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| Listening to the subtle sounds behind the chords and melodies. The slight sounds of static beyond the headphones. Glasses heavy on my face. Eyes slowly closing. Sleeping. Dreaming of things. Certain black birds on roof tops. In the rain. The gloom of the glass hall. See the horizon of trees and buildings of downtown. This would be my. If I had. This would be my. Humble figures on the cement of the roof. Perched on the. Rain splatted courtyard. That's what they call it. Trees pruned. Grass bald with coming fall. They removed the summer flowers. Piled it in wheelbarrows. In the hall there were leaves and twigs. Had both doors open. Think about the rise in electricity prices. In the name of the.
Miracles. Monocles. Earth-tinged suffocation. The reflective glass. Double paned in case. Or. What's it called? Reinforced? Tempered. Made by Ford Motor Co. I see it on the edge. As I stare down at the entrance. The entrance nestled between the buildings. Seething with steam. The steam rolling. Whirlwinding from the generators. In the dark morning. Pylons. Red lights blinking on and off. The slow morning brings me the buzzing. The distant buzzing of the wires as they line pylon to pylon. The mist. Must be. Something with the humidity in the air. Or possibly. That's just the way they sound. Yeah.
Listening to the bass. The beat. The wrapped.
Meticulously planned. Figured. Nothing. Yet. I sometimes feel. In the end. The. None of these words coming together to form complete, whole, finished, polished, functional sentences. Thoughts lost in the middle. Mind wandering through corridors and in stranger's homes. Breaking the windows in every room to let. Wind. Air. Earth.
All of history converges at this point. Sometimes. Feel. Well. I don't.
Don't listen to this drivel.
"Mondaugen went out alone into the bush, ended up living with the Ovatjimba, the aardvark people, the poorest of the Hereros. They accepted him with no questions. He though of himself, there and here, as a radio transmitter of some kind, and believed that whatever he was broadcasting at the time was at least no threat to them. In his electro-mysticism, the triode was as basic as the cross in Christianity. Thing of the ego, the self that sufferes a personal history bound to time, as the grid. The deeper the true Self is the flow between cathode and plate. The constant, pure flow. Signals--sense, data, feelings, memories relocating--are put onto the grid, and modulate the flow. We live lives that are waveforms constantly changing with time, now positive, now negative. Only at the moments of great serenity is it possible to find the pure, the informationless state of the signal zero.
'In the name of the cathode, the anode, and the holy grid?" said Pökler.
'Yes, that's good,' Mondaugen smiled." - Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
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| Most times I sit here to write, but I end up looking at all the old pictures of times past and gone. The pictures of walls, the underexposed photos, wasted film. Young faces of children who are now grown; photos of potted plants replaced by intersecting circles of dirt, moved, nudged, vanished. Am I sure it ever existed? I must have come to this point in time somehow; yet, does it still exist? Can I still hold it or does it melt away into the creases of my hands? I'm unsure sometimes. It happens like a song I've been listening for the past few days: I pick up the melody, the chords reverberating, the lyric's crescendos and diminuendos, and for a second its there. I shut my eyes and sing my song, and I can hear the words and chords and everyone singing with me. It's there, then it's gone. I lose direction, like an unsynchronized instrument, a squeaky note. At this one point I stumble and wonder what would have happened if things had gone differently. To me: to do or not to do, to paint or not to paint, to sing or not to sing, to write or not to write (this word or that?).
I wake up and compose lines that are forgotten on the drive over. There it is. I can see it. Glimmering there in my mind. Those words. What are those faded edges? What do they from. The mystery. Whoooo goooooesssss wiiiithhhh Feeeeeergusssssssssss.... Like Stephen waking from a fog. Whatever happened to Gutierrez? He stumbles standing and Bloom helps him up? Am I bloom or am I stephen?
I feel stupid, and I'll admit it: but, I'm stuck on that eternal summer. I feel I've lost so much, though I know I've gained so much. Some understanding that I don't think I'd ever come to in the past. I don't wish to have it back... but, I wonder. I examine the possiblities, the outcomes, the fingers limitlessly stretching to grasp cold ice on the window sill.
