This morning i woke at 4:00 am and i was afraid to look at my computer. The 2016 U.S. election had taken place the day before; i was in Uruguay, and i did not vote. For those with the need, you are welcome to blame me. My candidate was shouldered aside by a more canny, well-oiled political machine, but by this time my disillusionment was so complete her contrived strut to coronation rang hollow and was of little interest to me - in many ways repulsive. Now it is 5:41 pm and i am fatigued to the nether regions of my soul - that my flight back to my native land commences in less than 48 hours seems a minor inconvenience. So when the internet went down, i came to you to cry . . actually my weeping took place in the pre-dawn hours just after overcoming my fear of news from an inanimate device actuated by +/- 5v impulses directed through scripting from a corporate keyboard which also heralded the dawn of a new age. Thankfully my tears came in quiet consolation with a kind woman i’ve never met, but greatly admire - thank you Zucky - you “empty suit”, you. In the intervening time between then and now, i persisted - weakly but with resolve. My exercise and mediation have brought some perspective, clean sheets and comfort. I am packed and dangling like a booger from an old man’s nose. But hazy from fatigue and a too early glass of wine with my friend the Shaman organ builder . . . Now four days later - the hotel where i elected to spend the preceding night and from which i’d requested a wakeup call at 4:00 am failed - and the fault is mine; that i missed checkin by 5 minutes is small consolation for the cost of a replacement ticket. My reason to travel is largely to spend moments more with my 88 year old fading ma - and that is a decent motivation worthy of the replacement ticket. It has been said if you believe you’ve reached enlightenment, spend a week with your family. I couldn’t even make it out of Uruguay, before i felt flooded by the fury of failed family. It is difficult to frame my reasons without becoming sanctimonious and self-righteous - a multigenerational trait from way back.
Having secured an exit ticket, i had to request the change from my stalwart ride out of the airport prior to my arrival. My next email was to a brother staying in our mother’s home explaining the change so’s that they would not be concerned i had not arrived in the late evening as planned, and then began the 20 hour vigil. Toward the 12 hour mark when i went to check the flight out from, i discovered - the procuring agent, had not yet processed the ticket, nor had i heard from my brother. Ironically the capitalist machinery was asses-and-elbows helping me through chat, but not word one from my brother. My ride graciously shifted his schedule, so i knew if i could get to Los Angeles, i’d be able to get to ma. In the age of cellular phones, not owning one poses serious challenge, the land line having grown quiescent much like the Red Car rails of L.A. lie unused. All civil process are now expected to possess the yoke of wireless. Unable to call directly, my email request was my only accessible channel to apprise others of my change. I began scouring fb, email and others for anyone i could contact lest the brother in the company of my mother had no intention of reviewing emails - who’d want to when on vacation? I myself delete 95% of everything i receive, which given the election budget this cycle bought a lot of email. My dilemma was principally one of communication, for once the plane boarded there would be no way to apprise my mother and brother of this change - long story short, the same kind person driving me from the airport was able to make contact - the brother had received the email and simply neglected to apprise me. I’ve made much progress in de-socializing from the indoctrination of a human dynamic built on contention and self aggrandizement made manifest in the election of the newest “leader of the free world.” I seek different ways to perceive myself, however, all my self-discipline and good intention evaporated into a swamp of smarmy mental retribution, both real and imagined. I could feel my own soul at war with itself fleeing from the quagmire of hate that was once my family.
