Fire and ash and a million miles that separate. A goal in mind to undo all the things that tied this knot in the first place. A fish place. A dentist’s office. A yoga studio on the third floor downtown. The river and all it’s movement. The banners on the wall on the way out. A smoked cigarette. A ball of twine and a piece of foil. Under the earth and across the interstate. Go there. See the sights and snap twenty-four pictures on the disposable. Send the whole thing in to get developed while you sit at home and regress. Throw all the pictures into an album and try to get it to play with that broken needle. Seven times around and you’ll still be tired. Tired and hopeless and wandering around like you’ve lost something you were never meant to find. This will be the beginning. The beginning and the end. This is the present and it’s neatly wrapped in cellophane and you’ll never find it because it was never hidden. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. It’s just simply something that cannot happen. It’s time. Time and money and a hot dog stand and some monk handing you some shiny token in exchange for your twenty dollar bill. Take it. Put it in your wallet that you wanted so bad. Put it in there and forget about it until you find it years later and it reminds you of all those things you did when you were younger. This will be your path. Make sure you shovel.
11.27.19
Analog evening in a storefront window. Visible breath through the cold pane window. Fried fish sandwich and a cool bottle of water that washes away the anxiety from not knowing everything instantly. An adult life otherwise tethered to the internet. An answer to any questions moments away and the touch of a screen. Thankful. Grateful. Pause.
Change gears.
Crunching snow and an eviction notice. Out on the street the day before Thanksgiving. Thanks for giving, or is it thanks, forgetting? Shovels full of solid water and a warning determined to deter the masses and yet somehow the masses formed en masse to pollute the streets and sidewalks. A soup kitchen on Chicago and a few more steps to detox. Early morning afternoons leave tigers on the television, but you wouldn’t see it unless you were looking. Oh, and can you see the sky from here? Would it matter if you couldn’t? Isn’t there a basement with your name on it and some pillows left over from the trip out West. Cigars and scars and cigarettes and a sore spot from standing too long. The experience is the bottom line if we acknowledge it as such, but the line forms around the back! Unless of course you called ahead or ordered online or gave money to the last campaign. Whatever your position is there is likely a physician that’ll cut you open and take your money as long as you’ve declared your intent because those are the boundaries around this sandbox and if you don’t like it, or you can’t afford it, you can just kick rocks. Kick them on down the road and try to make your peace because there will come a time when you meet some maker and you’ll have to answer questions as to your whereabouts and why there aren’t any phone records.
My advice to you is to come back with a warrant.
11.26.19
Four forty and the dog has moved onto the floor. With him there and myself in the space where I am, there is so much comfort in sleeping alone. In the hindsight and the foresight, lying in bed by my lonesome has pretty much been the case for the entirety of forty one years. When I think about it and whether or not it would be nice to have this not be the case I realize that this may, in fact, be a tough nut to crack.
Of course this is just an early morning observation and, as such, cannot stand to be included in the defendant’s testimony. There are rules here. Simple guidelines that are all plainly outlined in the handbook for use by those following along at home. It’s available through all the major channels, if you’re familiar with them? Smash it with a rock. Hit it with a hammer. Worst case scenario is that everything shorts out and flashes before the whole thing dies. Best case scenario is that it fires right up. Have a slice...everything is going to be fine.
11.25.19
A tortured soul and a deep sadness. A weekly repeat when the suns stays down. It’s real cold and real dark and it’s real hard. Some level of desire to just be left alone alongside some other want to be accompanied. Back and forth and inside out. Incense nonsense no sense. A smoke filled room and a tv on the ceiling. Drink more water. Argue with yourself.
What’s the difference.
There is none. Not one. Not one difference in this great big world. Go backwards. Find the roots. Dig them up. Store them in the cellar for the long winter. Can things. Salt the meats. You’re gonna be here for a while and when you finally get out you won’t even remember this because you come back here every year and every year it’s the same thing. Take your vitamins. Break the cycle. Look in the mirror you don’t have and smile at yourself and tell yourself that you have value and that you are appreciated and that you are loved.
