Perhaps, if despite having a degree in English, my words are totally incomprehensible, you are applying the wrong yardstick.
This is a blog.
Where I examine the elements of my days, my feelings, my pains and joys and currently some of my frustrations at a piece of work not doing what I had intended. I work through my feelings and my issues and face the fact that as a perfectionist I court pain actively.
I also spit out the things I have been exposed to that irritate or captivated me and these things will be in context for me and nobody else.
I felt swamped, lost and alone this morning. The letter in my mailbox that doesn't understand a thing I write has cut me to the quick and the tears are real, not virtual this time because then I was writing what was in my head and now I am writing something that I know someone else holds to be true. I do not connect.
This does not change the fact that this blog is a deeply personal experience and as such may not be totally accessible to others.
I have never felt more lonely in my life than I do right now.
Post script:(about an hour later)
This totally out-of-character reaction made me sit and think once the storm of emotion settled. Why, what, when how did what others think start to matter to me? What has changed? I have been taking a new herbal supplement to reset balance in some area of my health. About a week, just long enough for a healing crisis to kick in or for adverse effects to start showing up. Very cool. So I will observe my newly emotionally volatile self over the next 48 hours to be sure it is healing and not adverse and then move on.
It occurs to me to wonder how James Joyce resonated for my letter writer....
Drink me, eat me up whole with not so much as a burp to mark my passing. Words strung like coloured lanterns mark the wanderings of a soul, most unremarkable of things; not bright and shiny, making noise, collecting oohs and aahs of envy from the neighbours. Just something to be glanced at then tucked away under the old newspapers set for discard.
I dance invisible in cyberspace, all stretched and twisted in the ether that enfolds and carries me aloft, around, across the vast and massy spaces I cannot inhabit for a moment, displaced and shifted by the tidal surge of input.
Don't speak to me, don't fingerprint my soul and coax me forward just to throw me back, a fish too small too young too old for eating.Too far away for loving. Sad now, while acid tears etch memory on downcast cheeks as eyelids droop. For a moment I thought I was real.
All the elements are there. Everything is assembled and the first mix down is complete. Just the final touches, adding the theme music and this thing is off the wall not jelling. Three different sections of the piece and not one is singing with life and imagination. Not one is creating the invitation to open the ears and be seduced. My own ears are close to bleeding with frustration and overuse and I ache with muscles held so tight I almost thrum aloud.
I keep forgetting to breathe, or rather I am holding my breath in anticipation that is never fulfilled so oxygen deficit is setting in. At least I won't get hiccoughs! I am typing with a frenzy that pounds my fingertips to pain and triggers every speck of arthritis nestled in the joints of my fingers. For what? The eternal search for perfection I put my work through everyday? Why? I live in a world where 'ultimate' is no longer an absolute so why seek perfection? Will anyone but me even notice that the timing is a fraction off, the music does not shimmer and bait the air with promises of rich textured satisfaction for ear and mind and spirit? But this is not the tiny touch of imperfection that the Amish weave into their work to honour their god this is glaring, turning lyricism to lead and I don't know why!
I cannot feel the tug and pull like horse's reins, the wash of soul deep 'yes' that cries out when the grooves mesh and the moment is reached. And I don't know why. Something in my heart has switched to off closing down the wellspring that I plunder, bathe in, drown in for my work, my deepest joys, amphibian no longer I struggle where once I sleeked and coiled and flew. And I don't know why. I am understanding leeches at the moment for I feel the need to let my blood drain and be renewed - an image from another time and place? Perhaps tomorrow I will give blood, it has been at least two months and they always need my brand. This is all just plain wrong!
Love it when I can be alliterative without working at it. I have spent the last couple of hours listening to and judiciously editing an interview about alternative health. Now I myself am a proponent of non-allopathic medicine simply because my experience with traditional medicine has found MD's far to quick to draw their scalpels or pass me on to their knife wielding colleagues.
I have always wondered if surgeons have just found useful socially acceptable outlets for their urge to carve holes in small animals and people; and while I recognize the need for their specialty it distresses me when surgery is presented as the only viable option with no willingness for exploration or discussion.
I am a very bad patient. My mother has had 38 major surgeries and my sister runs her a close second (even they have lost count of the minor encounters with the knife) and I have no wish to compete in that campfire storytime at all.
But to the topic at hand: my interview. Along with my willingness to explore alternative therapies comes a healthy scepticism and a tendency to read up on various therapies before submitting to them. Much the same way as I will not take a regular test just because the "doctor" says so.
