it's been a while since I wrote here.
writing here is a kind of channeling. what I am doing is that I open myself up to the world, the world that is inside of me, the me that is the world. after doing so the fingers do what they do; they write, they articulate, they flow. what my fingers are, are simply conduits for energy. out from the shoulder to the arm to the fingers, they spew, and so out emerges what is necessary.
every once in a while a meeting emerges that makes you rethink the nature of life. a kind of sparkliness that allows a form of possibility to emerge. what do you find in a meeting? a possibility unfurling, you think, an endless opening, a revealing. can you see how far the horizon goes, you might ask? do you have a collaborator? is your passenger seat full? what will you do?
I had forgotten the ways in which an evening can be imbued with magic, the way that people can stir up the possibility of life. is this not just who we are, all the time? I had forgotten, you know, forgotten the magic of people, forgotten the beauty of what it means to see another, and another, and another, and momentarily share these stories of what kind of lives we wish to live, and how we want to die. do you remember? we are all here for a moment, briefly.
so many words written like this, over and over again until they achieve cliche. the thing is! the cliches are true! they are past selves, other selves, trying to yell at you a truth that cannot cross a barrier, that stops at the end of an experience, or perhaps is only understandable once you jump into the pool, suddenly opening your eyes and realizing that you can see, and that the world is different, here. or is it getting out of the pool? no matter. the cliches are true, you know. life is limitless and endless because in this moment the deliciousness of a way of being is possible and present. do you know? and the deliciousness is made even more delicious by the knowledge of pains and sufferings past and future, grief and love and joy past and future.
here we are! in this life! in this one precious life! I need to remind myself, nay, I want to remind myself, the need is not a requirement but a calling, a chuckling bellowing calling, that in this precious life the path I am following is actually the path of presentness, of wildness, of being, of death, of reckoning with dying, of the knowledge that we will die and that this momentary way of being will too shall pass. this will die. will it die? we will die. and so then, the question goes, how? how do you want to die? how do I want to die?
the joy of moments like this is that I can only tap into this desire, of dying beautifully, on nights where my heart is so full and I am so happy to be alive, so happy, in fact, that my happiness lifts me up, a hot air balloon, and in the stratosphere I see the curvature of my earth, and my life. I see: there, I was born. over there, probably, I will die. I am more or less in the middle of it. ah, the middle, you think, the middle of the week, the middle of a vacation, the middle of a burn, the middle of a meal. to be savored! to be savored, relished, not with desperation or haste because the end is coming, but because: how beautiful! how difficult, sad, tragic, wonderful, the ways in which we try to love, and fail, and succeed, and the ways in which the love we have for the world grows when we see it for what it is: a cavalcade, an avalanche, a gaggle, a crowd, a murder of crows, a thousand flapping wings, a thousand furrowed or downcast eyebrows, wondering, couldn't I be loved? could I be?
it's always people. in the end, it's always people, specific people, not just people in general, but this person, that person, this love, that love. V, whose voice rings clarion with softness, clarity, and wisdom; A, who knows how to name what needs to be named, and is integrated; C, who I see growing into who she already is; W, who knows how to see what needs to be seen, call in what needs to be called; C, who arrives with a patient, sorrowful, thoughtful learning; H, who is learning, growing, unfolding into the world with confusion and earnestness; A, who I find is searching, discovering; E, who arrives with a delightful reactionary fervor...
and T, who sees with delicacy and care, and honesty and beauty. L, who is kind and curious and rumbling through life in her way. Y, who is growing, crying, discovering, lonely but brave, admirable. F, who is magical, special, kind, in service to. D, who is enthusiastic, warm, good-hearted, excitable, and kind. B, who is searching, curious, searching for home, aiming, directed, a stork. C, who is a new mother, with the excitement of what it means to grow..
oh, so much more. would it be possible, I want to ask. would it be? we will find out.
would it be possible? could it be? the magic of an evening. here I lie, listening to crickets chirp. if anything this was worth it, I want to say; this was worth it, this moment, this shining place. here we found ourselves to be, in the space between moments.
once a few years ago I woke up at 6am and climbed to the top of our park slope apartment and looked at the world in wonder. "every day has one of these", I think I said, the city rawly waking, I thought. every evening has one of these, too, the 3:36am realization, the kind of love for the world that can emanate, through all of the grief and sorrow and suffering, too. all of it, all of it. you know?