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Night Visit
Lisa's face was damply illuminated by the light next to her hospital bed, one arm slumped over the top of her head. Her eyes appeared closed, but as we walked in, she spoke our names.
"Guys," she said, groggily. "Hey Eric, Mary Beth. Hi Mike. Chris, thank you guys so much for coming." Her husband, Dave, stood up to greet us. I extended my hand.
"Hey, thanks for coming by." He shook each of our hands and we took places around Lisa's bed. I noticed her squeeze her left hand. Click. A monitor attached to her IV began to mechanically administer her morphine and she shifted under the sheets to make herself more comfortable.
Somehow, I felt a schizm between myself and the rest of the group. We were here, bonded by this common friend, but they were older, more established, more human. I joked with them and conversed lightly with Lisa, which made me feel a little better.
Looking back, I realized they made an attempt to include me. Looking back on looking back, I now realize that I was a part of things. I just didn't feel that way.
Avoiding Eric's eyes, I bled myself into the forefront of conversation and partook in his usual attempt to lighten the room. In half-jest, she asked us to stop making her laugh. I wondered if it was possible for Eric.
In my mind, I nodded to her: "I know how it is, Lisa. He makes you laugh until the stitches pull -- until you come apart."
We left our wishes for health at the door and drifted out of the hospital. I hugged everyone, and waited to leave while Eric said his goodbyes. He walked ahead of me, without an embrace.
"See ya, bud." Good-bye. §
Ad Hoc Mapping
Treading the path in front of me, I take a side-long glance at the outskirts of the known terrain. The edge of wilderness taunts me, but simultaneously tempts me with its promises of fun and love and boundless riches. My life is sketched out in front of me in the form of this path I have dedicated myself to following, and it's a great route, don't get me wrong. I mean, I have everything I've ever wanted or planned on having, but some primitive ego urges me to deviate into the risky, uncharted jungles of the Unplanned and Untamed. Is this desire to risk our lives and security for excitement and adventure inborn, or is it nurtured through our culturally conditioned mindset of low expectation and complacency and fatalism? An ancestral urge to break out of these mentally dulling prisions we've erected around ourselves? "I'm so proud of you." The words write themselves in smoke across my mind. They're my dad's words, but often-times I wonder if they're also my own -- the mental line I chalk up my path with to prevent myself from crossing over into the wilderness. I keep myself in check with Microsoft Money and Franklin Covey Planning Systems and make substance of this path laid out in front of my feet. But, I know that by allowing my urges to be muffled by comfort and blissful ignorance, I will continue to blindly, deafly place one foot in front of the other. That, by far, is my greatest fear. §
Quiet Life
Quiet, calm, still. Albert Einstein once noted that the monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind. It illuminates the senses and stirs the imagination. There's a button in my mind that I press down to quell the storm. I sit in stark white classrooms, blue chairs-attached-to-desks, white walls, white ceilings, white floors. I shuffle through paper memories in a storehouse of my mind, reading, seeking a record of a more peaceful time and come up unrequited. These Days of Bustle whirl me about, paper seeds and debris whisked around my face in spheres of chaos, but I have my salt-shaker, trusty, in hand. One day, I'll thank myself for finding that spot where I can mute -- mute the wind, mute the cold, mute the daylight. Walking outside, I carefully fit my arms through the straps of my backpack. The green maples that line the street scatter sunlight onto the ground below. Silkily, clouds shift in a windless sky. Silence is clean. Quiet, calm, still, beautiful. §
Persistence of Memory
I close my eyes. I need to escape. The hallway of my highschool fades slowly into view. The sounds and smells that were all so familiar to me three years ago suddenly inspire a sense of curiosity. I begin to walk down the hall, and as it is passing period, lockers are bustling with activity and students. There is someone by my side.
It's Matt. Funny my mind should pick him, I think to myself. I've been over Matthew for almost 5 years now. We walk down the hallway together, and I point to the classroom on our right.
"See that room there?" I ask him, turning around as we pass it. "That's where I first met you. Mrs. Pell's ninth-grade english class."
He turns and nods his head.
I look him in the eyes, and add: "It's also where I first realized I was in love with you." He chuckles in a typical, Matt fashion and I'm happy he finds it amusing.
The scene fades out, and we are sitting in Mrs. Pell's english class. I am sitting in the last desk by the wall behind Aubrey. Matt is sitting in the last desk in the row against the opposite wall. I realise I'm staring at him and try to concentrate on the lecture, but it's no use. He is lounging back in his chair, a foot up on the desk, pen in his mouth.
Let's see what we can do, I think to myself.
I stand up, but my mind's control of the imagery is distorted and I clumsily rise to 15 feet, my head crashing through the ceiling into the room above. Everyone turns to look at me as I shake the debris from my head and shrink myself down to normal size.
"Please sit down," Mrs. Pell says, motioning to my chair.
