30

30. 30.

 

Help me I think I’m falling

I want to cancel my birthday. Hell, I want to cancel my birth. A gloomy night of bad sleep. Woke out of a terrible dream of twenty-eight adult children living together in a house on an island. Ominous and disturbing.

Nerves shot. Retreat. Sadness. I need more attention than I’m getting. But I’m a chore and will be seen to eventually. Sit and wait. Just not as important as other things. Maybe every other thing, we’ll let you know.

That’s what you get for trying to do things for others. Asymmetric desolation. No room for complaining either, since it’s your own fault for caring enough to go beyond yourself. You can trade everything for nothing, and be thankful it didn’t go worse for you.

I need to move away. Silently, without warning. They can all wake up to find me gone forever. The petulant child’s fantasy of delightful vengeance.

 

I can’t cope with life

Day two back together, and already I’m boring. The stress, the fear, the panic, the disappearance of my personality. Hello, they’re back. I’ve become a detail easily overlooked. A chore far down on the list. A burden, hindrance, annoyance, roadblock, deadweight. When all I wanted was to be cherished and cared for.

Oh well.

Who do you have to blow around here to get some fucking attention?

 

Downpour

Patsy Cline and Yo La Tengo. Long day, from reunion sex to breakfast, a long walk for idle shopping, caught in the rain and forced to endure a hard sell in a funky third-world-chic store. Caught up with M—- in time for the latest installment in The Saga of Too Many Men at Once. Dithered and withered and wished for a nap. Onto the bus and a long increasingly exhausted ride back home. Cold. Clear.

 

Brand new shoes, same old husband

At last. It’s strange to spend the day at loose ends. I don’t often get to wander and window-shop and have time on my hands.

A misread watch made me very early at the airport. So I hunkered down and read and watched the people. Horny at the prospect of seeing my beloved again, every man was just a cock-delivery device. I was practically drooling into my copy of Becker’s Escape from Evil.

He is more handsome than ever. I love him so much.

Connected with R—– and L—- at some chi-chi cocktail place and then off for the traditional sushi gluttony. I— showed up and kept M—- entertained. I wrote “This washroom is SKUZZY with a ‘K’” on the wall of the can; I can take a certain amount of laxity, but actual dried rivulets of shit down the side of the toilet seat is going too far. Maybe we shouldn’t eat there anymore.

Exhaustion. Home. Not home. Somewhere with a warm bed.

 

A Culture of Gratitude

This is what we need to encourage — to embody. Another whole year before we get to do it again… sadness.

I met some lovely people. This was meaningful to me, because I have felt wounded and distanced from my fellow workers in the struggle. I was sure I would heal and get past the pain, and I think that these few days have sped the process along.

The difference between the bullshit culture of minimal tightfisted activism and the real culture of generous sharing and love is becoming clearer to me every day. I don’t see a way to talk about it much, but it is real and working its way within me. It will flower at the right time.

 

Putting yourself out there

We shivered by the fire, hearing stories, singing songs, bullshitting and laughing. I wish I had more chances to do this: sit around, sing, tell jokes, tease one another, talk nonsense, let the hours slide by us as we let the tribe do its thing. This is real life. Everything else is over-processed junk, imported bureaucracy from uninhabitable alien worlds. The sooner we learn this the better.

Earlier, I put my foot down and decided that we needed to get working together on cooperatives. And it would have been easy — so, so easy — to let someone else do it, or let no one do it. But I’m not that way. So I DIYed it up and made it mine. Did one last year which worked out well and earned me some respect, so let’s see where this one leads.

And it was cold, but I slept. Under cold stars. Happy.

 

Secretary

From one broken board to a different and better one. Awoke refreshed from a long and quiet night out in the field. Participated with joy and calm in the coming together of a group of amazing people. What a privilege. Eat well, sleep well, stay hopeful. Live, love, smile.

Was talked into stepping onto the governing board of this rambling ramshackle collection of miracle workers. Hesitated but decided not to let the recent events cause me to become the kind of person who stays at home and refuses to fight. I fight.

 

Off to it

Close up the house, pitch a tent. Drifting through a crowd of schoolkids, waiting for the ferry. Listening in on slices of conversations as they waft by. Sitting on the deck, talking to D—- and J—-, feeling the weight of the weeks fall away. Highways, streets, bridges, tunnels, into forest and cool mountain air. A tent, a table, a circle of people sharing thoughts and where-what-why’s. It’s on and it’s always on. If you just know where to look for it.

