Wool and berries

   During my childhood and early adult years, my sister, my father and I would go out to the grandparents' house for family gatherings. These were generally on Jewish holidays, but sometimes included Thanksgiving, I believe. but I might be wrong about that.
    After a long train ride to the Van Wyck station in Queens, my grandfather (and sometimes grandmother) would pick us up and drive us to their home, which had a smell that I recall as particular, but has over so much time for me become vague. Perhaps it was of moth balls. I remember more specifically the candies that they would offer us younger ones from a heavy glass bowl. They were shaped and colored like blackberries and raspberries. The light grey poly blend wool gloves that I often wear for my morning walks in early morning and chilly Golden Gate Park have a smell that remind me of those candies. Mustier, with a slight sweetness. I am often amazed that I am able to experience some things so vaguely yet with so much force.
   I kind of half-enjoyed going way out there to Jamaica, and even though it felt like we were interlopers, Emily, dad and I still felt like some kind of unit. The rest of the family, the cousins, aunts and grandparents, seemed to exist in a world so complete before we would arrive and we would leave. We were there, seemingly out-of nowhere, then gone. When I think about my own death, I imagine it similarly.

Living in the valley

In our hotel room in Purmamarca, in the country where Fernanda was born
(much closer to her comfort zone than mine)
she and I looked at a map,
a pamphlet really
that is given to tourists like us to inform them of nearby sights to see
and which I am a bit embarrassed to say was not only useful
but also entertaining.
After reading the destinations, we decided to go to "Salinas Grandes",
and set out the next morning,
And as the driver drove, and Argentine tourists repeatedly sang songs that quickly fluttered out in that bus we were on,
I looked ahead and out of the windows.
And while not feeling pressured by them, the mountains that bordered us
impressed on me the sensation that we were being wedged in
and I thought how often I feel stifled by the ideas I have about the world.

At that moment
I wished that my vision of the world was as lush as I imagined that valley could be
between me and those hills, fed by rain
and melting snow.
Probably, they held their moisture well, using every last droplet.
And as we passively eased through that landscape
I remembered that the hard crust of the earth shifts, and is flexible enough to alleviate built up pressure.

Cézanne and I

   The park can be a place where I can feel remarkably free. Sometimes, I am bothered by the people there, but when I focus on other things, I feel liberated, and can sometimes perceive things in ways that are fantastic.

   I saw the tree in the picture below during a recent morning. It seemed as though I could not fix my vision as I walked towards it. The branches were undulating, there and not there, perhaps partially due to the light wind. They seemed to be moving in a space as unfixed as mine, it's leaves, blurry. The lack of a fixed point of view upended the sense I generally have of being somewhere, and although the sensation struck me at the time as very beautiful, it now makes me a bit anxious as I think more about it.
   I  remember many years ago visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with my friends while we were all under the influence of psychedelic mushrooms, and when I saw the way the artist Paul Cézanne painted leaves in some of his landscape paintings, I understood that he had seen them much the same way I had in Central Park during the walk to see the museum. Although there has been things written that the drink absinthe (popular with many during his time), caused hallucinations, I imagine that he had altered his attitude, not his mind.
   I have found that opening my eyes just a little, squinting even, can sometimes change my perspective a lot, as can the mindful exercise of looking at things as if I had never seen them before.    
   There have been times that I have been able to see without the use of drugs.

Splinters

 In my parents' apartment I had to walk down a long hall, turn right, then turn right again to reach my room. Hanging in a recessed panel above the door was a sign that my father had painted, with the name Adam in letters the color of ripe oranges. That name was, and usually remains, as foreign to me then as now. My sister had a sign too, just a little ways from mine across a short hall; hers had purple I believe. It said "Emily" on it. That was her name.
   The front door to the apartment, which would make a large clang when it shut due to all of those locks and heavy frame, would deposit me at one end of that long front hall. Sometimes, when I had been inside for a while, I would run alone, or with my sister down that expansive space, and would end up with a splinter in a foot. Sliding with socks on, in the wood went. It was strange to have to remove a tube sock to find it, and it could be very difficult to locate. Layered calluses. I might still have some slivers down there. Sometimes, my emotions seem inundated with slivers from that time.
   The overwhelming sensation I had as a child was that I was completely alone, and my room, although usually messy and chaotic, still seemed safer than anywhere else. Of course, this kind of security was relational. I imagine that I would feel more safe with a bulletproof vest on knowing that I'm about to be shot in the chest with a bullet. I'd prefer not to have to make that choice.
   I do not recall caring about much of anything then, but a new Elton John record or KISS' "Alive" album, which I would beg my father to buy for me, provided comfort. The records had booklets sometimes and notes on the back that I would read with the music playing in headphones, totally immersed. I cared about those things. I also cared about the AM radio that kept me company in that apartment. Harry Harrison, 77WABC. AM was music back then.
    Luckily, and perhaps as a form of self-protection, I was only able to vaguely sense the desperation I experienced during those years. The nightly panic attacks during a couple of them came with such regularity that they produced a kind of rhythm.
   Although I still feel some forty five years later many of the feelings that I must have had then, I do now know that they are feelings. As a child, my anger and despair, like those splinters I could feel but not find, did not seem to even near the surface. Little daggers in the feet of a neglected boy. The floors which produced them, rough and uncaring.