Where did we all go? Tell me about your life up to this point. I want to hear about it. Let me know. So it can be revealed how I came to this point, and understand how you came to this point, too.
"Once upon a time Slothrop cared. No kidding. He thinks he did, anyway."
- Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
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| The title, McCourt, the title.
The title of my composition is, "Jesus and the Weather."
What?
"Jesus and the Weather."
All right, read it.
This is my composition. I don't think Jesus Who is Our Lord would have liked the weather in Limerick because it's always raining and the Shannon keeps the whole city damp. My father says the Shannon is a killer river because it killed my two brothers. When you look at pictures of Jesus He's always wandering around ancient Israel in a sheet. It never rains there and you never hear of anyone coughing or getting consumption or anything like that and no one has a job there because all they do is stand around and eat manna and shake their fists and go to crucifixions.
Anytime Jesus got hungry all He had to do was walk up the road to a fig tree or an orange tree and have His fill. If He wanted a pint He could wave His hand over a big glass and there was the pint. Or He could visit Mary Magdalene and her sister, Martha, and they'd give Him His dinner no questions asked and He'd get his feet washed and dried with Mary Magdalene's hair while Martha washed the dishes, which I don't think is fair. Why should she have to wash the dishes while her sister sits out there chatting away with Our Lord? It's a good thing Jesus decided to be born Jewish in that warm place because if he was born in Limerick he'd catch the consumption and be dead in a month and there wouldn't be any Catholic Church and there wouldn't be any Communion or Confirmation and we wouldn't have to learn the catechism and write compositions about Him. The End.
- from Angela's Ashes
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| or,
LETTER TO THE FIRST DAUGHTER OF VINCENTE AND ALISHA GUTIERREZ
Dear Allele,
Four years and a couple hours ago you were born. June 29, 2005, 9:56 PM. That was a Wednesday. We had been in the hospital since the night of the 28th. Ana Olsen, our doula, was with us during the entire time of your mother's labor, and she helped us a lot and got us through the hard parts. We probably shouldn't have went as early as we did, but we were young and anxious. I think the doctor got tired of the hospital calling him (we rushed in two or three times) so he just admitted us. The three of us went a long time without any sleep, though I think maybe towards the end I may have drifted off and maybe Ana left earlier to get some sleep and check on her son. I left your mother once to get food once. I sat in the waiting room and ate cold spaghetti and thought. Your Grandmother Michelle came and talked to me for a little while, then I went back to the room. That must have been around five or six. Your grandmother Caroline and your great-grandmother Jessie and your Poppy and grandmother Michelle and Georgia were with us. Your Memere and Pa were there also but they didn't get to see you that night since it was so late. Your mother rested up until it was time to push. She just woke up at said, I think I'm ready to push. Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes later, I saw you for the first time. You were covered in amniotic fluid and whatnot, and I watched the nurses and aides clean you up, and I cried. I kissed your mother, and I cried. I think we were all crying. I took maybe five or six or seven pictures of you crying and squirming. They bundled you up and handed to your mother and we both stared at you, memorized your face, your smell. Every once in a while, I remember, you'd burst out in a cry and then stop. I held you and Ana took a picture of me, holding you awkwardly with my long bony arms, elbows out, neck craned close, staring at you.
I remember I shook the doctors hand, and we smiled at each other as if we both understood this thing that had happened. I don't know why I remember his eyes behind his glasses, but I do. There was just so much kindness in that handshake, though we had so much difficulty with him. Your presence bridged things between us, I guess.
Your mom had a turkey sandwich and some cranberry juice, I remember. The nurse came in a while after and gave you a bath, showed us how to do it, and you wore an outfit we bought for you. That night I barely slept. I'd wake in the dimly lit room and get up from the couch and stand by your little bed watching you breathe. I was scared to touch you. I'd place my hand on your chest. I think a couple times you'd wake up crying then fall asleep. The next morning we took you home. It was hot outside. I remember the heat coming out of the Thunderbird's cab as I set you in the carseat.