 

Start the countdown

The weight is coming off me. Dear L—-,

For some reason I’ve been on a kick of listening to the old Genesis albums lately. That comes and goes; I can spend months not even thinking back on that stuff, and then suddenly find myself revisiting those weird old relics of ages past. I was listening to Watcher of the Skies (the Foxtrot version) just now, and you popped into my head. And I felt such a feeling of warm affection for the person I remember you being so long ago: a freak with a heart of gold. And that shaggy mop of hair. If I’d had my shit together back then, I would have had a huge crush on you. Ah well.

It’s hard to look back with such sharp fondness and not feel a little guilty for indulging in nostalgia, or more likely making the past look prettier than it was at the time. And yet some of the things I recall from those times are pretty sweet and wonderful and formative. We had such a passion for music, for literature, and for spending time enjoying the world. I hope you haven’t lost the best parts of that. I don’t think I have, but sometimes I feel them slipping away, and I worry.

I love the you you were. I hope maybe I can get to know you once again and discover the you you are now. I’m sure that would be wonderful.

Love,

—–

 

We will rock you, rock you, little snake, we will keep you snug and warm

Getting ready to push the boat out into a suddenly calm sea. I can see a clearing ahead. The frenzy is coming to an end, for now. This weekend away, followed by the return of the husband, followed by a return to some semblance of a normal life. And somewhere in amongst all that: polenta fries.

I still feel jarred out of my normal orbit by recent events. I’m not fitting back in the old hole; still twisting and jangling around trying to change my shape or the shape of the me-shaped gap in the world. It’s OK. Just changing. Evolving or devolving, I don’t know. But always watching it happen and having something to think about the process, that’s good.

Sometimes I feel like one of the few who is awake for all of this. Everyone is anæsthetized, laid out watching eyelid movies of a happy shiny plastic world of freedom 55 gone quadding winters in Mexico summers with the grandkids. Far be it from me to begrudge other people the pleasures they have been told are theirs by virtue of showing up. But is it possible that so few people want more out of the whole experience? Apparently it is possible. I will never not be shocked by this.

 

Lessons learned

Stomachs turned. Back on the treadmill of relentless activity! An extended weekend during which I really managed to forget the blur of tasks and projects and concentrate on entertaining our guest. That in itself was something of a minor miracle given the state of my nerves lately.

Another truncated week followed by a weekend of activity. And then back on it. The round and round goes round and round. Try to stay on.

Met with H—— about the F— F— and ran into E— W—– and I—- from the doomed association. Even more bile spilling on the ground. An ocean of the stuff. So much bad feeling, and at the centre of it all, weaving her web of hatred: J—-. Always J—-. What is it for? Is this her aim? Has it gone wrong? How will she find work again in this town? Will there be an endless series of ignorant suckers waiting to be consumed and wrecked?

 

The unspoiled bay

Two kids foraging for lost change under a soft-drink machine. Beautiful! Farmers’ market, drive and walk to the hidden place. Picnic lunch, walk back, dinner of fiery curry and salad. And so to bed, early.

 

Hiking

A perfect day at last. Walked through beautiful forest for most of the day. Had a wonderful dinner of gravlax, roasted beet salad, smoked salmon, ginger ice cream, washed down with a bottle of pinot gris. To bed and a quick fadeout.

 

Crossing

More rain. More pain. The sight of the town from across the water. And the other town over there. Rain. Hard to walk with blistered feet.

 

Walkabout

Shattered feet. More shuttered businesses. This town is on the skids, man. Pesto for dinner.

 

Arrive

Rain. Plane. Calamari and pizza. Exhaustion. Already?

 

Efforts to control my rambling mind prove initally fruitful

Which reminds me: I really must write to J— Y—- wherever he may be. A difficult time continues, but I am working hard to make the best of it. I’m lonely, I feel isolated and underappreciated, and at the same time I feel like a fool for letting these things get to me. I should be stronger, more resilient. But my defenses are down and everything is penetrating to my inner self. It’s alright as long as I can stay attuned to the ups and downs of my state of mind. But things get past me so quickly: one moment I’m feeling good and the next moment I’m a jittery wreck, convinced that everything is crushing me now and forever.

Is all of this like physical training? Am I getting stronger through constant exposure to difficulties and reverses? Am I really overcoming or merely sidestepping? I don’t feel as though I’m becoming any more able to deflect the terrors and nervous crises. It’s not overwhelming, but it is just plain annoying that what seems objectively like a fairly routine amount of work and chores and responsibilities transmutes itself in my mind into a non-stop series of minor catastrophes reaching from here to forever. It’s not right. I’ve lost the will to relax and enjoy the little moments, since each tiny moment of celebration is eclipsed by the onrushing panic of the next thing to deal with.

Vacation? Change of job? Sex? Something is missing.

