Prose, posted on January 1, 2010 at 12h01
Upon finishing Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I was left much more affected than I’d been during the previous dozen chapters. The dense philosophy had lost my attention many times, but I kept reading, hoping that satisfaction was waiting by the end. And it was, although it took until the Afterward for things to really sink in.
Robert M. Pirsig explained the concept of time that the Ancient Greeks had understood. Often, we think of ourselves walking forward through time, facing tomorrow. This is inaccurate, as it fails to address two crucial elements of perception and time. First, we cannot see and we cannot predict tomorrow; thus we do not face it. Second, the past is never at our backs because we see it the entire time, however fading away it seems. So it is, then, that the author wrote, “They saw the future as something that came upon them from behind their backs with the past receding away before their eyes.” Continued…
Prose, posted on December 30, 2009 at 11h15
To my horror, I’d lost her. On each floor, by the stairs, under the bed; she was missing. She, a tiny human baby in its larval form, without any defining features, without bones or muscle, smaller than my palm. I was taking care of my niece in this dream and set her down for a moment, and then either the wind or chance blew and carried her away, over the railing beside me. Frantically, I ran down the stairs — three sets of them — checking for her meticulously at each level, but there she wasn’t.
In time, she appeared from nowhere, a girl that had no insect-like qualities, a girl that looked everything like a beautiful young woman. And it was at this point, in this confusion, that I woke up uncertainly. My pillow still under my head, my love still by my side. My niece, still nowhere.
Prose, posted on December 21, 2009 at 01h43
As winter sets in, life stops. The leaves fall under the snow and trees begin their long wait. The cold snaps at them the entire season long, and all they can do is endure as best they can.
And when the world thaws, the tree begins its fight back to life. Its branches once again form leaves to catch the sun and rain, and it does everything it must to grow stronger than it was. And when the winter begins to set in, the tree endures, because all of nature knows that sooner or later it must.
Prose, posted on October 2, 2009 at 01h22
9 o’clock thursday night
with a scientist
- a first year biochemist, to be exact -
who knew science would save us
a militant atheist
- so he claimed -
but didn’t see that his belief
was as fierce as if
science were his god
and his god, infallible
Prose, posted on August 31, 2009 at 11h26
tags used: on vegetarianism
In the beginning, the human animal was hungry. It ate plants that provided all the nutrients for its survival. Then the human animal began to keep other animals for their entire lives, born into slavery for their savoury skin. The other animals ate the plants and the human animal got whatever nutrients remained after they had been digested and processed. Disease followed in the animal’s captivity, so the human animal devised medicines to cure the diseases. But the cures were imperfect. Eating other animals made the human animal unhealthy. Its blood was thicker, its body slow and cumbersome. So it devised other medicines, like adding tubes and displacing organs and connecting mechanical parts. And these cures too were imperfect, so the human animal lumbered on, searching for new ways to fix the problem it created for itself. An endless effort to artificially attain the nutrients for survival.
Some of the human animals suggested that they eat the plants instead. But of course, that’s silly. We’re much too accustomed to doing things the difficult way.
Prose, posted on May 26, 2009 at 02h54
tags used: dreaming
On the edge of a desert cliff, staring down into an endless black, I wonder how I might cross. There is a fountain on the other side. Overflowing. Trickling down into the gorge. As long as I have been here watching it, sun beating me to ash, it’s been gathering below me. Years, years, years, it must be a river by now. So thirsty, the water could catch me.
I do not look back. Turn, walk the world around. Feet burn in the sand with every step. Everything is behind me, I know it. And everything I need is on the other side of that canyon. I know this. So I do not look back.
And when I arrive at the other side, when I finally reach the fountain, I drink from it. And I live. And then I look across the emptiness and see myself standing there, staring. Thirsty. Lost in dreams.
When I wake, I wonder which side I am on. If I’m really living or if it just feels that way. And I wonder if maybe, if I’m not willing to dive, if I should at least start walking.
Prose, posted on March 7, 2009 at 05h32
tags used: pen snobbery
Months and months ago, I found the love of my literary life in a pen. Pilot’s Green Tecpoint pen, which I bought at London Drugs. When I got it home, it left the trace that I’d been looking for my whole writing life. Non-smearing, extra fine, consistent. Since that day, I haven’t seen this pen shelved anywhere. Supposedly, as it says on the casing, it’s refillable, which is utterly useless when you also can’t buy the specifically-sized refills. Grumble, grumble.
Today I found a similar line by Pilot, and I bought an excessive amount of them. Penmanship is important.
Prose, posted on March 5, 2009 at 07h31
Somewhere under a mass of papers and binders and recording equipment is my new desk. Finally. It’s been a while since I first mentionedit, but one trip to Canadian Tire and a few days for delivery later, I now have a solid surface upon which to write. That is to say, once it’s all cleaned off and unscattered; presently, it’s much like my mind. A quote occurs to me, from Gustave Flaubert: “Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”
And, to close, I am dancing again.
Prose, posted on March 1, 2009 at 11h35
A strange coincidence happened yesterday as I was walking home. I was thinking about something I’d mentioned to a friend, that sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever reach a point in life when I stop moving from mistake to mistake. There was a lyric going over and over in my mind, one written by Sage Francis, that goes:
“I do my best to reject patterns ’til it hurts, every second making bad turns for the worse.”
That was about when the song came on through my earphones, glittering my mind with a sensational moment in time.
Strange, as I was on my way home, after doing something I hadn’t done in a while, hadn’t wanted to do until recently, hadn’t even considered until I’d arrived there.
Prose, posted on February 26, 2009 at 11h26
I said, “I just have got to get my life in order.”
And my life said, “What’s the rush?”
So I replied, “I’m getting bored.”
Apathy looked up, said, “Yeah, but we have fun together, don’t we?”
I said to him, “No, we don’t.”
Apathy said, “Well, we certainly spend enough time together.”
Ambition turned to us, interrupting. “Yes, and I think he’s had exactly that: enough time with you.”
Apathy did not argue. He never has to. Some people don’t have to say anything to make their point.
Distraction flashed his eager grin, captivating. So nobody said anything for a quite a long time, until I broke the silence, and I said:
“I just have got to get my life in order.”