We were both scared, but we were determined to bring you up with all the love we had in us. We had graduated high school the previous year, got kicked out of Grandma Caroline's home (though it was for the best), and moved on our own a couple months before you were born. Things fell into place; I'm really surprised how well we handled things with the occasional kindness from people. I can't describe it. I think about it now, and it seems like a long time ago. Most days I don't even think about the studio on Q Street or the smell of the Thunderbird's dusty seats or the red couch we had or the old shifts I used to work at the Hospital. I look at the old photographs and wonder who those two kids were. How different we looked.
Right now you're curled up on the couch. Asleep in your little shirt and skirt. We named you after a biology term your mother heard in high school and your middle name comes from the song "Julia" by the Beatles. Your golden-brown hair is to your shoulders and your arms and legs are long and skinny like mine. You have a cute little face and small teeth. You have your mother's beauty. It radiates off you. Right now, you wear glasses when you remember to put them on (but hopefully, by the time your read this, you don't need them). You have my sense of humor (currently, your new word is: "booger-snaps"). You get mad like me when you're tired and hungry; you have my temper. But it's okay.
Listen, I want to tell you this. I love you. I want to tell you that I've been with your every day since you were born. I watched you grow, though sometimes not even memory can keep up with the changes that I have beheld since the first time I saw you. Memory fades, and all we have are these words right here. So I want to tell you that I have all my hopes and dreams in you. That all my love and wishes and feelings are with you, no matter what you choose to do. I'll be here to protect and help you until I die. As of this writing, I doubt there's an afterlife, that there's a god--I think that this might be it, that this is all we have, but I hope--God, I pray--that some part of me can stay with you, can be with you. A soul, something eternal everlasting unforgetting. Something you can take with you and can keep with you. Not because I'm afraid of death, but because I love you.
It's past midnight. This is probably badly written, rushed and unstructured, but I'm close to tears; I hope I've conveyed my meaning to whenever or wherever in time you may be. I'm scared that this might be all I have for you to carry with you, this part of me. At least, should we never regain anything past, you have this.
With love,
Daddy
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| I've been listening to a lot of music lately. Pavement mostly. When I walk down the halls or step outside to the loading area, I sing under my breath "You are the Light" or "Major Leagues" or "AT&T". I ooh-ooh-ooh with Nada Surf's "Are You Lightning" alone in the office, wondering in the back of my mind if the lead dietitian has a tape recorder planted somewhere to see if we talk shit about her when she's not there (of course we do). When I'm sticking labels on menus my foot's under the table keeping beat to "Scissor Paper Rock." When it rains I walk through it and moan out "Walk Away, Renee."
It's gotten so bad that I continue these habits at home, just blurting out some song lyric (usually replacing some key word with Allele or Dessie's name; as in, "Hopscotch Allele, swore she was framed..." or "Dessie my friend the saint, you're perfect in so many ways..." Alisha probably gets annoyed by this, and I know Allele does since every time I sing and pause for her to take over she says, "Nothing," but I know Dessie likes it. She smiles and bobs her head up and down when I sing "Billie," replacing "Billie" with "Dessie." And when I flick on the menu for Age of Booty, we all dance to the pirate jig that plays; Allele shakes her finger and moves her feet crazily as if stepping out on ice, while Alisha and I move around like jello and Dessie sits on the floor bobbing her head up and down. I imagine someone walking by or standing on the porch looking in and thinking, What the hell is wrong with these people?
Did I mention we have a dog? His name is Finnegan, after Joyce's Finnegans Wake (not sure what Joyce'd think about that since he was terrifed of dogs). He's a pretty good. Can't say I like animals very much, especially big, dumb or little, yipping, irritating dogs, but he's small and calm. He barks whenever anyone is at the door and follows scents up and down the street like a hound (he's a pomeranian-mix, so I think at least part of him is some sort of sport dog). He's also really good with the kids and puts up with Allele putting him in a headlock and squeezing him.
Feels like my body's fallen into some sort of routine. Wake up tired, spend the whole day tired, try desperately not to fall asleep while putting labels on menus, get a burst of energy until I get home, get tired again until after dinner when at about this time I'm wide awake and wanting to do things but worrying about tomorrow and doing nothing until about eleven thirty or so. I don't know what's up with me. I mean, I had a week off work but I'm still tired, still stressed and ready for another vacation. I guess I'm up to the point where I'm done with my job.
Anyway, going to bed.
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