Blog of Disquiet

2011-11-27T00:27:00.000-08:00

there were things in my head about half an hour ago. they were observations about myself, the way that I participate so much in the stress that I feel. how i see myself as a witness only. the way my mother talks about a transition into a new stage of life, and the way that I take that on, and become her, feeling a transition too as me, as her as me. it is a radical time.

i had the pleasure of seeing stars tonight. i left the house and got out, late and cold as it is here. i forgot what it was like to get into a cold car. then running into a friends warm living to warm up, get stoned, stretch out, and feel the realizations as i unwind myself. it is a neverending process of the unwinding, but there is swimming too.

cracked myself open tonight, knowing I needed it walked into it, but not really intending it. animal quiet instincts lately. be quiet and something will come. you will know. you're going to be able to smell the air and see the dirt and know exactly what it is. and then you won't and then it will go on. always go on. there is more than starting again. but there are the gems that come.

Ne me quitte pas

2011-08-14T14:37:00.001-07:00

Don't leave me

Dont' leave me
You have to forget
Everything can be forgotten
That is flying away already
Forget the time
The misunderstandings
And the time that was lost
Trying to understand how
These hours can be forgotten
Those that are killing sometimes
With whys that hurt like punches
The heart of happiness

Don't leave me
Don't leave me
Don't leave me
Don't leave me

I will offer you
Pearls made of rain
Coming from countries
Where it never rains
I will work the earth
Until I die
To cover your body
With gold and light
I will create a kingdom for you
Where love will be the king
Where love will be the law
Where you will be the queen

Don't leave me
Don't leave me
Don't leave me
Don't leave me

I will invent for you
Meaningless words
That you will understand
I will speak to you
Of these lovers
That we've seen twice
Their hearts embracing each other
I will tell you
The story of this king
Who died of not being able
To get to know you

Don't leave me
Don't leave me
Don't leave me
Don't leave me

We have often seen
Fire flowing again
From an ancient vulcano
That we considered to be too old
It seems like
Burned earth
Produces more wheat
Than a warm month of april
And when the night comes
And the sky is on fire
The black and the red
Won't go together

Don't leave me
Don't leave me
Don't leave me
Don't leave me

Don't leave me
I won't cry anymore
I won't speak anymore
I will hide right there
To see you
Dancing ad smiling
And to listen to you
Sing and then laugh
Let me become
The shadow of yor shadow
The shadowof you hand
The shadow of your dog

Don't leave me
Don't leave me
Don't leave me
Don't leave me

2011-04-11T19:19:00.000-07:00

looking at photographs by philip-lorca diCorcia this evening

2011-04-10T16:44:00.000-07:00

New testament

I am not the same and i am the same, thank you

2011-04-08T11:21:00.001-07:00

I'm here, I arrived on Tuesday and I think its funny, this process of leaving, moving, arriving, shifting. when do decisions get made? how does it all come together? I'm reminded of something Rumi wrote that I read somewhere - about how the future comes, that it enters into us long before, etc.

I think it is an interesting and mysterious process, this thing of how the future arrives, how the seeds of intention are planted long before through process. thats how I experience it anyway. I think I recognize my intention early, and then let it sit for a long time, the intention - sometimes barely recognized sits in the dark for a long time until I can bear to recognize it. perhaps this is the process of manifestation.

I like the idea that things are conceived in the dark, developed in darkness

Underneath, train’s wheels roll fast in their grooves. one way / forward, stop / go.
metal moves in different ways - back / forth, but all together forward.
Inside the train car too, people enter / exit, orbiting different planets but all together - in / out / forward.
Next to me, women speak a different language, their molecules of perfume armours them and invades me.

the train rolls into the west 4th street stop and I look out the window and wait to roll on.
Becoming visible are idle bodies on the platform
I imagine seeing you there, once so dear to me, dressed as surprise yawning wide open, imagine that we make eye contact for a single fleeting eye-blink of a moment before the train rushes out / forward
before we dissapear back into the darkness of death and creation

2011-04-04T08:13:00.000-07:00

The Answer
By Bill Knott

Leaving the house,
the house will be
left completely,
from cellar to
attic my absence
entire.

Do I enter the world
the same,
my presence felt
from cloud
to ditch?

Only in departure whole.
Arrival
is always partial.

2011-03-21T11:27:00.000-07:00

what is at stake?

Letters

2011-03-19T14:45:00.001-07:00

Dear Lydia

It is late. I was thinking of you. I wanted to tell you why I am marrying you. Throughout the complexities and unknown terrifying good and badness of life I think that the only thing in life that has value is love. People need people - each has his own - you are mine, and I yours. Of all things, the most is aloneness - unloved-ness. I love you. Life without you has no meaning. Success is empty, laughter bitter, my existence joyless without you, without the knowledge that you love me, that no matter what - good or bad - our lives are hopelessly and wonderfully entwined. Together - the joy and the pain.

Once I nearly lost you. I tried to separate you from me. How I ached and cried. I couldn't forget you, leave you, stop loving you. My heart is not my own. I am empty unless you take care of it. I am not nearly perfect, but I will try to be the best husband to you that I can - no matter where we go or what may happen.

To this I pledge myself - what I am and what will be - my life, my work, I pledge it to you before the God who has blessed me with life.

