immanentized5

I searched for a bookmark for the latest installment in Project Vollmann and found old snapshots of Salem exactly a year ago, and I wonder if that might have been the last time I was happy in an uncomplicated, blissfully unworried way.  Last week in the woods was hard; I went into them filled with anger at the breakup and came out defeated and mourning.  Mourning, obviously, because a full 90% of the music I have available is firmly rooted in her and the same is true for my entire damn bookshelf... and besides, the moment I sit down to read anything longer than a magazine article or short story I trip and fall into swoop-banged malaise.  So my genius plan is to conduct a bit of surgery, to commit to only reading short stories (a form I've always had a begrudging relationship with) and magazine articles.  Funny, I stopped reading about politics and world events because I was making myself sick with information saturation as a substitute for not having control over my life, and now I'm plunging back in because real stories about real events seems so much more legitimate than literature.

And similarly, I'm only listening to loud punk from my high school years, the bands I've grown away from that still hold a special place (VNV Nation here I come - any throbbing, repetitive mind-numbing song about soldiers will do for now, thank you), and the standbys that do more than anything else to make a decent argument that I'm still alive, still kicking and there is theoretically light out there, somewhere.  Poe.  Against Me.  Tori.  PJ.  Neko is too much - Duchess was a terrible idea and I feel stupid to have shared. 

And there's the rub: I hate this point, where I need support from my friends and family but I also feel gullible and naive and a sucker for having gone down the relationship freeway yet again only to have to break the news, have that embarrassing conversation once more - yep, you heard right, my judgment was crap yet another time, surprised I know.  And even then I push people away, I want them to be vindictive and punitive in my stead, to take me out and get me drunk and talk plenty of trash until sunrise so I don't feel guilty about the whole fiasco.  But they're mildly unsurprised and middle of the road restrained, offer sound advice that I easily confuse with equivocation or implications that it's mostly my fault for being an idiot.  So I start to feel that people expect me to forgive too easily, expect me to offer absolution for actual lack of care that I can't continue to give and maintain any self respect. 

The Atlantic featured an article this month that describes research indicating we are physiologically built for serial monogamy, for cycles of 4-6 year relationships.  How uplifting.  I trust God has a plan for my life that may or may not involve a committed partner, and I know in my bones that each time I'm hurt and scared about the future I gain a deeper understanding of God's impact on my life... but I also feel like it pulls me away from people in ways I can't reverse.  I'm not capable of waiting on others to catch up to being an adult, to developing a sense of spirituality and faith, and so I don't even want to have the conversation, don't want to explain my integral values to people any more.  So how am I going to find anyone to combat this loneliness, exactly?  It's easy to think eventually there is someone out there in the vague future who will get her shit together, but I'm increasingly pessimistic. 

We used to talk about 'moving targets' in debate, how they invalidated any real discourse.  That's what the future is these days, a moving target.  A month ago it was Durham and trailing the American south forever.  When I left the military I came to a hard realization that I never worried about the future because I honestly didn't believe I'd make it past 30 anyway, that I'd disappear in a cloud of smoke and dirt in some alien place, fly on in a reflected sky.  And now every night I wonder about going back, not because I'm glorifying the past but because at least my peers were stupid and honest and frank, at least my responsibilities were discreet, and at least my future was secure in inertia if not corporeality.

It's so hot in Asheville (and my beautiful house has no air conditioning) that I can barely think, much less do anything productive... and then again, I don't really need to.  Two days of triple sport workouts (lifting, biking, then running) have caught up with me and I'm sore, tired, and ready to spend all day on the couch.  Yesterday itself was packed and I went to bed exhausted, barely drug myself up and out of bed to breakfast this morning with the roommate and her boy.

But that doesn't really cover it, doesn't name the undercurrent.  I've been excited about Thirteen Stories and Thirteen Epitaphs, a Vollmann collection I special ordered on Wednesday, but apparently it won't get here until I'm back in the woods.  And so the Burke novel I've been pretending to read to fill the space seems pointless, doesn't capture my attention.  This week I've become a magazine reader, unable to concentrate on anything of depth and unwilling to go back to my bookshelf for something else.  The ultimate problem is that all the unread books on my shelf are shades of last summer and I'm not ready to go tiptoeing through history just yet. 

So You Bright and Risen Angels it is, until next week. 

At least the coping mechanisms are working - I've been filling up my days like cream in a cannoli, bouncing around town like a greased pinball.  Today was my first actual low key day this whole shift, and tomorrow I'll hit the ground running again.  Monday I'm going to buy a bike (!) and hopefully not get hit by a car before I learn to ride well enough again, possibly go climbing with some coworkers, and generally get overcaffeinated before heading back into the wilderness.  Those kids better watch out, I want to hike everything in sight.

