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epistle log 7even
the protracted silence
so i haven't done this in a while. my apologies. but, i should feel no responsibility to this. and, really, i don't. i feel more of a responsibility to myself to do this, and the distribution of this spillage is just a nice (?) by-product of the cathartic process. you know i use that word a lot: catharsis. what is it? well, to me, it is singing to an ida cd, it is sitting back with krista in her room, sipping a drink and blowing off steam about how much the world sucks and making contingency plans and remembering how to spell non-extradition (don't worry about it.) did you even notice that chile is like california in that it is almost entirely made up of coastline? obviously chile does it better, and hence pablo neruda was chilean and not californian. and it makes me happy.
it also makes me happy to see other people happy, no matter how much it kills me. this is one of the strange things about me, and as much as i hate altruism in it's mostly false manifestations (i'm still up in the air as to whether true altruism exists or not), i find it strangely applicable to my life sometimes. i hate it when theological catch phrases jump to mind when i'm thinking of something else. not that i don't quickly replace them with the correct word, but bother me it does.
so this is a rambling, meandering piece. oh well. this truly is a tabla rausa (or whatnot) when i begin, and when i'm done it is a vague rendering of me at the time. like a daguerreotype, or charcoal sketch: often symbolic but sometimes wildly inaccurate. always open to interpretation.
it strikes me as odd that, whenever an author takes on a form of expression, he addresses that form within itself, as if rationalizing or attempting to justify it. peculiar.
but anyways, the title of this entry is about the silence. with excuses/reasons for it's existence over and done with, a void yawns lazily. i've been busy. i went home, saw my brother at his wedding shower (jean, not graham, for anyone who about had a fit), and had another bonding experience with possibly the strangest family that i know of, in respect to the nature of our relations. and yet, i feel closer to them than any other of my families . . . odd, and yet comforting.
springboarding from that, i will address a point i have thought about for a while and often discussed this week: i have no home. i have always been living between houses, moving, visiting, but i have never felt like i had a home. maybe i used to, but i don't remember back very far. but, as far as having a home as in a house with a family and place of my own to call home, i can't say as if i have had one. i always either had to watch my step/mouth or had to leave too soon or was looking forward to leaving or whatever. i call many places home: going back to 633 kuhlman is home, going to any of a myriad of houses in louisville is home, or even to a certain house in rockville or ohio, or even utah. but none of these places are really home.
which is not to say that i never feel at home. but the people that feel like home to me are always far away and i rarely spend enough time with them. if i do, it seems a cruel reminder of what i don't have. and then, talking to or even thinking of these people makes me homesick.
so i get homesick. but it's wanting to be somewhere that i've never been. i've never been home, nor with anyone long enough to really feel like home. so, what in the hell do i mean by someone making me feel like i'm home? sitting in a room with someone all day without having to say a thing and still know exactly what is happening, that is home. when i am held and i can close my eyes and relax, truly relax, inside; when i am held and i can forget everything and just be, just breathe, that is home. when i can fall asleep in someone's arms and feel safe, at peace, feel right, that is home. when i can sit in a room full of people that i hardly know and still know that they'd sacrifice as much for me as i would for them, based on . . . based on i don't know what, that is home. getting off of the elevator of the sixth floor and being able to stop in a handful of rooms and lay down on a bed and sleep without question, that is what i call home. even falling asleep with wretched gutter punk playing, even that is home.
so home for me is other people. for edward albee and j.p sartre, hell was other people. and i heartily agreed when reading zoo story and no exit. and yet, it seems that i can't keep myself from sacrificing everything that i am for others. and those others are what i call home. this is a disturbing thought.
and yet, when i hear a voice from the void, an email from those i gave up on, a random call, i give it all back again. willingly. this is what i do. and i don't think i can do it any other way.
am i scared? yeah, a little. but it got me this far. maybe that should scare me even more: i dunno. i wonder ...
so what am i saying? never ask that of me again. do i make my own home? do i make my own hell? do i exist without those i love?
i started this as a rambling explanation of the busy week or so that i've had, and ended up with an existential doubt of my own existence. if this surprises anyone, then i'm surprised.
what does this have to do with silence? i was silent, but only in this form. in all others, spoken and not, obvious and latent, i've been screaming volumes. some heard, others lost to the wind. as for me, there are some i have dropped, unwillingly, through these fingers. ten fingers but eleven holes between them. there are things that need to be done, that have needed to be done. for over a month, for three years, whatever. as much as i try, catharsis will elude me until i do this. my catharsis lies across these undone things. catharsis lies in these people. i'm coming home to you, but you will have to come home to me.
"i'm just trying to find my way home. and i'm sorry. and i miss you." -- "good morning, captain" -- slint
03|30|98