With Deep Love
Michael

Letters

2011-03-19T09:59:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO
FEB 27
1968

Michael,

Time moves slowly and I'm afraid my patience grows thin -more with myself than anyone else. I question my reason for existence. Sometimes I feel I need a vacation from myself. To jump out of oneself and fly like the wind. To feel the sun - warm on you. to be free to love to embrace the world with no threats. i guess I am my biggest threat to myself. Enough.

Linda took her first two steps yesterday. But that's as far as it went. She still holds on while walking. I don't know if she will be walking when you get home. I am so glad your ship is on its way. Progress finally. This feel like the longest trip yet. The nearer our meeting comes the less I sleep. You'll recognize me by the circles under my eyes. I can't seem to shake this depression.

Take care. You are all that's worth anything. Others are false - you are gentle and kind. I'm so tired of fencing. Its a cold world without you, and I find little reason for continuing on this very narrow road.

Lydia

Letters

2011-03-18T09:26:00.000-07:00

Dear Michael,

Its late, and I should be sleeping but I had to say goodnight.

This is my luxury of the day, I foget problems and think of you.

These are the personal, selfish, all important thoughts which help me remember I'm still an individual, a living person, with a living love.

Your Charly

Letters

2011-03-16T15:36:00.000-07:00

ANAPOLIS, MD
MAY 21
1-AM
1961

Dear Lydia,

I was much disturbed by your lack of confidence in yourself. Do you think your life has ended entirely because you cannot perceive any promise for the future? What talent do you lack that you apparently believe others about you abound in? Or perhaps you think that you suffer by comparison to me. Firstly - my success in high school was the result of social ineptitude - I was a clod with nothing better to do and the satisfaction of grades fed my wounded ego. Not very noble at all!

Oh baby, where are the words to soothe! You are still so full of life! You are young and healthy and very pretty. Bus drivers and waiters - strangers in the street - everybody can see it but you. The world lies at your feet and I - the great me - stands with head bowed - very humble and honored that you care for me. And what do I wait for? For the time when you lie close by and speak my name.

Do you now or have you ever thought that this life was meant to be easy? Wishing and caring are not enough. Regret does not help at all. The disappointments are many, the work long and dull and the rewards are few, but so sweet as to make it all worth while. Live, I ask, for a day - and there will be one I promise - when your soul will song.

Across the long miles with hasty scribbles I try to ease the growing pains of one, very precious. for the sake of one who not so long ago cried tears for my pain I ask that you consider these words with the honesty and candor in which they are written.

Love,
Michael.

Letters

2011-03-15T20:30:00.000-07:00

ANNAPOLIS MD
MAY 29
10 - AM
1963

Dear Lydia,

It is the middle of the night and I can't sleep so I will write you a letter. I am tired of being apart, tired of wanting you, tired of waiting. During theses days of boredom when I can't make myself do anything I think of you constantly. I want to do so much. Buy you presents and say things that will make your eyes glow. Meanwhile I am telling myself to meet 6,000,000 relatives who still think of me as a boy, but my mind is set and I am ready.

While I'm writing -

The June week cottage is in Beverly Beach. You have to go to the office (its like the gate house at Sherwood) of the Bryant Real Estate Co, phone #UN-7-2081. The house is in the name of Mla Pantry 2/C. It is called "the Davis place." It is 7 minutes from USNA so a cab might cost. If you get in before 5:30 call Mike Novakat (rm 7276) at USNA. He said that he would be around all day till then to drive you, or if he isn't around maybe Bill Natter (room 5220) could help you. Saturday you can either study go or/either Mike or Billy to the sports in the yard. Bill is not staying at the same house so you would have to get in touch with him Friday night. I will most probably call tomorrow or Thursday at about 6P.M. to talk.

Some day when it is quiet and alone I will find the right words to tell you how much I love you, how long these years have been without you. It is enough now to tell you that I don't sleep nights, thinking of you.

Love,
Michael.

letters

2011-03-15T13:26:00.001-07:00

JUL 21
5 PM
1962
Jacksonville Beach, FLA

Dear Lydia,

Was to Key West to observe A.S.W. exercises - was on a submarine and also a S.S. As for me I try to submerge myself. try to not exist - try to stop thinking and wanting you. Soon - so soon. I will see you in Chilce (not legible).

Meanwhile I live and grow like a catapiller within a cacoon of lonliness, insulated from emotional experience. Keep writing. I do miss you.

Love, Michael

Letters

2011-03-15T08:30:00.000-07:00

May 17, 1961
Anapolis, MD

Dear Charles,

Am I the same person I was? I hate everything and everybody. I am a louse. I hate me. I stink. the harder I try the worse I get. I am disgusted with me. I am so stupid, thick, dull, dopey. I lose patience. I am tired of making an effort. I am mad at being tired. I need a rest and I despise me for it. I want to be better than I am - I am so confused I dont know if I think something or just think I think I think it. I want to escape to die, to rest. Youre to throw rocks at me for being selfish, Michael.

2011-03-13T17:34:00.000-07:00

I could be more used to transition, but it has this funny nature, the way it teaches you by being ungraspable. I'll defer to nina all month or forever to gain inspiration about fear and being free. I'll take the teachings all this has to offer.

sitting on t's bed doodling with this while she makes dinner and sing que sera sera channelling sly.

2011-03-10T15:37:00.001-08:00

4 December 66

Dear Lydia,

Today we pulled into Izmir Turkey and I got two letters from you. It is very good to hear from you. I think that when you try to tell me of what it is like to be pregnant I am filled with the most peculiar feelings - some are apprehensive I hope that I will like the new person - but most are good and warm feelings like I knew this was supposed to happen. I am proud of you and very happy to hear you talk. I am most happy of all that you picked me to be your husband and the father of your children. ancient and repeating song of love, hope and tragedy.

