"Never again will their rage be starved whacking absorbs to no end. When they say blow all of your defensive cooldown, they mean it!"
*
One of my favorite street-lurking lunatics (and I, have been one, this is for certain), who used to wear a purple afro-wig everywhere, and is terribly moody, to the point of making me draw back, wounded, from his buffs after pleasantries just days before, was wearing a hard hat by Kennebec Market at the bottom of Sand Hill a couple days ago, a little before noon, in the sunshine. I asked, "Are you wearing the hard hat to protect you from icicles?" "I make believe there's a war going on," he said. "I make believe there's bombs going off. It makes me feel better." "Cool," I said.
*
I never believed it would happen, but pregnancy really can destroy sex drive, create the most consuming aversion towards the one who helped you get there in the first place. I don't really want to dwell on it, it's just incredible how different I feel and, from a spiritual standpoint, probably a gift. It's like a disease, this hyperconsciousness of annoyance... how he putzes around the kitchen, frets about warming his berries, the texture of his oatmeal, and than says he can't taste anything, that he doesn't want to celebrate food, that people who call it "luscious" and "savory" annoy him.
We argue about the strangest things. I tell him I dream I go on horseback to a stream to harvest honey and he says dreams like this, with very obvious symbols, represent archetypes and thus have universal meaning. Though I believe in archetypes, I reject any objective interpretation imposed on my dream. (Though at another point I might feel exactly the opposite, because I easily identify with those who bemoan people who let their "feelings" be moral guides, and disregard the idea of a stable, external reality. astro.com says my inner nature is one of reason. What a shame, those other parts. The trouble I'm in, my god. And so pedestrian, and I don't want to tell my father!)
I don't think there's any way we can be happy together. I always thought that was such a stupid thing for people to say, that any two could make it work and just wouldn't, and I'm having to swallow so many prideful, ignorant words. Here's the thing, though. Maybe we could make it work. But neither of us will make even the smallest concessions. Why is a mystery. Clearly we are not full of the spirit of God, not even remotely enlightened... and perhaps our souls are saving us for something better, too. But, here: If we won't get along, we can't get along. It's like that with anything. Again, the Pastor at Kennebec Valley Assembley of God told D. it's not God's Will for D. to not do anything with his life, to refuse to pick a path, have direction, etc. And I think, in retrospect, that God's Will is what happens, that we are arrogant to assume we are entitled to the grace essential to rising above our selfish brain, our deranged hearts, our ever-present longing for inertia.
*
At the food bank a couple days ago, my old acquaintance Tom, who always says he owes me many "bucks," though he does not, I give him a couple bucks here and there, over the years, which he spends on booze, but where there's a will there's a way, and actually, codependence is stronger when you're trying to PREVENT the alcoholic from drinking, rather than helping them indirectly, I've gathered. Anyway, he's wonderful and humble, and it's more for me than for him that I quickly and almost with an air of embarrassment grab a few dollars and thrust them in his hand, he said to me once, he stopped me on the corner of State and Bridge and said, "You used to work down at Hannaford. You were always working so hard. I admire a work ethic. I don't work myself, but I admire a strong work ethic." Once he brought in empty bottles in a cat carrying case and almost broke down in tears over losing his cat when he went to Riverview. He brought up the cat again at the food bank. He asked me if his smell bothered me, said loudly- he says everything loudly, but not offensively- that he was incontinent. In trying to describe him to D. before we both were at the foodbank, I'd described him as handsome and clean-cut, both things which are, technically, not true, but I was misled by his halo of kindness. I'm not doing him justice at all. No one likes to sit by him at the soup kitchen because he sneezes and coughs all over his plate. When he stopped me on the street years ago he said, "I saw you a year and a half ago. You looked sad."
*
"The first of this type is a gem indeed. They have long since acquiesed to the grand design of Blizzard and accepted the sacred bond of warrior and healer. They realized long ago that behind every great warrior is a dedicated and tough as bricks healer who through their symbiotic relationship is able to accomplish his calling in life as well... which is to piss people the hell off."
