All of life, and I mean life experienced as such – real and earnest as they used to say 100 years ago – takes place for me in the seams. In the larger pieces of the fabric I am lost, aswim in warp and woof and itchy in the wool and died in the wombat. No, I’m living life in the cracks; just like the beloved inner-city vegetation. It’s only in the transitions that I have this imaginary sensation of being “in” it. Walks and bike rides. And dreams. As I walk through the neighborhood I stride dynamically (as I did just now), or drag painfully. Dramatic either way, observed by an appreciative audience of trees. Out in the world, I am the world. Endlessly rich and complex and changing and dying and becoming. I seem to be full of possibilities, but that is just a momentary glimpse. Put all those moments together from my nearly 60 years of life thus far, and you have about a half day of getting ready for something.
A walk in the gloaming
There’s no doubt I’m not living the life I want to live. And, I can’t afford to live the one I am living; nor do I feel I have the time and strength to do anything about it. I’ve always been shrouded by this feeling that you can’t get there from here. But, nevertheless, between here and the grocery I’m on my way.
This neighborhood is different than my old one. I like it on a greyish spring evening, the slight hilliness, the narrow and old passages, the little houses and little trees and little people all piled up on each others’ edges at odd angles. I imagine if I were painting it I’d feel very european. I imagine I’m painting it. Everything I see, I imagine I’m somehow making it possible for the world to feel the moment. But, of course, it takes many many hours of concentration to really gather even the most minimal index of all this information. It’s all just fading away now that I’m home, just like those dreams. Those dreams, where things happen and I’m really living.
But, this is not what we gathered here for. No, let’s move on and look through some of the important junk I keep coming across in these internet alleys…