I was very surprised and saddened to hear about Uncle Henry. when I was younger, before I graduated grammer school, I was very close to my cousins and I had many memorable experiences with hiim. Later, after I became more friendly with Mr. Guterman and more involved with high school, I did not see as much of Uncle Henry. finally when I went to USNA, Uncle Henry seemed estranged. We both remember the kidding he used to give me about being an Admiral. I think I still liked him. I know that he liked you and that made it easier for him to like me. he was a hard working man. I have great respect for his memory.

Enclsed please find another check - this one for $100 to help you out with the various costs of moving etc etc. I will continue to send money when I get paid. Please let me know if you got the $500. If you havent by the time this letters gets to you, then I can get it cancelled and get you another. If you already have then I should get your letter soon. Ok?

Love
Michael

2011-03-10T15:02:00.000-08:00

thought I would move over to tumblr because it seems cooler somehow but got lost in choosing a theme, then i lost my reason to move the blog over. the point is to write, so I'll write here. here is fine.

sitting with a guitar on my lap makes me feel better. I'm not very good, I need so much more practice. still it keeps my hands sort of busy in a way that I like.

it was a perfect grey day and it feels absolutely delicious. every bit of this weather is something to eat up, red and green of traffic lights are marvelous. lots of good color contrasts going on. its muted and vibrant at the same time. one of those days where I want the perfect moments to become a part of me, I want to love everything so much.

the house is empty and it feels fantastic to fill out the space. I missed an appointment today, i forgot to ask a question, i wouldnt be rushed. even the doubt that crept in today, I can hold that too. I told B about the dream of the lion, and she said the lion is always the self. i dreamed that a lion came to me and rested it head on my neck and I was terrified.

beauty

2010-10-04T12:04:00.000-07:00

2010-09-29T07:11:00.000-07:00

word of the day:

Daybreak

2010-09-28T07:33:00.001-07:00

new Sufjan Stevens Album: stream it here. I'm in the middle of it, so far so beautiful.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130049247

2010-09-27T10:15:00.000-07:00

welcome to a time of intense dreaming.

on saturday I was a native american rushing into battle playing a flute. i was sitting with a few others playing music and suddenly men wearing suits came into the field. we outnumbered them and there was a moment where we could have been passive and let them run us. but i had the urge to chase them off, and so I ran straight for one of them playing the flute. he shot me. I might have floated away and become a constellation.

last night I was running the mexican border, going from a little adobe house on a hill under a giant blue sky with my friend B and her new love that I haven't met yet. I wrote to her this morning to tell her about my border dream. coincidentally they are planning a border festival in the spring, from a little adobe house on a hill. I guess I've dreamed my way into it and will make my way over there come April.

2010-09-20T13:37:00.001-07:00

mind the gap
between you and where people and things fall short
whether they do or not
whether it is you or not
in that distance there is information.

2010-09-15T18:23:00.001-07:00

control

this is a minute for those that I dare not count, spent trying to understand what and who you love, looking at pictures taken before the dawn of the new self consciousness, before we got so lost in the reflection, before we became seer and seen. we look, we look - to make measurements of me, map my position, understand my context, examine my value, prove I have one, make myself feel i have none. who knows?

any way, i leave feeling less. i just can't know everything. sometimes I forget that I don't want to.

2010-09-13T18:10:00.000-07:00

submerge

Buffalo: Prayer and Abundance

Those who have a Buffalo totem must walk a sacred path, honoring every walk of life.
You will achieve nothing without the aid of the Great Spirit
and you must be humble enough to ask for assistance and then be grateful for those gifts.

A Buffalo totem will seek to help you establish a deep connection to Mother Earth
and it will ask you to help the endangered species of our planet.
He will bring you strength of character and an independent spirit.

It is the totem of abundance.
Do not push or force, but follow the easiest path.
Buffalo medicine is knowing that abundance is present
when all relations are honored as sacred and when gratitude is expressed to every part of creation.
Buffalo medicine is prayer, gratitude and praise.
Praying for the needs of all creatures, for harmony and
give praise for the gifts you have already received.

2010-09-08T11:31:00.000-07:00

1st Rolfing Session of 10 last night. had a thought during, that the process is like tuning the body as if it were an instrument. painful, but so interesting to surrender to it, say yes to it, knowing that you are being re-ordered. when I detached from it, i could feel its vibration, felt my body like this, like an instrument, singing strange notes.

2010-09-06T18:33:00.000-07:00

labor day weekend kicked ass. I'm so thankful for this palpable end of season deliverance. as i walk home even my own street looks different.

some like it

2010-09-02T19:56:00.000-07:00

watched "Some Like it Hot" in the park tonight against a backdrop of the city, floating upright rectangles with little lights. I waited for Marilyn Monroe to make an appearance, I had not seen the movie before but knew she was in it. I thought the crowd would make some collective noise when she appeared, I thought that there would be an expressed sense of waiting for her as I was, but there wasn't. I expected the icon worship, but no.

Everytime I see her in something I want to pay attention to what it was about her, or who she was. I can't imagine that this person got to be a person in the context of her arrival, her presence creating the stardom phenomenon. She evokes a very tactile thing, she's fluffy, in a sort of literal sense. she's soft, full, something about substantial vacancy, I don't know. the film was made three years before she died, she was 33, my age. I can't help but wonder what went on, what that vacancy was, who lived behind it, and where they lived. I'm sorry you had to go like that. I wonder who you were.