 

0 to ∞ in 0 seconds, and back again

With fuzzy head and stress legs, I prepare to confront the world for another week. Is it turning around? I thought I had sorted this out and decided that I could no longer afford to spend all my time in a funk of feeling behind the eight-ball on everything at all times. Well, that lasted about a day or not even. And now I’m back to the interrupted sleep, waking all tensed and ready to spring at four in the damn morning. Yesterday I tried to nap, but as soon as I slipped below the surface I distinctly heard someone saying my name. That woke me up and kept me there.

Insomnia is the worst thing I can imagine. It tears the hours into shreds. It’s like dropping your days into water and watching them dissolve. You reach your hand in to hold them together, and that makes them swirl away and fade out even quicker.

I can’t find time to read. And when I can, the words just bounce off my mind. I’m sitting there racing the engine inside, roaring noise to stop new information from getting in. Reading the same sentence over and over while I pick apart something trivial for the eighty-eighth time. Because I’m not reading, I feel stressed. Because I feel stressed, I can’t read. Around and around.

Seriously: how can I make this stop? I need to calm down. Everything — everything — is making me wig out. I know it’s all unimportant. But then my mind takes off like a kitten playing with yarn. An evil, nasty, dangerous kitten.

I tell myself I have no time to sit and clear my mind. And so everything becomes a manufactured crisis, meaning that I have no time to sit and clear my mind.

I can see all this, describe it, understand. Just can’t stop it. What’s that about?

Guernica: I’ve read your books, heard you speak numerous times, and interviewed you several times. You’re always so optimistic about everything, no matter how dire the situation. What keeps you so optimistic?

Robert Thurman: It’s a moral duty. What that means is that you have to shift focus, you have to up level. If you look only at the negative things that are going on—not that you shouldn’t look at them, you absolutely should because you have to do something about every single one of them—then they infect you with their negativity. You become angry and depressed and desperate, and then you’re going to react with negativity.

Syn-chro-ni-ci-ty!

 

Whatever is is whatever

Approaching the asymptote of exhaustion and frustration. Another oddly cut out day, a hole in the calendar, missing time, lost hours. Trying hard to get it back together but it refuses to go. Jumbled n the floor, banged-up pieces of nothing much, a melting heap of chores undone and appointments hanging over my head like swords. If I could find some time to start to unwind, I’d be fine; but every moment brings another bucket of time pulled from the well and spilled on the ground. I can’t get started.

Sleep is a joke. It only hastens the coming of the next time of waking and having to deal with the thngs left over from today. Every day a little more. Like a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces reproduce in the box and whose picture changes at will.

It occurred to me that not once in my life, since I moved out of my parents’ home, have I had a vacation of the normal type which people use to clear the cache, defrag the disk, reboot. I have never gone away to some quiet warm place to be waited on, bed made while out doing nothing much, days of delightful sun-drenched moping and irresponsibility. What must that be like?

 

Growing sadness

And a sense of unreality. Ostensibly a day off, but of course I spent it running around in various states of stress and fury. Took the bike in to get the bent wheel seen to; picked up a gift certificate for the draw; got a bunch of used books; misplaced my rear-view mirror on the walk back home; rode back on the other bike to find it; failed; rushed up the hill to get to the garage sale event and supposedly man a table; arrived late, and spent some time wandering around in there shouting overtop of the outrageously loud voice of the huckster fool pimping other people’s rubbish; from there up to the market for the planning meeting, which was not much of anything; back here to give the fair junk to H——; finally started to flake out on the lawn, and J—- and J——- showed up to hang out; they went away and came back later with R—; had drinks and dinner and talking; bed late.

It all felt OK or better while it was happening, but I had to calm myself down a few times and try to bring myself back into the moment. I feel so stretched thin lately by everything that is going on. My life is an ever-growing checklist of things I am not doing well, and this is killing me. And I’m lonely and I feel more alienated than ever from the happy-face culture of death around me. Something’s gotta give.

And the killer is that I look around and see other people who seem to be more productive and calmer than I am. How are they getting so much done without melting down? This preys on me as well. I feel that I have no right to complain about feeling stressed and overloaded so long as other people can handle more. I know this is stupid, but I can’t shake the feeling. So I should keep my head down, work harder, get more done, be more organized, sleep less, eat quicker.

 

Fade out on the hippie van, rolling off to follow the Dead

An abrupt ending, throwing open a galaxy of possible continuations, never to be realized. There is something spooky and poignant about that. Wait, what’s this? A day on which I start to see the clearing in the clouds? As though there might be a way forward after all, and one which doesn’t involve constant fear and trembling at the piles of work lying undone ahead of me? That seems weird.