11.21.19
Shirt
Shoes
Jacket
Pants
Dance
Hat
Cat
Fever
Wonder
Under
Over
Out
Again
Again
Again
Where does it end? Where does it begin? How many miles of this high desert sage wasteland must we walk before we find the end of the rainbow? Is there a rainbow? Doesn’t a rainbow need rain? I’m certain it certainly needs some kind of puddle or a lake or, at a minimum, some tiny stream of water flowing down from some higher point in the hills that likely stands in as some metaphor for the dreamers and the lonely hearts and the high school kids that find themselves wondering time and time again about what exactly it is that this life is going to bring after the comforts of the institution have escaped them. In that space long after the hallways are empty and the Friday nights are no longer filled with football games and warm beers at the home of that one who’s parents have left town for the weekend.
Or.
Perhaps the answers to all of life’s question lie somewhere in or around that beat up old trailer that was parked by the river underneath that bluff? Perhaps there is some age old wisdom in the ignorance and misunderstanding of youth? I am not, however, convinced, at this middle age of mine, that there are answers to any questions about these matters. There certainly aren’t road maps or printed directions or instructors standing by the road ready to assist. There is no fancy watch that will tell us the turns by the each and no super internet phone that can guide by voice alone. Our paths are crisscrossed and check-marked and jumbled in their appearance. Or are they?
11.18.19
Coney Island afternoons and some photos for the Instagram. A long train ride and an even longer drive back to the Midwest. Flowers for the funeral and an escape hatch back to the cornfield. I took pictures of a random old man in a furry cap near a fishing reservoir because he was there and so was I. Before that, or just after there were photos of the blue bells and the red dress. I was such an artist then. On the inside anyway.
Fast forward and rewind and stop the tape. Stop the presses. Stop the stopping and the restarting and the crying and the tears. Stop in the tracks or on the tracks or along some abandoned railway in the far northeastern reaches of Wisconsin. Do you remember the lake? The vacated beach? The car trouble on the way to Alaska?
Can you remember that awful night in September? It never happened. It never took place and there was never a race and there was never a trophy and there cannot be a winner. There was no dinner. No rest stop. No casino. There was no gravel road to destiny and there was no lake shore in Ohio.
You made it all up. You made it all up and now you can’t remember the truth from the fiction. You’re lost somewhere in the library trying to find the elevator back to the beginning. Back to the place where the book starts and the characters are just introduced. You’re lost and there isn’t enough sage left in your pouch to clear the demons from your new place, let alone wash away those that are left in your last.
Buy the cast iron and the antique canister and stuff all your collectibles inside. Cut the sausage on the counter and snap a picture because it’s just to good not to share. Sit outside on the curb and catch the bus as it rolls by. There’s laundry around the back and it’ll be the last place you call home. Second floor, first door. Have some memories and try to sort yourself out. A couple of years from now you’ll be wondering why it was that you could never get comfortable there.
Life goes on and so does the band. Take yourself back to those empty rollercoasters and the Zoltar machine. You’ve never not been you, you’ve just been circling the drain that doesn’t exist except in your head. Go to bed. Go to sleep. Go and rest, my friend.
11.26.15
On boats in cold water haggard men hoist sails for shores never seen at the edges of lands never crossed. Wrinkled hands and extinguished cigarettes draw the eyes to the hardened hearts of men lost at sea. Traveling for seasons without any true reasons these men know no homes and have long forgotten their loves abandoned and left for dead in the fireless chimneys of villages ruled by hatred and war. Adrift, these men are wandering the world in search of their oyster. If it shall ever be found is a concern that left them the first time the ocean came over the side rails and they struggled to cling to any sturdy and hopefully fixed object. Swept away from their minds and their liberated states, they simply go through the motions of their everyday lives.
Sleep.
Wake.
Eat.
Work.
Sleep.
Wake.
Eat.
Work.
Repeat.
Land will find you my friends. Land will find you. Whether under the sun or under the sea, you will touch the firm surface of this beautiful blue planet again. You will find your final resting place and all will be calm. Continue to raise your sails. Continue to follow the stars. Continue to set your course. Cold water, wind or otherwise, land will find you. It will.
12.13.15
In the break room there is an unusual silence that fills the air when it is only occupied by one. Occasionally there is the constant hum of some mechanical effort being put forth by a behind the scenes system, but mostly it's just silence. Once in a while the oddly pitched holler of another machine wails steadily as its top presses downward toward its bottom, but mostly it's just silence. Idle conversations and minor declarations perforate the doorway if it is left ajar, but mostly it's just silence. Crumbs and leftovers litter the table and one or two coffee pots rest quietly on the counter amid the dozens of dirty dishes. It's a break room after all. A place of seclusion and rest. A quiet corner of the busy world to sit and reflect and replenish and restore before heading back out into the chaos and splendor that is the holiday shopping season. The break room is so many things, but mostly it's just silence.