Haven't figured out how to talk about it just yet, I keep oscillating between feeling grateful that at least it all came down the pipe now instead of later, and being fully cognizant that although I've literally and figuratively boxed up everything and tucked it away under cardboard and packing tape, at some point in the future I'm going to have to deal on a deeper level.  Right now I steadfastly refuse to do anything of the sort - I'm using the energy to fuel doing everything under the sun, transforming my life back into the frenzy of activity and fitness it was before I went into the Army, jumping into the social situations I have a tendency to shy away from, and pointing my compass at a new bearing.  Let's face it, I don't have anything left to wait for.  At least that can be a good thing, for now. 

Five minutes later, on reconsideration: it's more like dialing in the view on a telescope to a specific point, focusing obsessively on the small things I'm good at and can disappear into, comfortable that the big picture will resolve itself without me.  I can survive anything with enough coffee, exercise, Veronica Mars reruns, and Rancid/Op Ivy/Neko Case.  Anything.

Yep, got the sarcasm back. 

I need some help from you folks.  I'm starting training for two adventure races this fall (the first, in Rome on September 26th: http://www.7hills3rivers.net/index_files/Page488.htm; and the second, a half-race in Nashville on October 24th: http://www.oysterracingseries.com/Nashville/Home.aspx) and I either want to use LJ as a training log/motivation for myself and the team members... OR set up an entirely new blog just for that purpose.  Maybe even a separate blog where we could all post our workouts, etc, with separate user access?  Then you guys could post your own stuff, we could compare notes, you know.  Get organized, like the labor party. 

The Runner's World training log has this nifty little application that will post cardio workouts:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://traininglog.runnersworld.com/scripts/6f90b84344fe40a9bcfcc3606de6ec3f/latest" ></script>...Ok, so it doesn't actually work? Next idea, please.

Questions, comments, concerns?  Your ideas are like wet-wipes and the end of a shift.  Valuable. 

Oh god god thank god he thought I've got it now and they can't take it away from me.  He thought I have seen the dawn again and I will see it every morning from now on.  He thought thank you god thank you thank you.  He thought if I never have anything else I will always have dawn and morning sunlight. 

And of course when troubled I fall back into steady routines: cleaning everything this morning fresh out of the woods, running all the errands, watching the latest episode of Bones on Hulu and taking careful attention with hygeine; retail therapy at the bookstore (special ordering a Vollmann book, of course); working myself into believing that settling down in Asheville is the right thing to do, that I've been happy here the last four months and can find all the right ways to keep being happy in the future; getting excited and planning on doing adventure races this fall and hoping my enthusiasm carries over into my potential teammates (free race shirts!  Jerzees!  Clever team  names!); listening to entirely too much Sarah McLachlan to be considered healthy; committing to exercise and not sleeping in, always being sore and reading Runner's World like it's Revelations; turning to catechism to see me through the night.  Those things I do. 

And there are things that make the day worthwhile - pizza, beer, ice cream sundae and good conversation last night; William Tanner Vollmann; new running shorts and new running shoes; that sort of thing.

Still struggling with the desire to up and reenlist for no good reason, I think it's telling that I haven't gotten my windshield fixed for over a year even though there are two rock dings in it because I'll lose my Ft. Benning NCO vehicle sticker.  I need the adventure of Morocco now, only with marauders and gunpowder and danger.  I wish there were more direction for this whole entry, but truth be told the week in the woods fried my abstract abilities, at least for a few days, and the other things I'd like to try to write about I'm boxing up in cardboard and throwing in the basement, at least for a while. 

But the new Rancid album is pretty excellent, and that's something.

"...and it was all thanks to the mound that you saw these things, but you felt disconcerted; this center of things was not what you had expected.  There was nothing wrong with anything, but you could not place yourself anywhere.  Everything was below you and in the wrong direction.  The wind blew numbingly cold, and a fog began to seep up onto the plain so that you saw that if you stayed there very long you would be well and truly lost, and then you might die, so you went back to your river while you could still locate it and descended tricked and bewildered..."

Things to be grateful for: the way the mountains ringing Asheville in the mauve evening light are drawn with a sharp pen, one single line bisecting the colors into heaven and earth; the cascade of sparks from a cigarette flicked onto the interstate from a truck window up ahead and how it disappears under the arc of my Jeep's hood; driving through mountain passes home earlier in the daylight when the summer sun heats the inside of the Jeep like an oven and my arms are bare and flush with blood; the direct and indisputable pleasure of cranking out pushups next to two of my coworkers in the chilly morning air; a hardboiled paperback novel cracked open along the spine and a hot cup of coffee in my hand just before bed; seeing all the phenomenal people I work with again tomorrow and the next day without the interruptions of the woods to get in the way...