2010-08-24T14:44:00.001-07:00

1. walking back from the new kitchen today i looked at the immediate side street view. Just look at that cool snub nose Citroen Utility Vehicle.

Random Fact: The first commercial vehicle from Citroën was introduced at the end of 1921.

2. ok, perhaps not that interesting, but I just looked up at at these houses that I see everyday and the colors popped today. they are very strange looking houses to me.

Random Fact: The streets in Greenpoint are named alphabetically. Walking south along Manhattan Avenue, you will find Ash, Box, Clay, Dupont, Eagle, Freeman, Green, Huron, India, Java and Kent Streets. Then comes Greenpoint Avenue, formerly known as Lincoln Street. Further south one can find Milton, Noble and Oak Streets. All streets were originally designated by letters, not by name; A Street, B Street, etc. Calyer Street, coming after Oak Street, was formerly known as "P Street" and is followed by Quay Street. (thanks Wikipedia)

3. one of my favorite things that I see everyday in my neighborhood, the nasty neckface van. I dont know if neckface owns this van or what (somehow i dont imagine him living in boerem hill, but I could be wrong), but it adds a welcome flavor of in-your-face to the neighborhood.

Random Fact: Neckface is an anonymous graffiti writer from California, born 1984.

a haiku & a view from the street I work on

2010-08-24T09:28:00.000-07:00

while some are muted
when its grey in the city
others come to life

nyc subway, a world of the past

2010-08-23T15:21:00.000-07:00

http://24flinching.com/word/headline/subway-lifeblood/

these images are so beautiful. a completely different time in new york city's (and our country's) history. as a kid growing up in the 80s I went into the city from nearby new jersey - hanging onto my fathers pinky finger, small enough to be looking at street people eye level. It was colorful, exciting, frightening, and it provoked me on every level. it liberated me from mainstream america, and I distinctly remember the moment that I felt that beauty could be many many things, perfection came off of its alter and could be there for me to re-see and redefine. this moment happened in the car as I sifted through images. I remember how it felt, this discovery exploding inside of me. it brought a sense of private liberation in early childhood, it was mine. After this moment I see that I chose to try and understand the world through this lens.

and as I got older, i would go to surrender myself - to run straight into the sense of endless possibility that it offered, a place to become everything, to disappear into, and over and over, to be delivered to myself.

everything in me has always said yes to this city that has become the great love of my life, this place that stays with me wherever i go or live. I'm glad i got to see a little piece of it like it was then, a place with more color and soul than it has now.

2010-08-23T09:29:00.000-07:00

by Dorian Laux

I couldn't name it, the sweet
sadness welling up in me for weeks.
So I cleaned, found myself standing
in a room with a rag in my hand,
the birds calling time-to-go, time-to-go.
And like an old woman near the end
of her life I could hear it, the voice
of a man I never loved who pressed
my breasts to his lips and whispered
"My little doves, my white, white lilies."
I could almost cry when I remember it.

I don't remember when I began
to call everyone "sweetie,"
as if they were my daughters,
my darlings, my little birds.
I have always loved too much,
or not enough. Last night
I read a poem about God and almost
believed it--God sipping coffee,
smoking cherry tobacco. I've arrived
at a time in my life when I could believe
almost anything.

Today, pumping gas into my old car, I stood
hatless in the rain and the whole world
went silent--cars on the wet street
sliding past without sound, the attendant's
mouth opening and closing on air
as he walked from pump to pump, his footsteps
erased in the rain--nothing
but the tiny numbers in their square windows
rolling by my shoulder, the unstoppable seconds
gliding by as I stood at the Chevron,
balanced evenly on my two feet, a gas nozzle
gripped in my hand, my hair gathering rain.

And I saw it didn't matter
who had loved me or who I loved. I was alone.
The black oily asphalt, the slick beauty
of the Iranian attendant, the thickening
clouds--nothing was mine. And I understood
finally, after a semester of philosophy,
a thousand books of poetry, after death
and childbirth and the startled cries of men
who called out my name as they entered me,
I finally believed I was alone, felt it
in my actual, visceral heart, heard it echo
like a thin bell. And the sounds
came back, the slish of tires
and footsteps, all the delicate cargo
they carried saying thank you
and yes. So I paid and climbed into my car
as if nothing had happened--
as if everything mattered--What else could I do?

I drove to the grocery store
and bought wheat bread and milk,
a candy bar wrapped in gold foil,
smiled at the teenaged cashier
with the pimpled face and the plastic
name plate pinned above her small breast,
and knew her secret, her sweet fear,
Little bird. Little darling. She handed me
my change, my brown bag, a torn receipt,
pushed the cash drawer in with her hip
and smiled back.

2010-08-19T10:07:00.000-07:00

oh well for the vigilant brain,
a rushing train racing from or to, never knowing which.

2010-08-17T09:17:00.000-07:00

emergency

people as dreams, as places
as unfixed landscapes lifted out of time, pages torn out of books.
and me, like tide, little exposed heart rolls in, rolls out.
us as us, us as sea,
us as noble dogs, loyal to our senses.