12.15.15
There was an open ended building with concrete floors where friends rolled toy trucks in my direction. The building faced a beach that was bookended on the right by scores of people. I was trying to ride over the train of trucks from nose to tail, but was on a bike whose gear was to big to turn over in a fast enough succession. I made it over, but it wasn't clean. We tried again. This time I went outside to get proper momentum. I pushed the bike to the right amid screaming beach goers on four wheel driven ATVs and my feet sunk in the wet sand. Side steps were made and shoes were muddied. Above me, people hung from parachutes and glided over the grass hills. With enough room to make a clean run, I started back. To my surprise and fully acknowledged content, the room was now empty and the trucks gone.
I joined a friend in an adjacent structure. A party was underway. A band had just gone on for its one song set and I was invited into yet another room. Here I was asked if I had any interested in getting away. I was asked if I was ready to start over. I replied, "I can start today." Things looked promising.
At this point, I shared some recent knowledge with my friend. They replied with some undisclosed insight as to me burning all the bridges I had once crossed by failing with my pen. I was perplexed.
Elderly people shuffled past and took their seats in what appeared now to be an industrial work space. Lights hung from long cords and tucked themselves into metal canisters. Long tables and simple metal stools filled the room. A video played on a screen where the band once was. I was confused, but certain. I woke up.
11.19.19
Why do you get up so early just to write things down? It’s foolish. You’re foolish. All those lies. If you had only been honest with me. What does that even mean? It’s almost as if you have no concrete knowledge as to where your bread is buttered.
A fucking sandwich
A sandwich and a salmon and a saddled sister swimming in from out of state. A seven and an eight and another round of trouble from the troubled twins and the conjoined faces. But how do they see? But how do the sea? But how!!
It isn’t obvious. It isn’t pretentious. It isn’t your business you lying piece of shit. How can you be so obtuse? Don’t you know that you are what you drive? Don’t you know that I never once asked to see who you are or where you live? Don’t you know that this depression is a killer? What do you know and where is it that you go? You don’t go down to Dixieland and I’ve never seen you at Disneyland. I doubt you’ve ever even been to Florida let alone driven there and back. Who are you, anyway? Why is your tongue split? Why do your fingernails curl backward? Why don’t you look like me? Why don’t you sound like me? Why can’t I smell your hair?
Go back to sleep. Go back to bed. Go back to where you belong. Go back. Go back. Go back.
11.17.19
The cycle breaks when the cycle breaks. Conversations get had and awareness is developed and dice get rolled. Somehow acknowledging self.
A positive mental attitude. An understanding of time and space. The triggers didn’t trigger. The gun never fired. It cannot even be determined that a bullet was ever loaded into the chamber. Perhaps the gun only shoots water? Perhaps the gun isn’t even a gun? Does it matter? Do the reasons or the causes even matter? Is the hatter mad? Is the man a dad? Do the trips down seventh and the stops at the stop drive themselves inside like a nail? They do not. At least not in this case as there is no hammer. In this case the case was premeditated when the incense burned and the smoke filled the nostrils. In this case the case held four clean aces and a face that wouldn’t let the librarian read it.
A new jacket and some time behind the wheel. All the music in the world couldn’t muster up the well because all is well as long as the well doesn’t well. If that makes sense.
Hot coffee and waffles and some bacon that easily folds in half. A bowling alley and the boss and some discussion about being sad. Riding mopeds down the stairs under the influence is not the same as counting sheep.
Words.
Say them to everyone, but hear them yourself. Messages in the messaging. A note in the bottle. Throw it out and it will come back. Boomerang.
11.14.19
All alone in a box on a street where a shoe hangs silently from a street sign. It’s some version of Franklin’s Tower minus all the chords and the refrain. It’s a little dance that’s done in the early hours of every day. It’s a dance performed by the aging and the young. It’s a dance that doesn’t have an end and a dance that doesn’t have a partner. It’s a quick exchange in the bus stop and a hustle for one that leaves the other filling up buckets and showering trash into the curb. This isn’t some nine to five gig with a lunch break and some posters on the wall about burnout. This is every city everywhere and an underbelly that doesn’t quite fit the shirt. It’s not tailored and it makes most vomit if they’re not too busy looking the other way. It’s a realness and a real mess and a landslide in an area that’s only ever been made of soil, except there’s more concrete here than one could ever find in a swimming pool or a skatepark in some small Wisconsin town along all but abandoned highway.
