deserts, memory, and stars
I put on a shirt, an old waffle cotton, long-underwear shirt. I put it on, it’s soft. The shirt has a three button neck, this lets it come over my head easy. It’s so soft. It’s old and it’s dirty. I should have done laundry this weekend. It feels clean, though, and smells clean, too.
Here I am. The sun is down. Evening has settled in, lights are turning on. There’s only one light on in this apartment. I’m actually listening to music, something I haven’t been doing much of lately. I just want to write at the moment. Just write, without aim or goal or purpose. This is a song from my past, even the moments when the singer grunts—I remember this, how it sounds and feels. It is truly beautiful. Music is one of the truly beautiful things in this world.
Even with so much horror and pain in this world there are moments that transcend everything and we are truly human.
It’s easy, I think, for me to feel this but what about the person in Chad right now, fearing for the safety of the family she is a part of, wondering when the militias will come? Is this true for that person as well? I hope so. And when there are people in situations like that, how can anyone really be free? Most of us are guilty of participating in relationships of domination. We also habitually take part in, and accept the benefits of, systems of hierarchy that must, by their very nature, oppress other human beings.
I am feeling something akin to cold winter nights back in North Dakota. That’s a pretty non-descript rumination, I know. I am remembering, but in a vague way, nights in Bismarck and maybe Fargo, nights spent with family, or with friends, or alone. Wow, now I am feeling things from long ago, about how I saw the world and myself in it and the future. The future.
Time seems to have taken on a different appearance now than then, a different context in my life. Often, time seems always there, making itself known, and it’s a matter of the night slipping by, of yet another day passing. I feel slowed down tonight. Like somebody grabbed my collar and just said “Whoa, hold up a moment.” Time doesn’t feel the same at a moment like this. Its fingers aren’t in everything. My mind is not diving into a thousand possibilities or constructing the passage of life before my mind’s eye. Instead, this is enough. Simply, this is enough.
This must be one of the key differences in living and, more importantly, feeling between the present, my present, and my past. I have really been go, go, go. This may not make sense to someone who knows that I am unemployed and have been for a couple of months. But my mind is so frequently racing around. It’s not that I don’t have moments of tranquility—I most certainly do. A lot of them, actually. And I cherish that. This is somehow something a little different. It’s very spatial.
I read the back of an old science fiction novel at a thrift store today. The description of the main character’s hopes and dreams was beautiful—tangentially, archetypically huge but simple. He wanted to find his home in the vast reaches of endless space. Unfortunately, he found himself at the bottom of an ocean, a captive among fishpeople. A hero, a lonely, wandering hero. Introspective but also an individual of action out there among the stars. One who demands freedom and searches for it endlessly through the cold void of unknowable space, bouncing around the stars.
I put it back on the shelf. I probably could never read it—it would be so sexist and likely other things that would disgust me. But that’s okay, I have the back of the book and the individual alone in space, approaching freedom on the horizon, getting closer with every bootfall.
*The description of the spacefarer is purposefully “mannish”—it’s kind of a joke, you know, tongue in cheek…..young boys dreaming to be desperadoes and smiling rogues. Maybe the ironic thing is we are all looking for some sort of freedom on the horizon, freedom from things as overtly manifested in that book as gender roles and sexism. Maybe, really, we are all listening to our own bootfalls and wondering if we’re closer. Somewhere out there, there is a star that says, “Only I can transform the nature of my existence.”
Here I am. The sun is down. Evening has settled in, lights are turning on. There’s only one light on in this apartment. I’m actually listening to music, something I haven’t been doing much of lately. I just want to write at the moment. Just write, without aim or goal or purpose. This is a song from my past, even the moments when the singer grunts—I remember this, how it sounds and feels. It is truly beautiful. Music is one of the truly beautiful things in this world.
Even with so much horror and pain in this world there are moments that transcend everything and we are truly human.
It’s easy, I think, for me to feel this but what about the person in Chad right now, fearing for the safety of the family she is a part of, wondering when the militias will come? Is this true for that person as well? I hope so. And when there are people in situations like that, how can anyone really be free? Most of us are guilty of participating in relationships of domination. We also habitually take part in, and accept the benefits of, systems of hierarchy that must, by their very nature, oppress other human beings.
I am feeling something akin to cold winter nights back in North Dakota. That’s a pretty non-descript rumination, I know. I am remembering, but in a vague way, nights in Bismarck and maybe Fargo, nights spent with family, or with friends, or alone. Wow, now I am feeling things from long ago, about how I saw the world and myself in it and the future. The future.
Time seems to have taken on a different appearance now than then, a different context in my life. Often, time seems always there, making itself known, and it’s a matter of the night slipping by, of yet another day passing. I feel slowed down tonight. Like somebody grabbed my collar and just said “Whoa, hold up a moment.” Time doesn’t feel the same at a moment like this. Its fingers aren’t in everything. My mind is not diving into a thousand possibilities or constructing the passage of life before my mind’s eye. Instead, this is enough. Simply, this is enough.