What book should I read next?

April 29th

So scattered today - woke up groggy and half alive, stayed angry and argumentative most of the day.  Started Pegasus Descending and I like the idea of sharing a love of something small and niche with my dad.  Good, simple thing.

April 30th

Physically dragging, felt like warmed up crap after the hike and had to lay down for several hours after an ill-timed pelt game.  Struggling to reconcile homesickness and time on my off shifts and not having many close friends where I am with my sense of personal identity.  Maybe I've reached my limit on the psychobabble rhetoric, I want to be around people who can talk morals and values with confidence and purpose - I believe in a world that exists on fundamental truths, where truth and goodness can be reached, where our integrity, character, and values are more than just an interesting footnote on our resumes or profile pages; where our values matter.  Where they define the limits of our being, where they place us in allegiance. 

May 2nd

Another gorgeous day in the woods, so many they almost become blase.  Birds calling to each other over the sound of water rushing down the creek bed, sounds like delightful twills and warbles, the carefree sounds of grade schoolers on a playground.  Most of the foliage a uniform deciduous green illuminated by last night's rain, when the wind makes a visit the broad-cornered leaves flutter like ribbons at a parade; evergreens hold still with their darker hues, low to the ground.  A gray sky gently mutes the sun and drives the temperatures down, promising an afternoon summer storm - the kind that's so pleasant and unobtrusive it's not annoying.  Warm mists of moisture tripping down through the canopy onto our bare heads, drawing into the cracks between our toes, and how everything glistens afterward when the sun comes back, how everything I see is brighter, the smells more pungent and heady, the sounds more punctuated by the counterpoint of stranded droplets falling from leaves.

Dreamed last night I was an American soldier stationed in Budapest during the first part of the Hungarian Revolution; at first I was in and around town, I kept noticing dark figures immediately prior to assassinations and attacks on Communist Party figures, then the fighting began in earnest and I was posted outside the embassy behind sandbags.  Snow was falling and Soviet soldiers ended up firing on us, I rushed at a spot where several soldiers were trying to set up a mounted machine gun, killing them with my rifle and taking control of the mounted gun.  While I maneuvered the weapon into position I was rushed by several soldiers and a motorcycle.  Before they could fire I opened up with the machine gun, killing them and destroying the motorcycle in a giant cinematic explosion.  Then I saw a soldier running down the street missing most of his face, bearing an upside down American flag.  And then I woke up, small surprise. 

Now the campsite rests deep in the recess of a hemlock and pine forest, cradled away from a lost dirt mountain road.  Our shelters on a brown and green verdant ridgeline past old dumpsites.  The sun cuts a slant angle through the limbs of the trees and each gust of wind sends drops of rain parachuting to the ground.

Driving around town today with a pilfered copy of the latest Sugarland album, windows down and speakers shaking, a giant cup of coffee in the console, tennis shoes, gym shorts, long sleeved tshirt and sunglasses.  Bottle of water.  Fresh smell of cut grass on every lawn, steaming sun coming down from the sunroof, the feel of the leather steering wheel warm under my hands in the afternoon, driving past the park where old women walk fast engaged in deep conversation, old men relax on the dock with fishing poles, kids scamper in the deep weeds next to the river.  The right season to sincerely crank pop country as loud as I can stand, to flaunt farmer's tans, to drink PBR on the porch at ten in the morning, to crack raunchy jokes with a smirk, to sass strangers, to get greedy and long for just one more hour of sunlight. 

Just the other night I dragged my roommates to the Asheville Tourists game, I love minor league baseball like you wouldn't believe.  Cheap tickets, mangy teens that troll by cruising the crowds, old men in full team regalia cheerfully helping everyone to their seats and picking up trash, the awful cheerleaders and contests, peanuts and chili dogs and 24 oz beers in plastic cups.  Not to mention the game itself, bright lights and big announcements, a few exciting solid hits and smooth plays, the flash and pizzazz of a ball field.  And then I talked to my dad today and we've got tickets to two Braves games this summer (oh yes, lady, you've been requested by the family to be in attendance).  Can't wait. 