2010-07-08T18:28:00.000-07:00

7 Jan 67

Dear Lydia

It is now 9:30 and I shall have to get up for the mid watch at 11:30 and i really should go to sleep, but I cannot. You crazy little girl I love you very much and cannot think of all the ways to tell you and how good you make me feel just by writing and saying hello. After 2 1/2 years that seem like a breath and 3 months that seem like an eternity, I do not sleep a night without you. Given the whole world or as much of it as I have seen, and all the people in it, and I have met many different kinds, there is no one to whom I would give my one and only life but you, and no where but by you that I would spend it. The rest, the real part cannot be said but must be lived as we have lived it - with gentleness, patience, the taking care of one another with tears and with so much fun and pleasure. I can hardly wait to show you.

Love and love again
Michael

2010-07-08T17:58:00.000-07:00

Date blurred

Dear sweet wife,

It is late at night and I cannot sleep for thoughts of you. This need of you is a wonderful thing but it destroys me in repose, only by furious activity can I lose myself for a minute. At times like today, when time is heavy on my hands, you are large in my mind. I miss you so much. The big things and the small. Making love and watching you sleep - you are so pretty in the mornings just before you awaken. The cooking and washing of dishes with me biting your ear. The endless and foolish talk of people in love. I look upon it all now with such a curious nostalgia - as if I had died. I confess that I was glad to be numb for a while - not to feel - not to ache. Fatigue is a blessing though I did not recognize it. Love me else I die surely. Doubt me not for if you do, the small part of me which makes of pointless activity a life, will surely disappear.

In Love and Agony
Michael

2010-07-08T17:36:00.000-07:00

May 8, 1961

Dear Charles

I am trying to find a place for you for Sunday - Wedesday. I spoke to my people. They said if it could not be worked out, then they could not leave you here without a chaperone or someone at a drag house it would be ok. If it doesnt work out - and it might not - that you would leave Sunday.

I wonder each time how long can I go on dissappointing you - saying goodbye - saying I'm sorry. You have been patient and I can do no better than this. I have been brooding over this most of the day. I want you to be happy but I can not cause it.

Meanwhile, I have my scouts out. Anyway, if worst comes to worst - be prepared and I know that I will cry too.

I miss you now very sharply and wish I could have you here -

Love & Hope
Michael.

2010-06-24T20:08:00.000-07:00

Note: Charles was a nickname for my mother. I'll give the story later.

Feb 5, 1961

Dear Charles,

Thank you so much for writing. I am still on the tread mill. I am as lonely as you. Thank you for the perfume. How lucky we are to be who we are. I know not what to say. (I am reading Shakespeare again and this new twist of language I cannot help)

What stupid thing this would be by itself, alone. It is such a long way, do not be dissapointed at June week, for it is very formal.

Charles - always grow deeper and broader - be young - be happy and sad and dont get caught in by false people living fake lives - be genuine and honest and full of life - the way you are.

Yours-
Michael

2010-06-22T19:28:00.000-07:00

I keep on here, im choosing a letter at random and posting. until i get things sorted into dates its a mish mosh of a story. and so it goes.

July 27, 1969

Dear Michael.,

Your last letter sits in front of me and I am sad. Knowing you love me makes me glad and happy inside. If it were for you it just wouldnt seem worth while. There isn't a day that passes that i dont think "Wouldn't Michael love that" or "I must remember to tell Michael that." Linda looks up and there you are! I wonder who will speak to you and soothe you when you demand too much of yourself. Will they misunderstand and abuse a nature so gentle? I have not forgotten you - far from it.

My Michael, I love you well, too well to be left without you for such a long time - and not feel depressed - our year in England was our only break. We've been waiting for each other a long time. No I do not like our separations - I try to give meaning and relevance to my life without you but I can't. We are reaching a time of decisions. These first five years may set the pattern for the next 15 or 20 years. I fear my own dependence on your love. I want to lash our and declare my own independence because of it. I want to tell you that - there is no such thing as one man for one woman and that we can live happily and manage our separate interests like civilized persons. That our child will manage because it has no choice. I want to tell you these things and try to convince myself that they are true, but I can't. Memories sift through my mind - a couple of kids who found something so special that even though they were too young to know exactly what it was they held on with their every fiber. Yes, we could have walked down a different street and missed one another and found another, but I believe with all my heart that it could never have been the same. I mean it when I say that I could never love anyone as I love you. We are of one mind. Marriages are not often made of this - one can work hard at a relationship and have have some success , but there is always something missing. Its the kind of thing that makes you forget about yourself and think of the other person. Its the tight close feeling I get when I know I'm too far away to help, and I read your letter and my reply could never be fast enough, timely enough.

Have I forgotten you? no, and maybe this is why I cannot smile. I realize your hands are tired - I know of your frusteration. But you too must try to read between the lines of my unhappy letters. I am a one man woman and I find it difficult wihtout you. I love you very much. I am only sorry that I cannot cheer you when I know you need it so.

Lydia

2010-06-18T14:44:00.000-07:00

Sept 13, 1963

Dear Lydia,

I have ached till i did not think it would end. I have waited and looked for the letter that would tell me that you wanted to see me every day. I have neither smiled nor laughed since you left. I find increased difficulty in finding a reason to do anything. My father bade me to be patient and patient. I have been since the 30th of July. Since that time I have talked to no other girl, tho in the Phillipines there were many who would have done more than talk. And now I wonder, to whom would it have made a difference. I can only ask, dumbly and mute with shock and agony, why have you hurt me so? I am glad you have someone, for I am all alone and I know how bad that can be.

I want to die.

Michael.

