29 June 2003

maybe that's what this blog will be- a record of unreal moments. i had another brief one tonight. i had just gone to a play, "attempts on her life" at the thick house. it was very good. afterwards there was wine, cheese and bread, strawberries (old love) and cookies. i have a good friend in the cast, but i was alone in the audience, and thus found myself drinking wine outside amongst a crowd of people, talking to each other in important ways that i had little understanding of. they wore jewelery and interestingly textured shirts. so i walked to a space, outside, in the middle of this crowd of late thirtish, quasi-patrons, and i looked up. there was the sky, and a beam of orange building stretching against it. the orange beam ran into the buiding at an off angle, say 70 degrees, and then the building itself, grey and metal and glass, all perversly lit and blinding against this dark dark sky. the play itself attmepts to define this woman, anne, through her actions, which include international jetsetting, cult forming and terrorism. dark things.

there are dark things, and people decide, decide with their minds, which i also have, to do them...this has always been a topic that i have shyed away from really delving into, though i am so curious. dark arts, killing...they are not abstractions, they are decision that anyone can make. i could make this deciison, i could find out what it is like to kill someone. i really could, i could do it right now, i could walk out of my house, with a knife, or something, and find someone to kill, and kill them, and see what it is like. see if i can see god in the death. see if i actually have the power to affect the spiritual world- i mean maybe i dont? yes? maybe if i were to try, i would be unsuccessful, because it is not my place, and powers (?) above me would stop me. but maybe they wouldnt. and that question, can i actually affect the real workings of the world, can i affect life and death...that seems to me to be an important question worth wondering about. my everyday life is filled with meaningless, meaningless everything- the bus rides and burritos and biweekly laundry of urban existence which seem to have no impact on my spirutual life. if i am a creature of god, if i am a part of god, why i am not living life? why am i not ripping my food from the ground and running through rivers naked and killing wolves with my bare hands? and would killing another, would killing something prove this to me, prove that i have a station in the real, bloody real world of biological/spirtual existence? does that make a bit of sense?

it does, i know it does. im inclined to shy away from this thought now, because i dont want to seem crazy and have the fbi start a file on me and all. i dont fear that i may do these things- i know that my heart is too open to close things, and i have no desire to kill...but yet the idea of it fascinates me, it fascinates me that there is the possibility, and i can think of it, and thinking of it is so close to doing it. ah, this mind, which can think of anything and doesnt need to be ashamed.

and then, looking at this dark sky and this orange beam, i saw the dark sky and thought of these dark people that walk around us, who have killed. who have watched someone die at their hand. what does it do? do you love more deeply afterwards?

27 June 2003

new girl at preschool today. samantha. she has actually been there since monday, but today i got to know her. she was sharpening pencils in the art studio, i passed by and mentioned to another girl (surprisingly also named samantha) that i was going to the kitchen. new samantha says "kitchen? theres a kitchen david?" (its always cool when someone learns your name without you knowing it)...anyway, she came along, we rocked it in the kitchen for a while, talked about fireworks, a bond was made.

so later, out in the playground, some of the kids are hot dogging a little on the monkey bars. "watch me, david", etc. so new samantha wants to show me a move, but her hands slip, and she falls off, landing not too badly on her bottom, but then she falls back and hits the small of her back, hard, on one of the unforgiving wooden support pillars. she starts with a smile, how silly too fall, but as the realization of pain sets in, her face contorts, and she begins to cry. so i go to her, im sitting in the sand right in front of her, and she crawls towards me a little so that she can rest her head in my lap. i put my hand on her arm, ask her where it hurts, check out her back (its fine), and then just try to be really super present with her. she answers "where does it hurt" by pointing, but after that she is silent and hidden- her face buried in my lap, her one hand over her eye, the other over her ear. shut down, invisible. after a little bit of this, i start to wonder if shes actually unresponsive, like shes gotten some weird spinal damage or something, but shes moving ever now and then, just small little adjustments, so im pretty sure shes ok and shes just taking a while to process. so i shut up, and just stare at her, rest my hand on her, bring my face close to her head, and try to be still with her. this goes on for ten minutes. at least. i can hear other teachers asking what happened, they are explaining it to each other, but i am only with samantha. and i become so aware of this life in my hands. this complex system of cells and souls pulsing under me, im trying to imagine the ghost thought images that must be in her mind, and the fear and wonder of being so new to the world...i start to space out a little, the sounds of the playground are gone, and i just see her beautiful head, and i can feel her beautiful skin. i start to feel that unreal feeling again, this wonderful ecsatic terropr i get now and again when the world around me loses substance and seems to be absurd and paper thin..i have to break the spell. i start to try to get her to talk again, but its still not time...and im afraid that talking more will betray her, ruin this holy moment...so im still again.

i move my finger to the sand and draw a circle, and continue drawing circles, twirling my finger around so that the sand underneath is ever shifting, valleys and mountains in miniature being created and destroyed in seconds. slowly her hand moves and joins mine. and then we are both watching sand, watching it move, and she is pouring sand into my hand and i am letting it slip through my fingers slowly, and the sand feels wonderfully cool, and we improvise this amazing sand duet together, burying hands and arms, reemerging, slow motion sand chases, unwrapping, secrets, each finger a creature, a beautiuful silent film tinted to match the color of shaded sand. another ten minutes, easy. i am mesmerized by this sand, the complex interactions of each grain, the whole that they create, this beautifully asymmetric system...the unique imperfections of each grain and each movement. our fingers touch here and there. we are loving it, we are there together, loving it.

she looks up at last and sees a pair of shoes hanging from the monkey bars. she turns and asks me, "whose shoes are those?" i tell her, theyre koryna's. "theyre cute" she says.