raybear: (red)
Saturday night, after waivering, almost tilting onto the side of crawling back into bed and lying in the dark, I instead put on cut-off jean shorts and in-the-style-of-seersucker blazer and biked down to meet J-Hud and we went to a yacht club. "Are you sure I'm dressed alright?" she said. "Are you kidding? We are so coordinated they will take our picture and put it in the straight version of Nightspots." "Does that exist?" I have no idea. We arrived nearly simultaneously with other members of our party, to join the party, the one in celebration of the music of Time Life commercials that feature 'grown up' members of Air Supply. That is a euphemism. If you call something out as a euphemism, does it still count? Its unclear. We stood in long lines for free booze and ordered the maximum amount, which sometimes involved a bottle of beer in the pocket. I saw an old friend from college. I danced. I nearly coldcocked a friend for being an ass. I nearly had a foursome. Or a threesome. Fcking Joey and his fcking ascot! We piled off the boat, down the sidewalk, we parted ways at the light, it was back to me and J-Hud and we walked to pancakes, or BLT with fries, then parted ways. Buzzed biking is drunk biking, but I felt way better after the food, and at a six-way intersection I decided I needed to make a phone call and sing into someone's voicemail.

~~~~~~~~

We think we are so difficult, so unique, so special. Of all the vast open space in the universe, how did we end up so complex, when there are galaxies made up elemental puffs, how did we luck out and get mitochondrial powerhouses inside of our cells. But its not just us, its us and stray dogs and fruit flies and giant jellyfishes that skate along the bottom of deep ocean shelves. We are all elegant. Zizek says we are nothing, that talking helps distract another person from seeing that we are nothing, so we keep talking. He also says no one taken in by idealogy ever believes they are being duped. I am inclined to believe this as well, we never are fully aware of what's going on in any given moment, when it comes to the macrocosm. With the microcosm, this is where my spiritual inclinations come into play, because I believe full awares is my spiritual purpose, to be absolutely present and conscious in my body at all times, that is enlightenment, but enlightenment is not only far away, it is unlikely in this lifetime, in this generation, in this millenia, but I do it anyway, because achieving enlightenment is not the point. It just feels to me like the only path to stride on. Rilke says only write if you cannot conceive of yourself living a life of not writing. I would suggest considering this: only breathe if you cannot imagine not breathing. Even when I envision death, my lungs have breath remaining inside. When my mitochondrial plants shut down, workers sent home without a final paycheck, there will be rattling and yelling, but in the end they will walk, they will take buses, they will drive, disperse and the gates will never open again and people who buy houses across the street won't know what its like to live next to the hum of coils and generators. They will live in a different world than their neighbors to the left who have been there for decades. That is the house where my memories will remain, in the basement, in cardboard boxes lifted off the floor in case of heavy rains and flooding.
raybear: (tattoo)
I'm back home! Well, I've been back home for nearly two days now, but I got pretty sick on Monday afternoon, so I've been spending my time at home still recovering from it, procuring antibiotics from my doctor via phone and fax to deal with the infection that occurred because of being sick, as well as spending some crucial time lounging with [livejournal.com profile] dommeyourass who I'm not really going to see again for 9 days.

The residency met half of my expectations and exceeded the rest. Truly. And it probably would have exceeded the former expectations about how much work I would complete, if I hadn't lost 2 full days to illness. (And maybe a morning or two to hangover, ahem.) In the end, I came home with nearly 3/4 of a second draft of my novel complete, and a renewed vigor in the novel itself and my ability to finish it. (August 31st I am sending it out to readers. For real.) But also, despite physically languishing, I feel emotionally and spiritually renewed by the experience, of being in a bubble where I carried no keys, no wallet, no phone, where my dominant role was as artist and creator, where people assumed the best of me and in turn I often acted the best version of myself. I had a bad day or two, I had my moments, but my overall anxiety and preoccupations were distant memories. This is what I'm trying to cultivate in small doses and bring back with me. In some ways, being sick is helping me do that -- I'm being very slow and intentional in my reintegration to everyday life, I'm stitching all the best parts of each bubble together. I didn't fully realize how much periods like this are integral to my work, and I basically don't want a year to go by without me knowing I will be attending some residency, somewhere. Ragdale again, for sure, others across the country and world, or at the very, very least ones of my own creation, but really, there are so many existing ones out there, so many possibilities, its ridiculous for me to even box myself into thinking I can't get into others if I just take the time to apply.

And I also came home from the residency with 11 new spouses. Our group bonded very intensely, and I loved that when I came down the stairs, or walked across the courtyard, when I heard voices in the kitchen or dining room, it didn't matter whose they were -- I knew I would sit down and have a great conversation and laugh and learn something new. And when we would turn to each other at dinner and say "how was your day?" it had a whole new meaning and understanding. This is my first residency/artist colony experience, and I know this is somewhat of an anomaly (normally it would happen with a handful of the group, not everyone so cohesively). I didn't expect it to happen, no one did, it was just the alchemy of us we couldn't control. I'm grateful to know that this experience of finding creative kindred spirits didn't stop at grad school. And I look forward to those visits in the next months, years, decades, where I know we will reconnect and break open a bottle of hungarian apricot brandy and dance and laugh even more.

I intended to write more concrete stories, like conquering the most nauseating carnival rides, or adventures in north shore shopping, or bird-watching, or midnight trespassing swims, or taking the whole fleet of beloved ragtag bicycles through the mansion streets to the beach where the new Kennedys played touch football in the sand, or viewing lightning storms under the safe canopy of a screened in porch and a circle of friends and a bottle of Jameson's. Maybe I just did. Longer versions aren't guaranteed to do it justice anyway. I'm probably too dewy-eyed and misty anyway.

Now I must go to the grocery store, because I suspect in the whole time I was gone, that didn't happen.

May 2010

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