There is no place to flee, or more accurately i cannot change anyone but myself - there is nothing i can say to this brother that will ever inspire him to appreciate how little i had asked for and how much rancor i struggle to attenuate, nor will he ever know how grateful i am to him for his timely lesson. The night i began this essay just after the election, i woke to a dream of Leonard Cohen pointing his finger at my throat, and me yelling at him for betraying my good will. I tried mightily to understand how or what an image of this human hero might signify in my psychic life. My first take was that i was using my dream to chide myself for not having fought valiantly with my better nature to pursue this essay to the bitter end that very night, or it could have been residue from an incident weeks earlier where my deeply troubled vecino may have been actually calling out for help by attempting to throttle my neck for the egregious act of requesting quiet. I do know that in about 6 hours, if my ticket is cleared in time, i will board a flight back to a nation in turmoil and a brother who may feel justified for not acknowledging a simple request because my initial email used his snail mail name “Jimmy”, rather than the one he lives as; i just don’t know. I know today has been as much of “a day after” as anything the American abortion of its democratic heritage could be, but in an airport populated with other lives, the human beings i’ve encountered have been unfailing courteous, even somewhat helpful to my plight; that the girl on the helpline applied herself as much to my call for help as my own blood would not; through the prism correct existence, i owe each the same measure of recognition and good will - that is a lesson which seems to elude me far too easily for me to comfortably acknowledge.
Facts: ma has no call for concern about my late arrival. Whatever motivates another to be indifferent to a simple request is non of my concern. My obligation is to be as decent and mindful as my temperament allows, to utilize that lesson for any improvement i might achieve. And while it is true, i can change no one or force anyone to do anything, i’m under no obligation to encourage or participate in continued degradation of core human principles of simplicity, patience or compassion. If this provokes the profiteers of mindless plastic exploitation of our planet’s brilliant capacity for environmental stasis - so be it. That i refuse to hate another, even the haters, is my business not subject to interpretation - hate is weak, i’d rather be strong a quality ma demanded from me, but which i believe partly frightens her about me. But here is the magic of my ma, i don’t believe it was my brute strength that caused her concern, but the inflexibleness which i resort to when backed into a corner. I have always perceived her persistent correction as a critique, where in retrospect i’m beginning to suspect she’d have preferred me to possess a broader repertoire of response to almost anything other than my goto self-righteous faith in “to best of my knowledge.” This recent election has drawn in high relief the limits of pundits of all stripes, while my own foray into self awareness draws clearly the limits of certainty, most especially my own. So what comes next (thumb to index finger circling the nose) - Australian for “fuck knows”? As much as i resist, at times i still imagine myself to have a roll to play describing this increasingly confusing reality called life.
There are, as one sage friend apprised, “barbarians through the gates;” Does this fiction obligate me to alter my own trajectory in favor of some common cause, violent, non-violent, doctrinaire or just anarchistic? I’ve ever been much impressed by the actions of many in concert, but remain paradoxically amazed, astonished and inspired by the wide spectrum of magnificence manifest from seemingly unrelated individual acts of human accomplishment - who will ever forget the brass testicles of he-who-faced-down-a-caravan-of-tanks in Tiananmen Square? Is our very existence pegged to a single heart multiplied by 7 billion; is that any less practical than the ruling class objective for yoking 7 billion into a single income stream using only a +/-5v shackle at their wrist; or then frightening the same into believing they are independent free thinkers lacking only the one entrepreneurial discovery which separates peasants from the loftiest of CEO’s - even President of ’The Free World’. I am tired now, more tired than when i began this essay, but i feel better. Our leaders have demonstrated they are not; so how can one fiction, however venal and lacking in basic human empathy be all that dangerous. What i am hearing is a uniform repudiation of the hatred and mean spirited attacks inspired by fear mongering which catapulted the king of empty suits into the world’s imagination. My sense is even stronger today than when this occurred 4 days ago, as bad as things seem - logic of the real world dictates an equal and opposite force of kindness, love and decency waiting for the dawn of a new day.
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the day before - the sonnet
there has never been a time in my life
when death was not hanging in the balance
though the atom bomb was made to end strife,
our world will die at the point of this lance
just our luck, warriors took their courage
with them when they were no longer needed
leaving battles fought over your suffrage
by tyrants wielding danger unheeded
laugh if you must - i fear it’s all echo
of a day when some things were still funny
we now must find joy from blow after blow
while so hot we pray it was less sunny
i've lived in a time when spring meant something
more than seasons of a world now burning
jts
http://josephtstevens.blogspot.com
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission
all rights reserved
∞
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