None of these people are infallible and I am ultimately responsible for my health. I have to be the one who takes the decisions as long as my mentis is somewhat compos. Yes, I know there are those who would take issue with that but opinions are as commonly occurring as behinds. And frequently less useful. So I take issue with anyone who states my way or none. Who died and made you god? Snugged in Heinlein's pages I might say happily Thou art god and offer water but out here I want discussion and, if available, concrete proof.
Thus I feel a worm of unease at presenting this interview to my listeners. I am responsible for content and I wonder is it enough to do disclaimers top and bottom. Not that anything said is blatantly wrong, but it is not entirely right either. I will edit on, but keep thinking because I have an agenda here. An hour of programming is valuable to me in terms of time distribution. I need to be sure that my convenience does not outweigh my basic responsibility as a journalist. Balance, objectivity and truth as far as I can find it. Damn. I once unintentionally dropped a conversational bomb into a sudden silence at a cocktail party as I said clearly and audibly "I have no morals" nobody heard the rest of the sentence which was "but my code of ethics would choke a goat." It's that me and the mirror in the morning thing again. Can I meet my eyes? Not if I tell lies. And again, damn!
I feel a poem coming on, although it could be just incipient indigestion, and I have already posted a couple today so I can come quietly to the world of blog and write whatever the spirit brings me.
Still Sunday but deep now into night. A still and humid night that broods a little. The frogs are peeping intermittently instead of full chorus and the neighbours conversations occasionally sound as if they are with me in the room.
Where do the words come from?
Why do they jostle in my head,
my heart and beg for egress?
They batter on the inside
of my mouth, stamp across my tongue
demanding to get out and flaunt
themselves, baring me, stripping me
to naked flesh, down to the bone
and blood of me at times
my fingers itch and ache
and need to write them down
the stories of unconsciousness
I give birth to every day
beginning, middle, end,
each moment poised to spill
into the bowl of life
a drop of feeling
a tear, a silent plea
that wants a voice
and crawls along my veins
to find it. Where are they born?
In me or through me?
The pathways in my head
are empty most times
echo with the traces of
a memory, a thought
and not much else
I sit and watch
and label judgment
anger fear delight
the trains that hurry
through the stations
life has carved in me.
Then come the words.
A clutter of hope
and deprivation dancing
side by side with darkest
passion lightest fear
all chanting a harmony
that unreleased might
drive me mad.
I write because I must
I love to feel the magic
stretch and swell
and ride me
to completion
to exhaustion
to the next
forever verse.
I made a commitment to myself when I started this blog. Basically a commitment to write. To let go of all the coils and curlicues of life that I usually cuddle close and cherish before planting them in some lonely grave behind the foothills. To strew myself and my soul across the vast page of imagination and see what seeds might float back on the tide, germinated and ready for implanting in the rich compost of my mind.
So today when I came home, almost too tired to seek out Harley's jokes, I thought perhaps I wouldn't write. After all, who would notice? The number of bloggers has increased and the turnover in topics is moving like a stream instead of molasses going uphill in winter so my random ravings could go unspoken without upsetting the staus or the quo of everybody's reading habits. Why not take a night off?
I was never good at math, but my term with Mrs Grannum taught me one thing (well more than one actually. but one relevant to now) always look at all the elements in the equation. The simple thing is I don't blog for anyone but me. And I would miss the sheer uncomplicated joy of shaking out the tablecoth of my thoughts and spreading it smooth and crumbless so I can see the tiny stains and creases the day has formed in my psyche. Where stress released, built up or never happened. Where the two interviews I have to edit led me, how shall I best use them? What ants can I attract to the table I spread each Friday for the world to feast upon?
So my fingers are stumbling along next to each other, and if my eyes are slightly squinted to make the focus sharp...a cold cloth later will soothe the irritation of too much light and dust and watching for the other idiots on the road.
I reported the smashed window to the police, apparently they like to have a record of such incidents so in the event I am later found slaughtered they can nod wisely and say 'we knew something was up" and the glazier is coming to remove all trace of surprise or violence from the surface of my life.
Tomorrow I shall do another interview, finish the edits and start to pull the hundred songs I need to while the night away; tonight I have the two newest DVD releases to watch so I can write my reviews. At least neither of them is a horror flick, just not in that head right now, so life is good and sweet and true...as always.
Someone just threw a rock through my bedroom window. I heard nothing before or after the smash, no running steps, no voices. The why is as much a question as the who dunnit? At this time of night there are no children out at play. Also, as I live on the second floor of the building it is probably a random stone let fly by a late night wanderer. Fortunately I have another bed and other pillows to use. Even better I was working here at the computer and not already asleep (as I should have been). It would have done some harm as the glass cut through the mosquito net and the rock itself lay where my head would have been.