11.12.19
You are awesome. You are a thinker and a dreamer and bag of snacks. You are intelligent and charismatic and you like to eat fruit roll-ups and drink juice out of tiny boxes with a little plastic straw. You get tiny cartons of milk for a quarter from a push cart in the hallway and you enjoy the parachute day more than any of the others in gym class. You are in elementary school and you’re all grown up all at once. You find pleasure in the outdoors and you don’t read much, but your head contains a ton of knowledge on a variety of subjects. You write words as if they’re being spoken and you frame photographs in a way that feels pleasant to view. You are a bike rider and a car driver and you project an attitude of not giving a fuck even though anyone that knows you knows that you actually do. You eat food that tastes good even though you know it’s bad for you. You smoke cigarettes and find pleasure in riding your bike through the woods. Road rides turn you off and you no longer see the value in riding in circles. You are purpose oriented and goal driven to the extent that goal achieves some internal accomplishment. You are you and you are everyone else. The details might be different, but the underlying drivers are the same.
11.10.19
A weekly recurring loss. For twenty years. A vacancy repeated without respite. Now, and for the last five years, every seven days the feeling returns. It occurs in such a way that I am inclined to want to go to that space whenever I have a moment to myself. The alternative is submersion into work of fun. Some kind of absent therapy design to disguise my loss as some kind of ghost. A ghost that can’t exist because ghosts aren’t real. Yet every week I go back to the same place. Mentally I know there is an answer, but physically I cannot manifest it. No amount of self-knowledge can break the routine. Awareness is only good for preventing the unthinkable and it does a fine job of that. It’s like the record is scratched, always jumping back to the point from which it began. Sunday into Monday. Find some music. Feel it. Go there. Come back.
Moreover, my want to return to this place has to be rooted in the common thought process that is, feeling the loss is grieving the loss and through grief comes closure. The problem here is that because the loss is recurring, there is no time to grieve it and therefore no time to move through it and beyond it. It has persistently stood in the way of me getting anything done outside of employment and that is only true because I have for twenty years equated employment to success in dealing with this absence. It’s a cycle. A circular cycle that feels like a tornado at times and a toilet bowl at others. The speed of the cyclone is irrelevant to the damage. Onward. Forward. Smile. Everything is fine.
11.07.19 pt. 2
The second part is more strange than the first. Football on the tv and a quick switch of some parts on the car or truck or whatever it is we choose to call it. It sits a little higher than one would expect, but it’s definitely smaller than one might suspect. It’s cold, but not dangerously. Just enough chill to put a bitter wind down the spine, or up from the bottom of an untucked shirt. Cold enough to turn hands into slow moving objects. The slow that prevents thumbs from moving when the mind says “go”. There are books on the shelf and that’s no dramatic segue. It’s just an observation from the vantage point. A giant painting and a feisty dog and a brand new blanket. Candy bars for dinner and a reminder to fill up the coffee maker. Tomorrow makes five and the following six. Go seven and then eight and nine and ten. Lose track. Go back. Rhyme time. Prime time. Analogous. Analysis. Paralysis. Stuck here in this chair or on this bed and plagued by this unending head. No pillow big enough for the mazes and corridors that wind their way through the present and the past. Make it last. Make it fast. Fast. Fest. Rest. Under. Over. All the way around. Come back to the beginning and secure yourself a spot in line. Wait there for the bouncer or the door man or the ticket taker. Wait there for the undertaker and the grim reaper. Wait there. Just wait there and eventually your time will come.