The key to it all? Just keep moving at all times. Sounds easy.

Seriously, though, today I managed to clear away a few things which have been lying on me, oppressing me with their uncompletedness, cramping my ability to get other things done, leading to a multitask pileup and psychic logjam of magnanimous proportions. Sometimes you have to simply wade in there and start banging things around if you ever want to sleep well again.

Got the prep done for the fair. Got a poster made. Prepared for another podcast. Answered about a thousand emails, and started a bunch of new threads. I am the king! I am out in front, breaking the sound barrier, blazing the trail, sailing out beyond the edge of known space and time. Fear me!

Although tomorrow I’ll probably feel as though I’ll never catch up again.

 

Fungal Stars in the Forest Dark

A happy coincidence which reassured me that I am doing the right things, in the right ways, at the right time… maybe. Went over to the FYBB today to set up a conversation with C—- for the podcast series and ran into C——, who is someone I always like to talk with, even though his hipness makes me feel like a complete old person. Not complete, but in an advanced condition anyway. But we got to talking about what he is doing, which is recording music and trying to put it out on the web, and what I’m doing, which is interestingly similar, only not music so much as information and talking. And it turns out that he is trying to figure out blogging and thinking about podcasting. So it was a nice opportunity for me to offer my help. I hope he takes me up on it, since this is exactly the sort of thing I hoped would happen when I tried to float the idea of a local media collective. These ideas have to percolate out there for a while before picking up enough velocity to take off and sustain themselves. Maybe in a few years, I’ll be the person whose name comes to people’s lips when they talk about such-and-such a project; as in: “It was that D—- person who started that back in ‘09.”

I don’t want a lot of recognition; just from the people who matter, the ones who are on the same trip as I. The others are nice to have around, but honestly they take up a lot of space with their uncritical acceptance of total crap and idiocy. I need to find the ones who think the way I do, and build outwards from there; not cast the net wide hoping one or two might get caught among thousands of duds.

 

Galactic Wreckage in Stephan’s Quintet

Ying and yang and ping and pong. A wearying day with occasional flurries of feeling almost back in control of the endlessly ramifying cluster of tasks that swirl about me like the fruit flies which have taken over the house. Little bastards are specking the walls and windows with their filthy little pads. Or is it feces? I don’t want to know.

Second Wednesday, featuring the food activities in the morning and evening, sandwiching between them a meeting of the L——- C——, which went pretty well. So I ate well for lunch, had a meeting, ran home, made a quick salad featuring some of the chicory from the garden, then ran off to eat well again. Bison shepherd’s pie! Pumpkin muffins! These K— F—- meetings are starting to sag, so I need to ramp them up again. Next month: preserved foods of all kinds.

And from there, pedal pedal pedal up to the meeting to talk about transportation. History repeats, or rhymes anyway. Lots of good ideas, and will we find a way to carry through on some of them? At least we’re not just talking about fixing the damn bus system. That was a non-starter. M— is beautiful; so much so that it almost made me feel that things were going to be OK after all, since a universe that can throw something like that at me without even batting an eye must be up to some good, even if it’s hard to discern at times.

If I can just keep these plates spinning until the curtains close…

 

No more pears! No more! No!

Run off my feet and then some. I am feeling so down about the prospects for focused collective change in this community. The A- A– fiasco has really set me back. And everywhere I look I see the same small number of people doing the heavy lifting in the areas that really matter, while everyone else is off pampering themselves, blissing out in front of the television machine, or shopping their way to A NEW YOU. We’re just not moving fast enough; and that’s because there is no way we can move fast enough. And I don’t know how satisfied I can be — and for how long — with the holding pattern of just good enough. Sometimes that’s OK, and sometimes it isn’t. When my dissatisfaction is compounded by bad behaviour, by people actively working against community, it gets hard to keep staring ahead and walking, even though that horizon isn’t budging.

There are just so many little projects, little details. Forget one thing and someone is annoyed. Remember everything and no one notices. I don’t want to feel as though I’m becoming a martyr to this work I chose, but there are times when I’m so tempted to walk away, like 99% of everyone else does, and stop pushing. But I know that I would see that as a failure. I don’t think I could be happy knowing I consciously ditched out on work I see as critical.

So maybe this is a low and I’ll get through it. Of course it doesn’t help that I’m alone right now, not eating as well as I normally do, not sleeping as well as I normally do, and not having anyone to talk to who really understands what I’m going through. This is not one of the better times. I feel like running away.

 

I have tried for so long, it’s all gone wrong

No revelation, no gateway to the outside, no reprieve. Spent most of the day reading War and Peace, lolling about, eating the last of the oysters, and sucking up the peace and quiet before entering the fray again. Heavy shit is massing  off beyond the horizon. I can feel it. I need my strength. I need my husband.