*
Usually I meet the male inmates for creative writing in the huge upstairs library and there's no guard but this week we were on the first floor in the denser "classroom" space, with computers, and a big desk, and there was a guard. At first I thought I'd be too inhibited, but it ended up being quite wonderful, because when the men got laughing, the guard laughed too, and I felt a fleeting camaradie that I was grateful to have the smallest connection to. (I brought in a poem by Jack Prelutsky, a children's poet in the vein of Shel Silverstein, who wrote What if Your Nose Wasn't on Your Face, or something, and this cocky white MC type, who raps on the "outside," said he could write something just like it, than burst forth with verses about What if Your Penis Wasn't on Your Waist... it was pretty good.)
This older man, Peter, was snarling back and forth with the hugely obese, strangely lecherous seeming man with pretty eyes, who says his ex-wife is a Doctor and he lives off her support, that they're "best friends," etc., whatever- I couldn't tell if they were joking or not. Peter, who's been coming to group a lot and is getting out on Tuesday, broke down crying after an exercise to write his life in six words and cried, in outrage, "My life can't be summed up in six words!" And said that he was tired of missing his daughters, that he'd missed the birth of one of his grandchildren. And the big guy said, "It's okay Peter, you're getting out Tuesday, you can tell us all about it." And than Peter seemed to instantly start joking and bantering and talking over people so that I was very confused and he struck me as rather unstable and I was almost angry for the compassion I felt.
Dean, on the other hand, is always calm. Dean, who sits to my right, and is bipolar, and has a plate in his head, and had something like sixteen kitties at the time of his incarceration, and mourns constantly for their soft skin and purring more than any human person, and is learning the Muslim religion, while not abandoning the other. Sweet Dean!
("To me you seem precious and rare / Next to you I feel complete / Without you, feelings of despair / And life doesn't seem so sweet. I've sunk into a depression / You instill in me a certain lust / Without you there's no expression / Ashes to ashes and dust to dust . . . Over me you have control / To this I do agree / To you I'd give my body and soul / You quiet the beast in me. I've developed an attachment / An adherence you could say / But I'm just a beggar / So for you I'll pray")
Sweet, two-timing Dean, writing love letters to Martha, though not in lofty verse, but more like "I'm horny, ha, ha." A chameleon, shifting for his audience (though she dismissed him in gales of laughter as a douchebag, and I for my part don't see him as any less steadfast for hid du-multi?-plicity...)
*
I've been dreaming of the boy I often dream about but in real life could not easily be with. We were on top of a very tall cliff and I handed him a coy, almost a love note (and thought to myself, I always do that, I'll never change), and began to scale down it, very scared. He said to just go with the pattern of the rocks, to step with the groove, or something. Last night he was there again and all his fingers were cut off. I dreamt that Gilmore was acting horrible and drawing out a scene with a rifle. First he shot himself. Finally, he shot D in the head. I just ran and ran and ran for it, on some level grateful for the finality of such an evil scene. I keep having to escape in these dreams.
I dreamt I was at the Doctor's office, having some horrible, boring drawn out conversation with D. when I saw a boy I used to date when I was 18, a tall Leo, a fan of graphic design, Tool; who I didn't really jive with, but he had a certain force I liked, and this is what he did: I hadn't seen him (in real life, in the dream) for years, and he sort of jumped on me, and hung up the cell phone I was on. I shrieked with joy. I appreciated such masculinity! I dreamt of pepperoni pizza, and popcorn, an outdoor swimming pool and a nice deck, like being a teenager again with the parents not home, but you can't go back silly, and I dreamt of a saying and a big poster: "Big Eyes and Radiant Happiness Can Make Any Face Beautiful," and there was a photo of Audrey Hepburn only the bottom of her face was completely deformed.
But, I, have neither big eyes nor radiant happiness.
And there's more to people than beauty.