The heat coming in, just warm enough to excuse minimal clothing when I venture out, recycled army pt shorts and cotton shirts, no worries but to find clean socks and tie my sneakers, pack a bag and a book and get out the door.  Birds making noises everywhere, blue skies framing blossoms on trees that I swear weren't so bright last year this time.  And the comfort of a mild sweat that works itself up when I'm just sitting still in the Jeep, knowing that in a month it'll be weather to require two showers a day and at some point we can all give up and revel in the dampness of summer, accept the sweat and love it. 

I have to make time for a beach trip, period.  Shame I never lived close enough to the water to make it convenient, as soon as I'm less than two hours away from the ocean I'll be there all the time. 

The integrity of objects:  first day in the woods and my head was pounding, I was irritable, the result of no coffee in the morning; addiction for sure.  And almost instantly, a hand-delivered cup of coffee from another staff.  An old shirt salvaged from the Chattanooga Goodwill.  Memories of Sean in the spring last year, hiking and KT asleep in the backseat of the Jeep. 

One of the comforting things about exercise is the trust gained in the substantiality of myself, finding an internal anchor.  Maybe that's why I could never fully place stock in the mental acrobatics of philosophy twits - who wants to get lost in seeking meaning in concepts that won't hold?  When we talked about the concept of 'numberness' in a mathematics course, I'd always leave frustrated and annoyed: I want firm footholds, I don't want to blow my energy deconstructing things into vapor.  I'm not too proud to admit I need something tangible in my life.  A physical love, friends and family that are solid and touchable, a faith that grounds as much as it lifts. 

What I most definitely lack right now is a way to share that feeling, the confidence in the physical, immanent world, with others.  And a way to reconcile it with my tendency to slip histories (this week you can find me somewhere in late October 1956).  Ten years ago was Columbine and it can take me right back to high school - the awkwardness and never-ending search for closeness and novelty in myself and the world, the supermarket melodramas at work, learning small, manageable responsibilities, wearing the wrong clothing, saying the wrong things, all the pent up everything. 

And still, I think I'd go back for a day or a week had I the chance, anytime you ask.  I'd go back maybe to make different better choices and bigger, smarter mistakes.  I'd take advantage of more opportunities, convert at St. Eugene's earlier, save more money.  I'd spend time with my grandfather and learn carpentry and plumbing.  I'd work out some and run more; I'd be open and Christian and gregarious and smile at everyone.  I wouldn't take shit from anybody.  Dad and I would be closer sooner, I'd cut my hair short and wear jeans and plain tshirts and have zero worries. 

Great things about this week so far: buying Beautiful Children instead of the new Jhumpa Lahiri book, coming out the other side of writer's block, a fine new haircut, bright clean sheets and the morning sun through my windows, good music, anticipating monster hikes, gospel music.

The most recent spiritual crisis averted, by the right words from the right person, who charged me to find God in everyone (and not the generic good, either but God) and to look constantly for things to be grateful for.  Forever unexpected - I've become accustomed to letting those instances of pure, undiluted gratitude for my life and the world just happen.  It's a nice feeling, to turn around and suddenly be confronted with an event or moment that reaches deep into your core, sets alight your heart and shuts off the constant diatribe in your head.  But Laura Anne points me in a different direction: maybe I can cultivate that feeling, that sense of connection and depth.   So I'll reframe, I'll adopt the attitude of someone searching for signs and evidence.  I have only faith that they'll present themselves all day long. 

And just yesterday, driving home through Tennessee winding along bright twisted roads with the windows down and the radio up, I find flashes of memory to recapture and grin about: The way Allison would stretch her thin long arm out the window and toss a cigarette out of her car to the thump and drum of Tupac; listening to the Magic Numbers at Barnes and Noble and all the ways I hated and loved it (Terry be damned, working receiving with Chris and Tiffany to constant banter and geekiness, bitching about every shift in the cafe and the conversation toss up - am I working with Kati?  Gossip and war history on the board.  Andrew?  MUSCLES... and movies.  And if Pat was there it was one constant chat about history, politics, and strange authors.  Little work was done, let's face it.); every time my dad came down to Columbus on the weekends; dancing like an idiot at Krush Girls and DJ Mahogany with the PBR Dance Team. 

And for something completely different:  Compare these two live performances and tell me what's different.  I'll give you a hint - the YYYs need some coffee, need to wake the hell up. 

The memories were sweet because they spoke to him of the one truth he had known; doubt would begin only afterward.  Though, as he had hinted to me, even in the days of truth he had been a spectator, watching the birth of other men’s memories, the birth of History, or of many histories:  all stories he would not be the one to write.