I have checked all around outside, intrepid, armed with a broom and nothing stirs beyond the multitude of warty frogs lured out of hiding by the dance of winged termites in the air around the external lights. My mother's apartment is secure and I can hear her sleeping.
So I will resign myself to a slighty unsettled night and deal with the rest tomorrow.
Just showered skin sheened and slick with fresh made sweat, sun doing its best to pull moisture into the air to make its thunderstorms. The taste of chocolate lingers, powering the swing of arms, of legs, forward and back the motive force that takes a body through time and space to some imagined destination.
Limbs thrum with the slight muscle shake of prolonged exertion; sweat rivulets, collects in dimples at the base of the spine overflowing sweet curve of flesh that flexes, full of power, and keeps on moving on.
Breath rasps, just a little, lungs clear of smoke for eight years bellow strongly, wheezing just a little round the fist sized circle shown on an X-ray a year ago. Some alien invader already once removed, now back; unwanted tenant that will stay, for eviction would mean blood and broken bones, flesh laid open far too deep. Not this time. Not this body.
The terrain shifts. The grass is harsher than the road, entwined with discarded thorns and rootlets to pierce the soles of unwary feet no matter how hardened and everywhere the scent of khus khus, vetiver. The oil of harmony that calms and soothes and still the restless mind. The edge is near.
The view has changed. Oh, Port St, Charles still sits, an elegant lagoon inviting the rich with their sheeted ships to port. An enclave closed to those who live here, dues for the year US$100K a tariff far too high for local consumption. The sea still stretches, turquoise, royal blue, steel grey, into the sky a marriage in the west that flames each sunset when there are no clouds. The beach is still ours, by law there are no private beaches here and access must be given. The fishing boats list lazily on their perch of empty petrol drums, just waiting to be drawn. The beach is silver-gold sunbleached and shining with reflected light, small green apples from the manchineel tree inviting the unwary to taste their poison, to blister skin and bring a colic, bearing death for the weak.
Across the road from Port St. Charles the earth is bare and dark. Twenty six acres bore the muscled push of bright yellow machines uprooting trees seeded before my birth. Progress carving its cold lines into green swathes that fell so easily. New development, more condos more marinas more for the overseas investor who will buy and not live here. Engaging in auctions that force the price of land beyond the pockets of sons and daughters of the soil coming of age or even those of us returning home to find our heritage turned to cash without a word, not even the offer of a first refusal. Roots carefully reserved no longer have a place to home to, may never have a patch of soil to stretch their tendrils in. No matter.
So the view from the cliff, the edge, foretells the future of the dispossessed within their own lands and people wonder why the bright smiles have faded giving way to violence and scowls. The natives are restless, without our land, without the promise of our continuity we, who were never nomads, become a rootless people without center paying rents that buy us shelter and no more; watching supermarket shelves all filled with foreign, high priced cans and packages beyond our means while local produce rots in the fields because the farmers cannot sell it to the stores.
My morning run has not lifted me this day. Even I, a piece of non-politically minded fluff, must put this into words that ring so sullen where I prefer the clear tone of crystal. But words are like feathers, like children's hand patting at a fire that rages. We do it to ourselves. We sell our lands and give ourselves away. And then we riot claiming progress has 'unfaired us' as we bajans say. And I, a bajan to the bone, flourish my feathers and pat my hands, even roll my body on the flames. I cannot win a battle that is not even fully acknowledged, but I am responsible and will take my stand where ever it may lead me.
Coming home this evening, I looked to the north. The clouds were an astounding mix of lavender and grey surrounding the thrust of the tower of the cement factory, so stark, etched against the evening. Slightly west, still cloudy, the sky shone white hot against the grey, none of the reds of sunset here, just light. Hot white light to burn the eyes and soul in a body.
The day has been long. Productive but numbing in its infinite shifts and stumbles. Two auditions, one a talent I want to hire; the other someone so filled with her own brilliance she cannot perform; hadn't even the nous to correct herself with an "I'm sorry, I'll read that again" when fracturing a sentence beyond understanding. I have three more applications in: two men and one more woman but I'll deal with them on Monday.
Next week is already full. Interviews for Monday /Tuesday/ Wednesday afternoons. People calling and asking to be part of my show. And in between I need to pull a hundred songs and watch at least two films to do the reviews. And I need to record and produce another six hurricane hints. The show for tomorrow night is ready. Running order set, the features all pulled together and edited. Ahead of the game.
