physical and mental health would be a priority.

And this nation does have some of the greatest health and education facilities in the world, of this there is little question. But when such a large proportion of the population has no access to them, how does the nation as a whole benefit? The nation is the sum of its parts, and many of its parts are suffering the effects of neglect.

It seems to me the powers that be have decided they are more important than their growing horde of minions. Nothing unusual or unexpected there, just as there wasn’t in France before the revolution or in Rome in Nero’s day. I think I shall eat cake as the fiddle plays.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Interdependence Day

The cow came back this morning. Yesterday our landlady took her across the road to spend some time with the herd – and specifically the bull – there. This morning I stepped out the front door to find a giant turd just off the porch. My immediate reaction was, ‘How did the cow get there yesterday?’ Then it slowly clicked that she didn’t. So I guessed that Shanti – the cow that stayed behind – had gotten out. They were calling to one another so much after they were split yesterday that it seemed plausible. I went to check if she was still inside the fence, dodged a couple more fresh turds on the way, and there was Nandi sitting comfortably on this side of it with a look that said, ‘What’s the problem?’

Nandi is a big girl. When I first saw her I had to double check to see that she wasn’t actually a bull. I milked cows when I lived at Dharmananda, and my recollection is that it was relatively easy getting them up and moving them. Nandi was not agreeable to either. The gate was open in front of her, Shanti was just on the other side of it, and it seemed to me that Nandi had returned to be with her. But I guess fenceless freedom and a seat in the fresh grass were worth savouring for a bit.

But when that’s accompanied by a human pestering you it probably becomes a less attractive proposition. It seemed to do the trick anyway – eventually.

On Independence Day Nandi opted to return to interdependence. Even though she didn’t want to go through the gate, she chose to return to a place just beside it. Could it be that in celebrating independence that we are missing the point? Is it possible that independence is overrated?

Monday, July 03, 2006

Drifting

The air is soft this morning. Cool yet comforting, light without being bright. Soft: gentle like a mother’s love. It does not possess its usual gravity, does not weigh down on me so hard as I am used to, and this somehow makes it harder to keep my eyes open – eyelids drifting up and down without me being able to control them. Weightless.

There is a lot of drifting this morning: consciousness drifting in and out; voices right beside me heard but not listened to; thoughts like blown bubbles popping. Delicate bubble thoughts: the moment I touch them they disappear.

People drift in and out too. I came in here because it was quiet: Y sleeping, me writing, clock ticking, spider weaving – nothing else to interrupt these drifting thoughts. Then within minutes, everybody in here talking, playing, yelling, laughing. A pretty scene perhaps, if not entirely conducive to writing.

Time is a sand dune, drifting.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

The Earth our heat sink

I’m not used to typing my blog. Usually I write it on paper, then type it up. Today is different. Today my notebook is at home and I’m not. Today it’s going straight onto virtual paper.

The sun ekes through the shades, pummels the walls and says, “You can’t keep me out forever!” Well, it would if it cared. It is too big to care. Like me stepping on an ant, it’s own business is far more important to it: burn, baby, burn.

The sun is not the only heat source in this room, though. The computer hums and whirs, works even when nothing appears to be happening, pumping electricity: heating not only this room, but somewhere away from here lies a power station undoubtedly generating more heat. Global warming comes from more than emissions: we are heat generators. The Earth our heat sink.

Until it’s not. It isn’t news to anybody that this can’t go on forever. Soon enough, if we don’t stop being ourselves, this place will be too hot to handle. Sure, we’ll adapt; we’ll find new ways of doing things; we’ll rearrange the deckchairs again and again and again. But I’m not too sure that many people really get it: we’re killing ourselves. Suicidal society.

I used to care so much about this. I used to think it was a problem. But now I’m beginning to see it is just our way. We are really good at destroying things, and I’ve always been told that if you’re good at something, stick to it. So maybe the destruction of the planet is not a problem, maybe it’s simply our path. We’ve been working on it for thousands of years, and of late we’ve been getting much, much better at it. Let’s stop berating ourselves for it and give us all a big slap on the back instead: “Well done friend, you’ve found your talent!”

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Meaningless drivel

The door fades in and out, changes colour, becomes almost transparent – like I can see the holes between the molecules. Then the mind snaps back and says, ‘That’s a solid red door. Enough of that.’ And the door becomes red again, solid wood, impenetrable.

A warping door is interesting, but ultimately meaningless. Eyes playing tricks, maybe. Or not. Doesn’t matter, the meaning lies beyond – on the other side of the door. And the meaning that lies there is essentially that there is none. There is nothing to look for as the cracks open up, the stars but holes in the fabric that reveal the light behind it.

Meaning only has a place here, when we think it could be important. Meaning gives us a reference, something to tie us down to time and place, to give us a reason to exist. And yet there remains a reason that the search for meaning is so elusive. There is none. God’s little game with Himself does not need meaning. God’s little game with Himself just is.

There is no meaning and it does not matter. Play!