Now...what

Waay too late to be starting this. But I wanted to get it down. Didn't make notes. And I suppose I am doing right now exactly what this snippet is about. The moment. Carpe Dieum. Lots to do tomorrow. Lots to think about from last week. Where I am right now, right this minute, is in the moment. Tired. Yep. But it's right now. and that has been on my mind today.

Kids live in the moment. They get it right from the start. They really don't have a past. And the future is not a concept yet. It's now. I'm hungry - NOW! Waaaaaa. I'm fascinated by this shiny thing - now. How cool it is. The caregiver reminds of the past, and what was wrong - what was right. And we start learning. We're on our way to learning and thinking about the past, soon to be aware of the future as well. And we head on down life's journey in this pocket of time called 'the now' and aren't in it really. We aren't in it because we think about where we were and where we want to go, or may have to go and there's no time really to be in the moment. It's a void. A travelling void with us each minute.

Then we get old. And we forget more and more. We tend to not dwell in the future either. It has an event tied to it that is final for all of us and we don't want to think of that. Ok, now I know this isn't black and white here and it's not descriptive of all. I just think that it's funny in a way - that the magic of the moment, the true living in the moment is strongest when we first arrive at life and comes back a while before we leave it.

Buncha crap, huh? Yeah, well. I think about this shit. And if you're here now (right now, as in some moment during your day) you can agree - or not. Or, maybe take a minute - now - to look out your window and see something you didn't notice before. Or see someone in a way you hadn't before. Or, take another sip of coffee and marvel at how cold it's now become. It was warm a few moments ago..then.........Jeeze, it's always something.

1 / 1 = 1

As usual I have come to the end of another day and I'm sitting here by myself. I'll go to bed in awhile by myself. There will be the usual person next to me but I will be basically by myself. I'll get up, by myself. I'll spend the weekend with the usual person but will be basically by myself. And, I will do my work pretty much by myself.

I've browsed my 'Facebook', my 'Outlook', some blogs, and have commented, chuckled, surfed, clicked, commented some more and erased. I've read several meaningless and inane articles I stumbled upon, read some news. Read a buncha shit about people I don't care about - all from the secure comfort of my space by myself.

I was at the office today with others, but basically by myself. I like to think of myself as a fairly sociable person. But, I dunno, it just kind of hit me today that we're all by ourselves. Everyone was driving by themselves. Shopping at the grocery by themselves. We're by ourselves. And lately, we've all been corporately hosed by somebody else. We don't really know who did it. And now we're all by ourselves watching, reading about what happened to us - by someone - that somehow has made us even more desolate and isolated than before.

I suppose someone may stumble upon this - by themselves - and may even read down this far. Well, howdy. You're by yourself, aren't you? And you don't know who did it either. Some selfish undeserving jackass at that AIG place, or maybe some butthead down the street, or the guy who cut you off in his Lexus (driving by himself) or maybe it was Dick Cheney. And you're still mildly pissed about something else you just read like a minute or so ago and can really do nothing about. We're all in this together - by ourselves. It's always something.

a year ago......

Ok, I wrote this last year. It was a year to the date almost. But so what? It's my blog and I'll try if I want to...you'd try too if it happened to you..... It's kind of another glimpse into the crap I think about. I'll tell you about Chicago sometime. And my fascination with Hopper.

I sit in a café bright with mid morning March Chicago sun. A modern café, to be sure, but so much like the one in the 1940’s Nighthawks by Edward Hopper. It has the same yellow green walls and rich mahogany trim. A calico curtain with wood rings and rod spans the storefront window, giving the patrons a safe haven from which to watch the passers by outside. An urban duck blind of sorts where one can read, drink coffee and compute in concealment. And the sun streams in, welcome though it highlights – almost celebrates – the streaks and layered window dirt from a winter not quite yet passed.

The awning shadow is my clock. How slowly it moves so quickly. But to watch it move, to catch it in the act, isn’t possible. A game of cat and mouse. A glance and it plays against table edge. Another glance and it moves to highlight the blonde hair of the woman absorbed with caffeine and newsprint.

The revolving doors ingest another customer while spitting one out in one efficient rotation.
I’m waiting for the Chicago Art Museum to open, to visit once again the works of Edward Hopper in the temporary exhibit. He is gone and yet his art draws you in. He is speaking through his work and saying something at once clear and yet so vague. “What, Edward, what? What is this pain you express, this morose?” You almost understand it but then he changes the subject and seems to say “…yes, but look at the composition and the colors I used here and the light. Not bad, huh?” Ah, my friend you remain a mystery and I must visit again.