I've always had the problem with forgetting the time I'm actually in when I'm immersed in engaging histories, even fake ones.  Like reading anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in December and forgetting it's winter and not summer in Colombia, but with eras and epochs.  I'll misplace the markers of when I am and get totally drawn into the times and places in my head, then my cell phone rings and I can't figure out why I feel like I just learned something depressing about a close friend.  There are times when my internal monologue about Romania or Communist Hungary speaks as if I've been there and it's only when I say it out loud that I realize that I haven't yet.  It's so cognitively seamless that I wonder if others don't have the same problem, but I'm sure they must not.  We have anchors in the world for a reason, things and routines that tie us to a certain time and place, keep us grounded.  Reassurances. 

Now that I think about it I don't have any real anchors these days.  Maybe that explains this resurgent confusion; maybe I'm adrift again.  Sing me a salty blue song I'll be gone.  Half the month I live in a forest wonderland, the only signifiers present are the routine logistics and the roving, picaresque lifestyle out there under the canopy.  The other half I traipse around a squeaky new city, often forget I live in North Carolina and not Tennessee, living beholden to nothing but myself and the ways I want to allocate my time between Tuesdays.  More substantial than my schedule are the books I carry with me, the fickle weather and arbitrary places I sit to read them calmly deferring to environments and climates on the page.  I've always had an instinct that I could live anywhere in the world and be content.  It's yet another thing to experience that lack of gravity, the opposite of inertia.  I'm perfectly happy here, thrilled for the vast majority of the day, and still I feel like if I woke up tomorrow in somewhere as alien as Harrisburg or Tacoma it wouldn't take much to convince me I started out there the night before.  It takes little effort to call to mind the smells and sidewalk patterns of Rome or New Orleans, and in some way the ease is disturbing, as if doors or roads might lead to different places than they did before.  Passageways might only continue to mark the same boundaries under allowance or agreement; one day they'll change their habits and we won't know where to go or how to get there. 

The kind of day where I find myself dwelling on what, of my life, would be kind to share with others.  The kind of day when I take a little extra time to fill the tank at the gas station, to enjoy the tight heat around me and to soak up the bright air.  To slip, quietly, down to the pool and lose several hours between someone else’s words and daydreaming of autumn camping trips.  Of games between two cautious children, slipping in and out between bookshelves, chasing each other from one loved passage to another. 
    What could come to anyone of my life, what could leak out of these moments like the sweat coaxed by the sun?  I find brief moments of truth at odd times – when I am reciting Borges or Eliot like a mantra in the street, when laughing at the mischief of a dead physicist as the neighborhood Mexican children play loudly in the water.  How do you communicate that feeling?  How do you make someone else feel a second wind?  When you’re halfway through that next-to-last mile, certain that those lungs you trust are seconds from bursting in your pounding chest, certain your legs are one stride away from permanent cramps, certain that by some fault of your memory you’ve gotten weaker since the last time, and it comes: your faithful lungs open, back straightens, muscles ease… and you’re picking up the pace, charging into the sun and the wind with your head high and a pop in your step.  Like being baptized into a new strength.  Moments like these could fill a life.

Salvaged, from a folder in a folder in a folder, snips of writing and quote-taking from at least two years ago, if not longer:

"You're cool like margarine is butter.  Close, but there's an aftertaste." (?)

"what, that's comedy gold!" (definitely Veronica Mars)

I like to sit around in a hoodie and shorts hiding behind an ipod and books, generally telling the world to call me when it gets its' act together.  The times when I am truly happy and the times when I am wearing pants are mutually exclusive.  I reward myself with Dr. Pepper and the Rolling Stones.  I write stories about the aftermath of my chosen profession; I write stories about people falling in love the way I'd really, really like to.  Nine days out of ten I'd rather be romping through the woods with my headphones on, dripping sweat, and looking for someplace new than doing anything else. (guaranteed I was sitting at Fountain City Coffee)

"There's a word for people like you."
"Misanthrope?"
"No... that's not right."
"Full of piss and vinegar?"
"Not quite... more like..."
"Bent?"
"Yeah, that's the one." (I think this was a conversation with Tommy at Fort Benning, but who knows.)

"It's like you're this giant jackass pinata, begging for someone to beat the candy out of you." (Mars, Veronica)

"I really like hanging out with the Jewish community on campus.  They're pretty cool... except for that one Rabbi that seems scared of me."
"Justin, did you talk to him?"
"I talked to him."
"For more or less than five minutes?"
"At least six.  Now he crosses the street when he sees me coming." (the Incomparable Justin Willcox, ladies and gentlemen.)

"We will be collectively condemned by future generations in the same manner that we condemn our Civil War, Civil Rights, and Vietnam-era forefathers because we failed to recognize the things we could change while we had the chance." (Willcox strikes again.)