2010-06-13T16:18:00.000-07:00

Dear Michael,
Speaking to you today only reminded me of my lonliness. Time - always a matter of time. If only it would pass quickly enough for you to be home again, then stand still. But since this is not reality we must look to vacations and short weekends. Eventually our time will come. The life puzzle is put together with time. This is the price we must pay.

So some more patience is needed on both sides. Write. I miss you so - am so lonely without you.

Love Always,
Lydia

letters

2010-06-11T16:09:00.000-07:00

to Mrs MC Berkowitz, Toledo, Ohio
from USS Wiltsie

June 16, 1969

Dear Wife,

From far away - late at night and lonely, having been away from you two months - five days short of being married 5 years - i pledge to you my love. I miss you terribly. I want to touch you and see you again. To kiss the back of your neck by the sink - to let dinner burn. i am myself small and vulnerable, but you make me a king. i have such pride in you and the baby that we made together. Read through these clumsy words and perceive the shape and form of my deep and passionate love for you. Michael

construction

2010-06-10T04:43:00.001-07:00

I keep dreaming of houses.

there is a general consensus that talking about what your brain conjures up during the mysterious hours is lame, so I won't get into specifics, but I will say that this morning I'm thinking of the language of architecture - the dream provided the experience of understanding the language on a level i usually don't understand as clearly. each house was radically different - and some extreme forms of themselves. I loved these weird extreme craftsman giant buildings. I understood so personally what each one was saying. Perhaps its not unusual to dream of houses now, in my 30s, when this idea of building something for your life pervades everything.

when I used to live in the brewery in Los Angeles, my friend Dave had a particular dislike for the art walks. not because of art. but because the people who opened their doors lived inside their art. Not only was their art all over their walls all the time, but a lot of people had turned their apartment into a sort of version of their art. Walls painted thick black goo, just like the style of the art they made, you get the picture. He claimed it was like walking into their psyche. or something like that. When i think of it a blog must be the same way. In a sense when you visit a blog, you enter a space wallpapered in a persons psyche. weird. does that mean these pages have walls? how many?

is it that as soon as you perceive something, and understand different things about it, your perceptions and ideas create dimensions? how busy is the brain constructing out of perception?

February 22, 1964

2010-06-09T20:08:00.000-07:00

I'm going through years of letters from my parents, reading them, transcribing them, savoring them. I'm not sure yet what will come of them. In the meantime, I'll post some of them for reading pleasure and perhaps it will inspire me to continue on. I would give more background but maybe later. I think things best speak for themselves, in the beginning at least. But one thing here, in 1964, my father was 21 and my mother was 20.

February 22, 1964

Dear Lydia,

How can I tell you how much I love you? there are no new ways, so I shall tell you all the old ones. I miss your touch, your smile, your not wanting to leave me, the nails on my back. The hair that tickles nose and mouth when I try to sleep. The warmth when you sleep, the one colored eye. the softness of your lips, the shy tongue, smooth skin, small ears, ticklish neck. you are the happiness missing from this stupid existence. I could not bear your not loving me. I should collapse and break. you dont know yet how much i need you. how every free moment is torture for me without you near. I shall see you by hook or by crook. God end my torture soon in letting me see her. write me. Love, Michael

Zanzibar: Malindi and The Passing Show

2010-04-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

Twenty dollars got us a tiny room with two beds and no bathroom in the Malindi Guest House when we first arrived in Stone Town. The house itself is situated on a narrow but busy street, and is indicated by an ornate door that is constantly open where random men perch themselves to chat and get a break from the heat during the day. At the end of the street is the main harbor where young men swim out with colorful buckets to more than a dozen fishing boats that rush in with the tide at sunrise to fill with fish for impatient crowds of buyers who heckle and bargain at the muddy, slimy shore. The market and its surrounding busyness embues the air with the smell of fish, refuse, sewage and sweat, as every pocket of the small twisty street fills in quickly with men doing something and nothing: selling and buying fish, pulling carts with produce, riding bicycles with straw baskets lined with plastic for fish, zipping through the street on mopeds, or selling clothes and small goods on the side of the road. A small number of women are on the street too. They sell sweet fried breads and tea. I see others on the backs of bicycles and mopeds driven by men, riding sideways wearing traditional hijab.

Beyond the Malindi Guest House door is a courtyard, on the left are open-air stairs and to the right is a dark emptyish reception room with only a desk and a bulletin board where a gentleman greets us wearing a long traditional thob. While Teah negotiated with the wide eyed man with extremely pronounced cheekbones, I stood next to our pile of bags pondering the sign on the board: "please do not swim or sunbathe at any beaches in town."

The immediate space at the top of the stairs reveals itself as an entrance to the dark interior of the house and is a living room displaying middle eastern carpets and a few antique arabic pieces of furniture: a dark wood crib, a couch, and a large low table in front of it with magazines on it called "Friday," with young middle eastern women on the covers. But my attention is grabbed by a beautiful old upright piano in the corner of the room and I realize in that moment how much I am missing the sounds of South Africa, where there were always drums to play and people making music. In the same instant that I want to play the piano I know that I can't, and I am reminded of the way I felt as kid with my paternal grandmother who could make you aware of her rules without ever speaking them, for which I always felt a divided reaction - a pure and deep burn of injustice, and also the desire to comply just to feel the simple pleasure in pleasing someone else. This will not be the first time here that I feel this way here, there are many rules and boundaries that are conveyed and policed subtley, and without thinking I will find myself with both urges of response, to abide and rebel.