And the American psyche of the diner, of separation, of urban loneliness of which he speaks lives on in this café. Most sit alone this morning, each to his/her own, even friends stop their conversation now and then to pull into themselves. Not that it’s a dreary scene. Far from it, especially with the warm cheer of the butterscotch sunlight bathing our space. It’s just me, alone. Observing. And feeling it.

I did not know until I looked out the window this morning that the famous Route 66 comes over along Jackson Street and ends right here at Michigan Avenue, just outside. I can see the sign clearly from my vantage point in the blind. Route 66. An American icon. A road that winds from Chicago to LA, more than 2,000 miles all the way. A road where one can get his kicks, strewn with diners hosting the lonely; Some of the same folks frozen in oil and watercolor across the street in Edward’s frames. I pause to consider my notice of this. Irony is not the word but nonetheless interesting to note, and so I have. The revolving doors continue to ingest and spit out. I’ve been digested and it is now my turn to leave.

Blogging. I'm a beginner. Standing at this doorway looking out of it. How vast is the internet? How many people? how many kernels of wheat are in a wheat field? These are things one needs to know I suppose, or at least get your head around. So many people and yet I observe and no one sees me. I yell and no one turns their head. It's pretty cool to stand on a mountain or a cliff and take your clothes off. There's a town down there but no one can see you. Ok. I'm naked. Woo-hoo. Ok. Well.......... fuck. Now I'm just cold with the wind whistling up my arse. So - I put my clothes back on, get out my little table I brought up here, check my battery, but on some wool , scoot in my chair, sip a nice pinot - and write.

I'm not from here. I came from there. I live here now, but grew up there. There isn't like here at all. And here for sure isn't like there. Not now. Not umpteen years ago either. that's when I was there. I went back there recently. Went back to go to a funeral. I do that more these days now that my parent peers and relations are falling off the other end of the long conveyor belt of life. Sometimes several fall off at once. Sometimes just one. Last November one of my own peers - a fraternity brother - fell off. Just like that. So I look down sometimes at my feet on this rubber belt contraption I'm on, rattling and jiggling along. I look to where it's going and don't see the end of it so I put it out of my mind and go on.

The funeral was for my stepfather. Didn't know him all that well. He and my mom married long after I was old too. She loved him. He was a good man. A priest even. How good is THAT? Pretty good I guess. I keep thinking of him laying there in his casket open throughout the service, dressed to the nines in priest stuff complete with a really dapper cap. I'm not Orthodox Christian. No, I'm just an Episcopalian. Fortunately God was really busy with the other priests just-a-workin' their asses off at the service. She probably didn't notice I was there. So much incense!! I swear Christ himself was choking. well, see? there you go being an Episcopalian with your imagination.

I sat there and the words tumbled up off the scrolls, fluttered a bit, and fell noiselessly on the carpet as I drifted. I tried staying absolutely still and watched him. He was absolutely motionless. I thought maybe I saw him breathe, but probably was hallucinating on the incense. "C'mon, sit up and say 'howdy'". But he didn't. Nope. He was a goner.
Went out in a long line of cars and listened to more words, more incense. The stiff midwestern wind really whipped those embers up. the stuff was cookin'. More flowers, more words. then we left. saw the cemetery guys heading over to the 1/4 ton loader in the rear view mirror.

So, is there really life after we kick it? Life while we're taking the big dirt nap? What is life? I'm breathing. Someday I won't. One day I wasn't breathing, and then all of a sudden I did - small pink slobbering thing just breathing and there I was. Science explains what happened rather handily. How did I come to develop a brain to think of my own beginning? I'm basically a conglomeration of water, carbon and gas....and I'm sitting here thinking about that. how odd. I'm rambling. The dogs are barking. One of them did something so I end for now. It's always something.

Apologies to Gilda. This is really yours, but I hope you don't mind me carrying it on. I really don't know what I'm going to do with this. I do know I need to write. It helps me. And so there isn't much more to it than that. Ain't had no writin' education. So stay tuned whoever reads this. God I have a lot of angst. Whatever that is. You see, I was educated as an architect and thought for years that Angst was a Norwegian architect who was always angry with his work and the world. I'm in a religion of sorts. I pay dues. After I realized that religion was stuff we made up then I got all spiritual. And God is still chuckling over that one. She sees humor in it I suppose. Yes, enough for now. Something.