Bird behavior

   I'm sitting in a coffee shop called Latte Da in Lee Vining, California. Drinking a decaf and watching birds around a feeder, I feel at peace and satisfied watching their energy and apparent etiquette over who feeds first. The cool weather and my place in the warming sun feels good.

   What at first seemed like a complete free-for-all now appears to possess some kind of order in the process, though I certainly don't understand it. It would seem that the larger birds (in this case, sparrows) should be able to take their turns when they wished to, but they appear to be in no rush to eat. In fact, they look at bit nervous and confused over the apparent chaos. 

   Some of the smaller birds rush from nearby branches to eat, then back, then quickly to the feeder again, but it is difficult for me, a non-bird, to accurately determine who is who, and sometimes even what species they are. I believe there are only three there in total, including the sparrows.

   While I find all of the birds to be just so beautiful, I see as most enjoyable the mystery of their collective behaviors. Amid apparent chaos, there seems to be some kind of loose etiquette. Most likely, from my vantage point, I'm either be too close or far to see it.

   

Lost inside

  I was feeling feeling extremely angry and confused by Fernanda'a actions as I began my morning walk in the park in the early morning. I recognized from a distance two women coming towards me as Betty and her friend, whom I recognized but whose name I don't know. She always acknowledged me with a greeting that came out as, "ga mawnig".

I wanted to both scream a and hide from everyone.

As they neared me, I looked over at them, feeling that I shouldn't simply ignore them, despite my mood, but they did not seem to see me. It was quite strange. There are times, though irregular, when I feel so bad about myself that I wonder if everyone can see inside of me. In this instance, I seemed to have been partly right. but appeared to have been seen through.

I continued my walk, hoping that the exercise, scenery and fresh air might help to alter my pained mood for the better. I started to think about my mother, and how she often seemed to look at both familiar faces and complete strangers as if she were not there looking at them. She would stare at them until one of them would look back at her as if to say, “what the hell are you looking at?!” 

I wondered what it must have been like for me as an infant, looking up at this person who must have been looking at others rather than me. I imagined that when her gaze did turn to my direction, that it might be somewhat bewildering. What I had really needed were her assurances.
Although I've thought and talked about this subject quite a bit, I now have a conviction that what I was experiencing at that moment the very kind of hopelessness that I had felt when my mother was not able to show me that I existed. Although Fernanda is my wife and not mother, she provides a powerful anchor which helps me to feel visible and alive. When I feel distant from her, I want to escape, but find that there is nowhere to go.

Waiting, beginning and anticipation

   This is the morning that I began in earnest looking forward to returning home to San Francisco after nearly two weeks in Buenos Aires with Fernanda. I think that we have together, and hopefully separately, had a pretty good time on this trip.
   After showering, I prepared myself to go to one of the local coffee shops to write a bit before being joined by her, and thought as I readied myself to leave the hotel about what waiting, which I seemed to be experiencing, really feels like.
   Writing about it now, a little later in the day, I realize that delaying or being delayed, beginning and ending are simply ways that I have always managed the powerful and frightening sense that things are actually continuing.
   I remember in my early teen years convincing my father to buy me tickets to see the rock group KISS, the ticket sales beginning so early that there were several months before the actual day of the show. I had those two tickets push-pinned to a cork board in my room, and though very excited at the prospect of seeing my favorite band, I recall that anticipation was at times excruciating. I remember thinking that it was too far away to ever happen, that it couldn't be worth that pain.
   So it is that now, with one and a half days left here and looking forward to being both here and home, I am able to imagine without too much difficulty being back in our apartment. I trust, or rather imagine that it will happen, and perhaps imagination is what I have always been needed to fill the abyss I face when looking towards the unknown.