Beyond this living room is an adjacent windowless hallway that contains our room and a few others, and another hallway with two single bathrooms that are dark boxes with a sink, a toilet, a shower, and a candle with a box of matches. There has been a power problem on the whole island for the last three months because the cable that runs power from Dar es Salam to Zanzibar is broken. Despite attempts to fix it and promises of aid from foreign governments like the US, the people have had no electricity for months. Now they have to pay for petrol to run their own costly generators that are turned on for a few hours of the day. Maybe its just the heat, but the feeling regarding all this seems to be frusteration mixed with docility, a tired sense that everyone must keep the peace. I try to imagine what would happen in New York City if no one had power for three months in the middle of summer.

Shower before bed and once you get there, don't move an inch; close your eyes and pray that gods of sleep carry you off before your body heats up again, or before you become too conscious of the stagnant hot air. Somehow this worked for me on that first night in the Malindi Guest House, but it did not for the girls. After waking in the middle of the night and shuffling the mattress to different areas of the hotel in search of a breeze, Teah tried sleeping on the roof without a mosquito net and was woken up by a strange worker with a flashlight several times; Ghada slept on the lone wooden bed frame in the room. That was our first and last night in the Malindi, after our returning from Kendwa we are now staying at the ritz of backpacker guest houses across the street. For 30 dollars, it boasts 24 hour generated power, a ceiling fan, and a corner room with 4 windows, a bathroom, and two beds - enough to make me giddy at the idea of getting sleep.

On most days it is too hot to do anything in the middle of the day and the last stop before retiring to the room is my favorite place to eat, a restaurant appropriately called The Passing Show. Cheap, quick, and constantly busy, the Show is filled with people at every hour of the day and night, mixed with both locals who are mostly men - Indians, Arabs and Africans, and tourists, who seem to be largely Scandanavian. There are at least ten men who work at The Passing Show and all have an air of ownership, though it can be hard to tell who works there and who is just hanging out watching CNN. Regardless, they are a tribe of efficient people who give The Show an air of both business and social club.

When you walk in past the counter which sells fried food and sodas to go, you will be directed to one of many tables that occupy two open spaces inside, and an outside patio to the side. On each table rests a glass bowl filled with half slices of small limes and bright red chili peppers (both grow locally on the island), and little plastic jars filled with dark red spicy paste. Laminated one page menus are distributed and drink orders are taken immediately - cold Fanta or coke are served in glass bottles, water in plastic bottles, fresh cold tamarind juice in glass beer mugs, or sweet Masala tea with Cardemon. Dishes are separated on the menu in categories between Biryanis, Curries and the like, with choices of lamb, fish, beef or chicken, all served with rice, coconut nan or chiapati, and all for about 3500 shillings (around $3), also called Tsh. As soon as you've finished the second sip of your drink, plates of food are in front of you, and are as delicious as you would imagine anything is that has been stewing all day under a watchful eye.

Paradise revisited

2010-03-18T02:17:00.000-07:00

We left Kendwa today to continue on. What a strange thing it is to feel relief in leaving a place that people come to spend their holidays.

I didnt realize when we left Stone Town a week ago that there would be no more banks, so yesterday I went in search. I heard from a few locals that there was an ATM at one of the nicer hotels in Nungwe, another beach at the top of Zanzibar known to be more upscale and frequented by Italians, so I set off by way of the beach at 10am that morning when the tide was low to cross. I had been warned of robberies, so I put only a few things in in my bag and hid everything else under my clothes

I had felt anger rising in me since the night before when my travel mates were fighting and I had suddenly become sick of everything overnight, the aggressive vendors that prohibited any peaceful walks, the local beach boys who relentlessly bothered us, the strange decadance of the vacationers, the lack of sleep in the mosquito ridden heat, the way i felt i looked ugly with my short haircut growing out and the dark sun patches on my face, and the general absurdity of my being angry at all in this beautiful place.

First I stopped at the Royal Nungwe, which only irritated me more; it is a monsterously ugly thing made to look like a giant castle with endless white decorative walls and huge expanses of overly manicured half dead grass. I walked up to reception passing strange chlorined pools of water and desolate and pristine walkways. a local woman hotel worker sits and prunes a lone bush that doesn't belong. the proportions of space do not inspire anything, instead there is only a sense that you are small and imprisoned inside someones idea of paradise, it's sensibilities indicate wasted priveledge and worse, without any knowledge of itself - wasted and reveling in it. I finally get to the wide cold marble counter and it is not an ATM machine, only a bureau of change and at that they are open, but not open until 3 because of whoknowswhatreason. I walk behind the giant gates of the hotel where local guards dressed as Massai flirt with me and finally tell me to go into Nungwe village for a bank. Jambo, mambo, whatever. I do walk into the village and there is no bank there either, only local life where women carry things on top of their heads and walk down the road, and men sell things or sit in the heat. I feel ridiculous.

I want to escape somehow to give myself relief from my frusteration of not finding what I need immediately, I want to walk all the way back to Stone Town to find a bank but I know this is silly, its an hours drive. and more, I want to walk fast through and out of the slowness of Africa, I want, I want I want. as I walk, things open up and it is not just the bank and these immediate frusterations, but everything else: I want to walk through my dissapointments, my choices, my passivity, my vulnerability. I feel all the power that anger can bring, and I cant help but wonder suddenly how much of us are informed and powered by dissapointment - feeling victims of the world and each other, broken by ideas that were promised us in fairy tales and on commercials, and how little life can seem to measure up when taken at this level. And why do I feel this when I am here, after all? What exactly am I so pissed off about? The fact that I have a life where I can entertain these kinds of troubles is in and of itself a waste because I know they are problems of priveledge - the priveledge to have choices and make decisions. the fact that I feel burdened by them seems absurd. But here I am.