 

Retreat

There will be no Utopia. Another day of quiet relaxation, evasion, and disappearance. No one talks to me, I talk to no one. Did I make it through the day without speaking one word?

 

Every morning I wake up on the wrong side of capitalism

Stand up and fight, for you know we are right! We must strike at the lies that have spread like disease through our minds. Mumble, dream, drift, stutter, wander, snooze, meander, tumble, drown, stagger, sigh, dream, dream, dream.

I have nothing to add. I drifted through the day. I stayed awake and then I stopped staying awake.

Reading Buber’s Paths in Utopia. Watching Freaks and Geeks (again). Listening to whatever I can get my hands on.

Did I ever mention that Slanted and Enchanted is one of the most incredible and psychedelic albums ever made? No? Well, I’m saying it now.

Baked pasta with oysters and bocconcini.

Heavy rain.

 

… a strange mix of tourist shops, second-hand book shops and needle exchanges.

El samaritanismo. A slow day filled with moments of small pleasures and the beginnings of the feeling over being over the hump of psychic distress caused by the bad behaviour of the old girls’ club and their shenanigans.

Rode up the beach trail to visit with M—– and help him set up a blog. Then rode back down, did some work, and headed home after stopping along the way to pick up some oysters and a slab of fresh sockeye. Dinner was refried pizza, baked sockeye, two big margaritas and a pile of rum mixed with Cointreau and lemon juice. I needed to get fucked up and so I got fucked up. Thanks, ladies!

Listened to some wonderful music. Somehow it turned out to be nineties night: Liz Phair, Pavement, Unrest, Red House Painters, and the Sixths. I contemplated making a mixed tape of my version of the nineties for J—- and J——-, which probably means I have a crush on them. Like who in this town doesn’t? They seem to have a steady supply of dinner invitations and people hanging out with them. And we have little of that. And if we had it, would we continue to want it? Maybe not. We’re very self-enclosed.

 

The power of a good shit

The doctor said it’s no good doing my exercises, cos I’m living in too stressful a situation. Reflecting, after another tough day, what with trying to overcome the blast of shitty bad times coming from the other night. M— E—– dropped by while I was talking with D—– on the phone, bringing her up to speed on the recent cratering of the thing that turned out to be two things cleverly disguised as one thing.

So M— and I talked for a long time in the backyard, in intermittent sun and cloud, about precisely the things that were upsetting me and we realized that we saw many of the same negative dynamics and did everything we could not to get dragged in. But she’s been here about forty years, and has seen things come and go and come again. I asked her if there were people in town who had utterly wrecked their reputation, and if so what happens to them? Do they hide? Do they move away? According to her, there are plenty around, and one ran for mayor last time around — the one they call Beaver — which shocked her, knowing what she (and everyone else in town) did about his sleazy past doings.

It was really pleasant to talk with her. She and I are similar in some ways. She almost started off by asking me if or when I was going to run for mayor. I had to ask her please to never ask me that question. Why are they always asking me that question? I’m going to need to issue a public statement to the effect I have no present or future plans to run for mayor.

We talked so much that I had to run for the copies, staple them quicklike, and then race off to the wkshp we did. Which went pretty well. Which was such a treat for me, because I haven’t slept well (see above) and just haven’t had time to stress over that. It was strictly on the stress backburner while I puzzled over other people’s perfidy.

I need to stop worrying about all of this. Who’s got some pixie dust?

 

Been burned, and with both feet on the ground

Screwed by the old girls’ network. I will never ever let myself fall into this sort of double-dealing and deception. Never. I can’t do it. I am too ethical for that. I know, talk about your hubris; to say a thing like this is to court disaster. But I know it deep inside me: I live for a world which doesn’t yet live, which is a place where everyone is treated with respect, told the truth, invited to belong, made to feel at home, treasured and valued and loved.

As if.

This is a real lesson for me in how well-intentioned people who are not vigilant and cautious can slip into behaviours which cause terrible disruptions in the community around them. And there is a self-reinforcing psychodynamic whereby people’s reactions to the pathological situation are brushed off as intrusive or uncalled-for, deepening the divides among the parties involved, leading to more secrecy, scarcity of information flow, and on and on it goes.

And like the proverbial frog in the pot of water, the situation’s constant continual worsening is normalized as stable, and no one can see how bad it’s getting. Until something causes it to blow, at which point everyone goes into full ass-coverage mode and starts buffing their alibis and credentials as pillars of the community.

It ain’t washing with me. I am so disappointed.