The new announcer will go solo tomorrow - without me there to hold her hand. I will be asleep. Dreaming sultry dreams of treasures deeply buried in my subconscious waiting to be routed into day. Or not dreaming at all. Tossing in a tangle of overheated sheets and pale green mesh that clings to sweat damp limbs like ivy, like fresh mown grass. The night is still, is hot and even moving just my fingers here, sweat pearls and slicks me down with salt, shorn hair doing its utmost to tendril on my nape. Perhaps I should let it grow and curl itself about and see just how draining total silver will be against my skin. I'll think on it - at least two weeks before I will feel the urge to rake it back down to my skull again.
I thirst. And hate the bland non-taste of water in my mouth. I yearn for spice, for tang and texture, not just thirst but hunger a need almost, for...what? I ate a meal, adequate if uninspired, drank tea, drank water, ate some cheese and still I feel an empty wantingness within. Or would that be a wanting emptiness? Semantics breed a world of trouble for us, words misused, misunderstood, destroy the world piecemeal. They could be the cement that makes us strong, cohesive, clinging one unto the other cleaving close, comfort in our grasp at last. Poor humans. Let's look north and see the clouds. There is such beauty in their grey-tinged lavender. I can almost smell its clean perfume.
The day started with pain. A deep twisting cramp that doubled back upon itself, once, twice, again and left me to practise what I occasionally preach: don't fight the pain, just feel it. Surrender to it and embrace it, make it mine all mine to cherish and release. Five minutes this time. Not bad.
The pain is gone so now I get to look at why my body put me on the rack. What have I left undone, unattended? What thoughts have twisted in my head, not been untangled? What anger have I felt? What loss? What helplessness? Where have I criticised myself for being human? What resentment have I shouldered? And once I find the epicenter of this upheaval, how to I return to balance? Put it right?
I think the seed was planted while I watched the new announcer, listened to the wooden stumbling delivery and sought for words to say it gently, explain the things that I breathe: smile while you are talking, just tell a friend the information...tact is not my strong point though I have learned to bridle my tongue.
The seed was watered speaking to the sales team. Explaining how we can encourage and persuade our sponsors to put their names in places they would not normally consider. Greeted by blank looks and the oh so hated phrase "they always do it this way". When I did active sales my greatest joy was finding ways to fill my clients' needs in ways that expanded their application...and gave them more than they expected for the same money so they always came back to me the next time and I was able to enjoy more than just the hunt and the kill of closing I had creation as dessert.
The seed was fed and nourished later because i did not eat on time, locked into editing and writing, a small dark world that can become so airless, listening to one phrase back and forth...do I cut or do I keep it? can I edit in a breath here to smooth the flow, do I pervert the meaning if I remove this word that sounds like a strangled cat, the aftermath of my subject's coughing?
The seed burst into planthhood when I failed to take the time for me, the cushion where I sit and stare at nothing, seeing the world of my day parade through the halls of thought and decision. Instead I plunged into another pool and nearly drowned in echoes from the past dressing up in today's blue jeans.
Then this morning, as the tide of sleep swept out, the seed flowered into vivid scarlet streaks of pain. Even benign self-neglect carries an accounting. I will do better today.
a love song? Tell the secrets of the Universe in one fast chorus? What is it we seek so desperately that time cannot move quickly enough to fill our souls with food? Why is today the day we must have it all and more? Stuffing great chunks of life down fledgling throats tasting none of it along the way.
Buy silicone at thirteen, face lift at thirty, each man, each woman, flavour of the week discarded after just one bite like mangoes in the wake of monkeys. Where are we rushing to so quickly we can't take the time to meet, to get acquainted, take it slow and sensual milking each moment of all its promise? I know of only one eternal destination, the grave and worms - without cremation. All so eager to meet the everlasting dark we brush past day, past life, past people not even a good morning in the rushing; building in three years what used to take a lifetime to regret, full load of baggage and lost hope.
I shall not sing a love song, I shall cast my bread and sit and wait because I have found the fish always eat it.
The afternoon is full of colours dancing through the bouganvillias in salmon, orange, white,
plumbago violet-blue, flamboyants red and yellow,the sun streaming, pouring from the blue bowl of the sky,heated silk across the skin already damp with sweat. Bees and lizards drowse flash of blue-black carapace,an emerald green much brighter than the olivine leaf it rests against.
Lunch is good, roast beef en croute and chicken baked all golden jostle against hot orange carrots snuggled with translucent onions, cabbage and broccoli combine while avocado partners pale flesh of cucumber spiked with lime. Red wine, clear water, dark brown soda, each glass displays its colours boldly and white teeth gleam as laughter, conversation part red lips and voices weave a harmony around the table.
Utensils still and close together, plates are cleared while satisfaction quiets down the voices
and people drowse like bees and lizards, tan and dun hides gleaming with their mist of perspiration.
The colours frolic, vivid hot and sultry, drowned in light that makes them brighter than the eye can comprehend as nap time beckons.
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