November 2008

Rear View

I am a disheartened soul who travels along lines. On roads, on streets, to destinations of work. In my mind I am goal oriented. But I am stranded most of the way. Guided only by a desire to finish the day. To watch the sun disappear as I drive back to where I started, between dusk and headlights. I simply go with the flow of that which is reality. For fear of what I may become. Or not. All work. No play. To be bounded only by passion and imagined only to love that which I am learning to see. To touch that is true reality. For dreaming of that world which I cannot see, to trust and cross the line of change. To move on. And behold my mirror. That which I see reflecting back to me facing the double life I lead. One foot to the pedal, the other soaking. Rushing to qualities and being reminded of uniqueness, and quality, and undefined as moments bounce around in my mind of other’s work and managing real time deadlines. I see many things, inspect and reflect on ideas. I am rumored to be on many a minds. And I think I am here, somewhere between you and me. That is a line I still need to cross. To write it down on my to do list of things ordered and busyness. But one which has no order except the rhythm of my heart, and beating myself in so many ways that I lose direction, mapless, and daydreamed to stillness, silencing the real world of roads and streets and shoes and headlights. I have to choose that moment. For this reality waits for no one. Sun rise Up. Moves on.

Why I like this film.

“Barbed Stars”

A boy sits alone awaiting on the edge of asphalt and crab grass; standing, statued, stoic. Looking beyond what he can reach is a fence, five heights his length, barbed, and untouchable to his gentle hands. A border between His world and Theirs. A thin line splitting love and death.

In his back pocket, a ham sandwich layered w/ a lettuce leaf, holey cheese, smashed between a roll he secretly made. He does nothing wrong. But be a child. For his friend behind behind the fence is thin as the lines that separate the two, and if touched, would be his end.

As he peers beyond the horizontal lines of repetitive barbed stars, encircling an unfamiliar site. His ideas are innocent. A farm? Farmers? Famine. There is nothing but stripe wearers in this cattle-ing of Others. A glimpse of nothing he knows. And knows no one. Except for his little friend, who hides under rubble in fear of the unknown, who wears stripes all day and all night long, yet his sleep is untold and unheard, but a smile is his thoughts clear of anger, hate, greed, and power. Never existed in young hearts. Only the sound of a trembling growl in his pouch of a stomach. These things are just like him. He sits, waits, lonely. His grin pulled downward. Looking upward above the horizontal lines of barbed stars. Smoke from a towering stack. Smell begone.

Looking downward, eyes adjusting back to the familiar brightness, his little friend arrives slowed and shrinking and sunken. And sits vis-a-vis with his friend.

Hello. Hi. Hungry? Yes. Here. Thanks.

A hand touch, a glassy stare, a saving moment. And Only this moment.

Under this sky, on the surface of grass and dirt, Love hides behind, away, and untarnished. Two boys. Play games. Curious on Two lives. In search of each others’. Hand in hand to find one’s Loves. In Death.

Smoked sky screaming souls.

When I am gone, he will not remember me because I wasn’t able to marry the person whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Someone who would be my equal and confidant. My best friend and comfort. My love. When I am gone, I will be forgotten because he whom I want to marry will not be there to speak of my worth or the kindness that I have shared with the little children who I help raise, or the elderly whom I drove to their hospital visits to, or the fostering of the cats from a shelter, or the teaching of students about critically thinking about architecture, or the music I wrote, and the songs I have sung. Or the drawings that hang on my wall. What about all of these? Is happiness not a requirement for life? Has happiness been removed from the hearts of man? Is money the only reason for living these days? Just because two women or two men cannot bear their own offspring, does not mean their existence to love each other does not exist. We are used to comforts. And fear is best suited to those who refuse to educate their lives with the richness that is the human race. The race of many colors, shapes, and sexual preferences. At our most primitive beings, we are simple creatures who all fight for our desire to survive on this earth. We eat, rest, work, and play. There is no other difference among us. Except money, greed, and power. Then the equality equation simply is removed abruptly. And it is destroying the culture, both young and old, especially the old. Because old is just that, old. No man is an island, unless it is your lonely heart. “Out with old.” And a change is going to come. As we see it today, the tides are changing. Economy wanes. I suddenly feel the world is my stage, and everyone is watching. With intensity. the truth will be told. And the new world order will rise up. With clarity, I will find no rejection. With truth, I will discover strength. With numbers, I will see community. And with love, I will find him.

Without love, there will always be hate. Without hate, there will always be love. If you are hated upon, then you are not loved. Stop the hate. Don’t discriminate. In time you may see your faith and your fate, Negate.

It was in the late 1920’s when I remember it best. The pace of life on the surface was calm, pollution was minimal, and leaves fell silently on the pavements of humid days and windless nights. The black and white photographs, yellowing, fading faces, and bent memories reverse me to childhood expressions of cross eyed, tongue vibrations, and encircling thumbs pressed in ears.

“Find me if you can!”

I sit and wait for these moments to envelope me, as it happens reopening my archived life w/ its gummed corners of black triangles holding on to ghosting impressions. The sheen of the images retain. Beyond the creases and peeling upturned edges, I look closely to detail. But it is difficult to see faces. There is more landscape than bodies. Thin families. It is minimal. Without saying.  In the few images that exist with people, expressionless faces stand and stare into the camera with a deep sadness spoken in their eyes and layered on their hands. They look at me asking for help. And forgiveness.

“I wish I could have given you more in life, my child.”

It is difficult to look back at them. Because I know they tried. I see the rail thin figure next to them. Me. I was a such a little kid.  My figure would rarely show up in the pictures. I would fade into the background like an amorphous cloud in the vast open fields. Clouds change. My parents stood next me, hands to their sides, and waiting for their command.

“Work hard. Be good. And Eat.”

Primitive words. But,

“Do you love Me?”

Without saying. Deepening faces, recollecting difficult upbringing. With a half grin, I take the last page and return it back to the beginning. My mom, my dad, and me. An only child. The only child. The lonely child. I press my hands together then compress into a fist. I tense for a while and then let it all go. The family photo album. It lays on my lap for moment before I stand up and put it away. In a closed drawer. Away from my thoughts. Out of sight.

I turn around and wipe my eyes of its grip. I reach for my camera. I set the timer. I rush into the picture and stand in front of my one story house, light gray, standing tall, and forget to smile. But, I am in focus and the detail is clear. All too clearly. I am who they made. I am why I am. And I hear them always.

“My hope to you when I am gone, is that you knew where you came from.”