This must be one of the key differences in living and, more importantly, feeling between the present, my present, and my past. I have really been go, go, go. This may not make sense to someone who knows that I am unemployed and have been for a couple of months. But my mind is so frequently racing around. It’s not that I don’t have moments of tranquility—I most certainly do. A lot of them, actually. And I cherish that. This is somehow something a little different. It’s very spatial.
I read the back of an old science fiction novel at a thrift store today. The description of the main character’s hopes and dreams was beautiful—tangentially, archetypically huge but simple. He wanted to find his home in the vast reaches of endless space. Unfortunately, he found himself at the bottom of an ocean, a captive among fishpeople. A hero, a lonely, wandering hero. Introspective but also an individual of action out there among the stars. One who demands freedom and searches for it endlessly through the cold void of unknowable space, bouncing around the stars.
I put it back on the shelf. I probably could never read it—it would be so sexist and likely other things that would disgust me. But that’s okay, I have the back of the book and the individual alone in space, approaching freedom on the horizon, getting closer with every bootfall.
*The description of the spacefarer is purposefully “mannish”—it’s kind of a joke, you know, tongue in cheek…..young boys dreaming to be desperadoes and smiling rogues. Maybe the ironic thing is we are all looking for some sort of freedom on the horizon, freedom from things as overtly manifested in that book as gender roles and sexism. Maybe, really, we are all listening to our own bootfalls and wondering if we’re closer. Somewhere out there, there is a star that says, “Only I can transform the nature of my existence.”
posted by matt iv at 10:45 AM
1 Comments:
there is a line in a hebrew song that my dad has always sang. nar hayyiti vigam zakanti vilo ra'iti tzadik neezav. i never paid too much attention to the words. always thought it was a folk song, maybe about love.
a few weeks ago i learned that it was actually part of a prayer. "i was young and then i grew old and never have i seen a righteous man abandoned."
the moment i read it it rung within me. yes, i said, yes. the person i was with, was a little surprised- she didn't know my way of being religious or my faith and perhaps assumed that i was secular b/c of outward things. she mentioned that there are some streams that don't read this line-- because they, she said, they say that in fact, righteous men -were- abandoned. but it's not talking about this world, i thought, it's talking about god. about being abandoned by god.
I told my dad that I heard that line, and he said, of course it's a prayer. do you know what it means? he asked. yes, i said. "but it's not true", he added. i said, i think it is. he said, what are you talking about? of course there are righteous people abandoned. i said, if you think about it in the sense of earthly suffering, then yes, but not if you think about it in a more spiritual sense. he said, "what kind of other kind of suffering is there?"
the other day, much later than that, i was talking with murad. he's going through horrible things, less difficult perhaps than your friend in askar, but the situation is the situation, and he is one of those people without his salary, and the worst, i was thinking, is the feeling that this will never change. he is finally engaged and getting married, the symbol of starting a family and growth and maturity and ripening, and for him this horrible state of no-rights and no-life and no-state seems to be... endless. why should it change? it only gets worse.
but i think he would agree with the prayer. i know he would, actually.
this all comes to me as you wonder about the man in chad.
i saw a movie recently as well, a silly movie perhaps, but i liked it. but one thought provoking thing in it is how people can so easily, so unexpectedly, die. there are no promises in this life. i could be on the train and it could crash and i could suffer unimaginably, for no thing i did, my legs cut off, who knows. when i was in nablus and people thought that way, it shocked me. mahmoud would say, i don't know if i will be alive. i couldn't believe any young person would think that way, could think that way. it seemed an abomination, and an unlivable thing. so dark, so dark. later i realized that some people in south boston also felt that way in the 80s, that there are war zones everywhere, that the alcoholics anonymous and narcotics anonymous members my sister goes to groups with also know this thing and know it vitally-- those around them die and suffer, and they know there is nothing unique about them. there are no promises.
the thing about that movie that i saw, is that the lead character dies in such an unexpected way, right after he kind of seems to have done the right thing and was on his way to possibly find peace. and he is killed and that's that, he's forgotten. it's not dwelled on.
i don't know, its all revolving around "lo ra'iti tzadik ne'ezav" right now. i think the director was trying to say that there's no meaning, you do bad and you might live, you do good and you might die. that's what my dad thinks-- that's what he experienced. but i think there was a difference, there was. there was a difference between the bad guy living and the good guy dying. i can't explain it, but i know, i KNOW, it meant something, just that moment before the hero died when he started to do a truly good and selfless thing and feel the peace of that, the peace of rightousness. it means something.
i wonder if palestinians, with a deep faith in God, know that, and that's why they can let in so many foreigners come in and try to help, in ways that will not change the situation in reality, but still welcome them and love them. they know that what we did made no difference in the long term fate of their lives. but goodness has meaning. i think they know this, and i think it is we in the West that are far from that knowledge. but the man in Chad may know it as well. most people i've met, that have suffered in a deep, deep way, know it. they know that there is something beyond this, that matters. the man in Chad is not as alone as you think.
i love to read what you write. thanks for sharing it.
love,
lisa
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