11.07.19
Apathetic service in a space where service is the primary function. Lounging carefully and quietly behind laptops and ceramic mugs and some overpriced snacks. Found the spot. The quiet space that isn’t the bed and it isn’t the driveway. Perhaps that other space that can produce endorphins and good vibes. Maybe it isn’t this space? Maybe it’s another. The important piece is to keep getting out in the world. Try new things. Go new places. Feel things that are pleasant. Look out the window. Go through the door. Walk, but don’t play the drums. Those are for drummers. Same with guitars. Those belong to rock stars and people named Bruce and your name isn’t Bruce. It’s Chris. That is your name and drumming and guitar playing are not for you. You write words and take pictures. Stick with that. Stay away from caffeine, too. A cup in the morning is good for you, but after that drink water or tea. Sugary drinks are bad. You know this. Stay away. Even though we ain’t got money, I’m so in love with you honey. Lyrics. Airwaves. Brick walls and a countertop table that slides when it’s pushed. Not in a good way. In a bad way. Like the kind of way that suggests that maybe the construction is poor. It’s likely not a refection on the curators of this space. Rather a solution to a problem that once existed and then no longer did, but somehow has become a different problem that currently exists on a list toward the bottom. It’s just a table and this is just a coffee shop and nobody or any one thing is perfect. Everything is fine. It always has been. It always will be. Especially with headphones. Or at least that’s the impression I get from looking around this room. Headphones and coffee cups. Or mugs. I can’t be certain as the aura here is certainly one of art and artistic value. So cup is probably degrading or demeaning. I bet these are mugs. Fancy ones. Ones that were hand-crafted by some struggling genius that has yet to be discovered. Fired in a kiln that was made by hand behind some old rustic farmhouse. These are the mugs that will be handed down from generation to generation. The kind that will end up under glass in some museum of the future. But…how can that be? How could that be the future for all these mugs if they’re here? Here lining these shelves and waiting quietly for some new address to call home? Perhaps I have it all wrong? Perhaps there is no museum? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…
11.06.19
What is the fear? What is the root? Where does it come from and how can it be boiled down to its most primitive state? Anxiety? Depression? Some overwhelming lack of personal understanding?
It could certainly be all of these or none of these or some combination of them. It could certainly be. It’s definitely worse when the sun doesn’t rise as high in the sky. It’s certainly worse when the air grows cold and the ground firms up.
It happens every year. It happens every Sunday. It happens again and again and there does not seem to be an end in sight. So the words come out. The words come out in some feeble attempt to wrangle whatever elusive beast this might be.
It’s like some kind of bizarre metronome that cannot seem to be stopped. There’s no finger that can be lodged between it and it’s fulcrum. It just sits there swinging back and forth perpetually. On and on and on and on.
Sleep on it.
11.05.19
A Tibetan restaurant smashed into the quiet polish neighborhood that used to be primarily filled with first generation immigrants. Two different styles of tile line the floor and a mixture of photos and poor paintings and some kitschy modern humor make up the exterior of this setback interior. Chop sticks and hot tea and an ice water. Six tables out of fourteen occupied by folks from up the street and down. Take time and set it aside. Find a space that suits you and become a fixture. Lights and televisions and some strange electronic music. Where do you go from here? Back to a headache? Under the sink, covered in water? Take the blanket out to the trash and shake your fist and call it what it is. This isn’t your past and it certainly won’t be your last. It’s the present and the future and a cacophony of shoes. It’s a rattle can paint job and a piece of history that can’t quite be resurrected to look like it once did. Words on top of words.
Pause.
Have another bite and wash it down with some more of that green tea. It feels good to stop for a second. It feels good to feel good.
Pause.
Outside cold. Inside warm. There are many among us that don’t have the luxury of choice. Many who wander aimlessly trying to find some level of unknown comfort. They exist adjacent to us. At the edge of our excess. Homeless. Vagrant. Transient. Drug addicted. Alcoholic. Criminal. Problems for the state. Problems for the feds. Problems for everyone except us.
The problem is that we have forgotten that which separates us is the same thing that connects us. The problem is that we have forgotten the importance of choice. The problem is that we have forgotten the outcomes of choice. Our distance is short. Our shortsightedness is blindness. Our blindness is ignorance. Our ignorance is our motivation. Our motivation is our accelerant. Our fire is us and there is no shortage of fuel.
11.03.19
A semi-regular stranger that visits late in the evening. Miles of broken white lines and anonymous headlights punctuate. Eighty or one hundred or a thousand. The number is irrelevant. Broken. Busted. Heartbroken. Abandoned. Worthless. Empty. Forgive. Move forward. There is no backwards. There is nothing to go back to. The past is passed. One room on a merry go round. Each week is a mirror of the previous and a cookie cutter for the future. Spinning. Passing the same rock underwater and believing every time that it is new. Keep walking. Keep moving. Don’t stop. Never stop.
11.01.19
Take the vitamin. Repeat the repetition. It’s getting dark and after yesterday you’re probably real close to the slope. It lingers.
It always lingers.