No, this is all wrong, I think, and suddenly time freezes. The students around me sit silent and still. The teacher's mouth is open slightly. I look at Matthew, but he is also frozen. No, this isn't realistic enough.
I unfreeze the scene, and Mrs. Pell continues lecturing as though nothing is amis. I walk slowly across the back of the room, and no one seems to be noticing. No one will notice. No one knows.
Matthew looks up at me, expectantly, and stands up slowly as I approach his chair. The pen in his mouth has been replaced by a piece of chewing gum, and I stop in front of him. We are facing each other. I can feel the heat eminating from his body, the softness of his shirt. I close my eyes and we slide closer to each other. I wait for impact. His face is so close to mine, that I can feel his breath in my mouth.
His lips meet mine. I realize I've been holding my breath and inhale sharply. I smell him. The Matt smell. My hands run through his hair, his tongue in my mouth. His hands cup my face. I'm breathing too heavily.
Slowly I fade back into reality, as my accelerated breathing must have disrupted my dreaming. Matthew is watching me disappear as he sits down. I smile at the memory of something which never happened.
It was an escape that I thought I had forgotten how to do. Sometimes your mind suprises itself. I take a deep breath and exhale a bit of the insanity that has been plaguing me for so long.
Thanks, Chris. I needed that.
§
Addictions and Whatnot
The pounding, diva-laced music, winds its way into my veins and further into my bones. The attraction to this beat seems to be inherited along with the gay gene, since I know of only a few homos who don't throw their arms in the air with glee at that first, bone-jarring, soul-vibing, blistering, synthesizer bass-line. Maximum volume. In a rush of pseudo-drug-induced euphoria, my eyes roll back into my head and chills rush up my neck and down through my arms. My head and torso sway in opposite directions to the beat, my arms carve patterns in the humid air. Dance is a drug. Beat is an easy master. In slavery to the rhythm, I dance, yet as a ring-leader is in control of his whip, I am in control of my every movement. Confidence overwhelms the senses, and the beat is continued into the night, led on by the unconscious pleading to Never. Let. This. Feeling. End. But, as all good things do, the feeling gently, softly, quickly subsides. The touchdown is easy. The memory fades to a pale matte in the back of my head, and I return home to restore the desire for another fix -- another dance. §
Attempting to Commit
The weather is pretty dreary outside -- the light is muted by the overcast sky like flourescants in a Walmart. I hate to say that it reflects my feelings toward writing, but right now my motivation to journal is just as muted. Not writer's block. Just a dull version of itself. O'er the holiday break, between semesters, I was really anxious to get this site off the ground, mainly because I only had so much time before spring and -- *dreadful gasp* -- compiler design. Now that I'm fairly into the swing of things, I'm going to work on a redesign and hopefully it will bring back my creative motivation. Perhaps I will post some older journal entries to keep the daily habit in motion. §
Dreams, Dead and Otherwise
Scott was sitting across from me. His hair was longer and straight, and he wore a heavy grey ski jacket, appropriate for the ski lodge where we were talking. His presence was rather unusual, and I sat speechless, observant. His hand was on mine. I knew why he was there -- it was a dream, after all -- but I pretended not to know and care even less. The apology came genuinely and thoughtful; soothing to the palate, it was sweet and softly pleading. I turned my head away and threw a crass reply with practiced lips. Scott wasn't the type of person to allow his desires to be hindered by my childish resistance, and flinched, continuing unscathed. He wore down my barriers with his acid tenacity, and I pulled away. Melting out of the dream, and into my down comforter, I pulled away because it was what I wanted. I refused to let my head convince -- dare I say, outsmart -- my heart into accepting what it wants out of mere desperation. And although I become disheartened in my wait for rescue, I won't accept anything but the real thing. I wouldn't delude myself. I won't lower my standards for a watery, fantastic replication of the real thing. I'll be steadfast. I promise. §
Waiting
The story of my life could be summed up in one general statement: I'm waiting. The direct object of that waiting, however, is variable and greatly unknown, ranging anywhere from financial stability to wistful, romantic projections. The harsh incandescence illumaniates the library where I write this entry, naturally while waiting. As much as I attempt to wretch my grip, painfully, from the steering wheel of life, the sensible Chris consistently intervenes, soft voice subtly grating: "Straightforward, comfortable, stable." He gently removes the nervous, cold fingers that have gripped the helm and holds them until they warm to a morose beige. Calmed and steadied, I continue to type. The waiting is now over. Or is it? §
Pseudo-Genesis
In the beginning, there was a void. Because all beginnings mark a change and because any said change affecting a void is the instantiation of something material, the void was no more. Where there was nothing, now substance existed. Although not phenomenal on any scale, it was a beginning.
However, from a different angle - the perspective of the void - this is the end of nothingness. As T.S. Eliot once said, "What we call the beginning is often the end and to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from."
Thus, the end begins, and the beginning ends. Change abounds, but in the end, does it really matter where we started from? §
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