I continue on and finally find a little store at the Nungwe Inn that will give me cash on my Visa card and in that regard things are set right again. I walk back to Kendwa relieved to be independent again and I let the walk back take everything out of me.

I am arriving at a place where there is no reality to my own sense of victimhood. If nothing else, this trip has been all about choices. I have free will to go anywhere I want - separate from the people I am with, go to different places, make different choices if they suit me. and the same with the rest of my life, I can't look to anyone or anything to blame, I can't think of much from the past or present that I have not chosen on some level. this is strange feeling of being an adult having a tantrum - there is no place for victimhood in my life, and there is no walking out of this awareness, there is no one i can look to for answers. It is all the choice, the priveledge of choice that bugs me. It is far easier to put myself into a situation and become a victim of it and claim that I didn't choose it than choosing something else. In this way from here on, I cannot be bothered by the things around me without taking responsibility.

Why does the weight of agency feel so heavy? The idea that we dont have to suffer if we don't want to, that no one can be responsible for our happiness but us, why does this feel so full, so strange? Here in the heat and the walking and the banks and bothers, it is just me, working within.

Now to look up.

Crickets and Canaries

2010-03-11T09:14:00.001-08:00

Ghada and i got up before six this morning to meet Mr Haji who was to take us to the fish auction in the village this morning but we never made it. I had barely slept all night - my mosquito tent is very secure, except for when a mosquito manages to sneak inside as I open it up to climb in. i fall asleep, wake up itchy, and the night then becomes a routine of trying to fix the situation. also I keep opening my door and walking outside of my hut staring into the darkness like a hungry person who opens the refridgerator door over and over again even though there is nothing in there to eat. each time i am surprised and dissapointed by the darkness, as if only the morning could offer at least the solution of starting a new day when we can stretch the day as long as it will allow. and so I find myself dreading sleep time, when my body asks for rest and there is no promise of it. Delivered like this into morning, most days start out slowly, except when Ghada and I have ventured into the village for photographing and interviewing.

the first sound of the day is the ocean, the first sight is the light blue water prefaced by white sand and the two mamas on the beach who sleep outside next to their huts with crafts, next to my hut. Jambo!, they say first, before propositioning for a massage. Jambo! Mambo! Hello, how are you? Poa. I'm cool. Massage? Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow. or, not today. Asanti. Thank you. Hakuna Matata, no problem.

A few steps away is free coffee and a simple breakfast included in our hut price - a small banana, which is about half the size of the ones we get at home, half of a mango still on the skin offering itself in turned inside out in squared sections, a small oily crepe, and another piece of bread - sometimes a square fried donu, or a piece of white bread. there is a spread that is not called butter or margarine, called Blue Band, and strawberry jam that is almost hot pink in color called Al Diwan, with Arabic writing all over the label, and coffee which is best if you make it like this: mix a spoonful of powder milk, half a spoonful of sugar with a little water to get a milky consistency, then add a bit of instant coffee, then add hot water to the top of the cup. this way it eliminates the chunks of coffee stuck together. sometimes I sit and write, or have conversation with the girls that can stretch into the hot part of the day. There is swimming anytime. as it gets later, the sun can get so bright that you cannot see and it makes sense to retire to the girls hut where we listen to music on the ipod dock that Ghada bought in Johannesberg.

It is hard to avoid cliches to say things like this, but to sit in the hut and listen to music brings such simple pleasure - step out of the heat, stretch out on the floor and just listen, or sing... Mercedes Sosa's voice floats through the afternoon, as she sings Gracias a La Vida, what can you do but smoke cigarrettes and stare through the half open door and feel your heart open and break, close and open and break over and over again. Ghada lays down on the bed and closes her eyes. Teah and I sit on the floor, legs stretched, sections of sunlight catch the smoke as it lifts itself through the air of the hut and rolls out the door.

At some point in the day I like to clean up my little room and sweep it out, refold any clothes from the night before, straighten the sheets, and organize my camera equipment so I can recharge batteries when and if the generator comes on in the evening. When appetite comes in the mid afternoon it is cheapest to go outside of the beach - walk up through other little places and out onto the dirt road behind all the hotels which the tourists forget about as soon as they pass through the gates of vacation. It is 5000 shillings for seafood curry with rice, or a masala dish, coconut curry, things like this, 1000 shillings for a big bottle of water, a little more for a beer. As lunch is being made in the Kinjiji Cafe kitchen I realize that my body is ready for every meal, I feel hunger. It is different than in the last week or so in South Africa, where our road trips forced meals at gas stations, chips and sweets only, and generally there is an abundance of this kind of food . hunger doesnt come the same like this, empty food brings emptiness.

I wonder how it is that a sunset here can make me sad at all, but some of them do. I guess the way the day plays out like this routinely and quietly I can hear everything inside of me. after sunset, we put on clothes, change the spirit with local maize vodka or whisky, and then begins the music, the dancing, the moving.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me laughter and it gave me longing.
With them I distinguish happiness and pain—
The two materials from which my songs are formed,
And your song, as well, which is the same song.
And everyone's song, which is my very song.

Thanks to life
Thanks to life
Thanks to life
Thanks to life