somewhere in this, the task of living

hunger, this hunger. C sits next to me. she says in wonder, "I think this is it", and I hear the gravity in her voice, a marvel as large as a cathedral, and we sit together going seventy six miles an hour with the enormity of it all, the project that we call life, the kinds of adventures we're already and always on, the unexpected nature of it, the fabric in which it is woven with; I see it for her, I see it with her. am witness. she's holding gratitude, she says, and I see it, the way in which our lives lay out ahead of us, sprawling and long and complex and eternal, the lives and laughs and pains and deaths and hurts and joys ahead, the roiling rolicking infinite game of it all, the joy of play that could be possible, always, always, always

the questions that plagues me these days is: when do you know when the moment is right? is there ever a right moment, a right time, a right space, a right landscape? or are those constructs of our own making? am I asking myself to be present, or to move with acceptance, or to settle, or sit? where am I going, really?

--

I tell C some of the best advice I have ever given. I say: in joy we calculate the trajectory of projectiles in motion, orbitary planetary actors, projectiles launched into the air creating parabolas. a trajectory is a future-oriented estimation of what could understanding of what could be. but everything we needed was in the present. it's the present that entices us to calculate a trajectory. it's the possiblity of the trajectory that gives ourselves the permission to continue in the present. but what's relevant in the present is the present, not the trajectory, that we're always here, always already where we need to be;

I see you've found a ship, a boat, a floating cathedral, waiting to be explored, embarked upon, I say, I say. I see it.

--

here we are, here we are! here we are. enough perspective to look at humans, ugh, us rolling around smashing into each other, separating and combining out of fear and joy, desire, holding each other as we tremble. isn't that all we have, in the end?

and what about me and me, I ask myself. this feeling I get. could it just be me? or is it always us, us all? do you not see, I want to implore, but I also say, maybe we don't see, maybe this is it, maybe that's all we ever needed to be, to be present, unhappy, happy, sad, devastated, joyous, angry, holding this in our body, bags of galaxies sloshing around ourselves, pouring them out, giant waterbags of memory, inertia, spilling over the top, but here we are, this is what we do, this is what we'll be doing, you know, trying to reckon, trying to -

I still think about getting this tattoo, the predestined tattoo, in which if I get it it's the right tattoo to get, and if I don't get it it wasn't the right tattoo to get, because the tattoo is about accepting the possibility of an imperfect tattoo, sitting with what won't be, sitting with what haven't. in some way through this whole ordeal, the deep scars and wounds that have barely started to scab over, I see a tree changing direction, a river meandering leaving oxbows in its wake, tectonic plates smashing together; in the wake of it there's always life, nature finds a way, and I guess the quest is: are we in it for the infinite game? the game in which nobody wins or loses, where we're in it to continue the play, where we wink at each other in ostensible struggle because underlying it all is the joy of tussling with each other, meeting each other's edges, our bodies and selves crashing into presentness to say, here we are, here I am, I greet you, mash into you, this is the flesh, then the bone, a soft then hard limit, here is where I stand, here here here here here.

--

and then, there will always be an and-then, because this is a moment of presentness, and then I will be flung into disarray, my face pressed against the television screen, the vibrant emotional matter of my being flaring up, tugging on me desperately. (you're alive! I say to C.) that too I know, and I know that when I will be there I will think that there is no out, the whole experience a kind of enclosure, ourobotic tautological encompassment, grasping the lever and pulling at the wrong thing, to try to fix to change to FIX to CHANGE, of course, the thing to do will be to let go of the lever, so then I'll try to let go and try to LET GO, that in of itself subject to neurosis, etc etc etc;

if you're reading, future self, it's that I think the place is to just be; towards noticing, not doing; it's also others, the joy of kindness, of well-intentioned care, networks of resilience that we all gradually build with each other, such as meta-communication around promises to not play mind games, to really look each other in the eye, really, really.

here we are, in any case, this darkening sky, by the side of the rode on eye ninety five, fresh off of an architecture review listening to students dream of the future and process the past, wondering where I am in the present, what the future could hold, seeing it lay out ahead, plath's fig trees and all, at least in this early summer evening, wondering what portends, what beckons, what arrives.