Fear Of Threshold

Did I have enough fun while I was single and childless ? Did I misspend my youth adequately ? Did I party in a way that my 90 year old self will look back and crack a contented smile ? No, across the board, no.
    Sure, I had fun, I partied, I had a gas at times. Most often though I sat in a room with friends who held guitars and passed reefers or passed reefers and watched bad movies or funny movies or good movies, but movies all the same. At the time, that's what was done, that's how the friends gathered. Looking back, what a waste of getting wasted. What a load of boring non-events I sought out night after night. I should have gone dancing when I said I didn't feel like it. I should have made a pass at her, him, them when I had the chance. I should have said, yes, I'll visit you in Vermont, yes, I'll eat those mushrooms, yes, I'll meet your friend, yes, I'll go camping.
    Too often it was sorry, I don't feel like it. In reality I was nervous, anxious, afraid. Afraid of novelty. Fear of threshold, I called it. I'm afraid of stepping over that invisible line and into a new world. Once I'm in the new world though, big deal ! Oh this ? Why was I afraid of this ? This is nothing.
    It wasn't the new world I was afraid of, it was stepping into it that sounded my alarms. Why is this ? Why should novelty be such a terrifying thing ? Devil you know will bore you to tears. I was often so bored and it's true what they say, it's because I was boring. I still may be boring but I think I'm actually a little less so nowadays. We'll see how this plays out.
    I was bored, I sat and scribbled while my friends sang songs together. I was too nervous to sing along. I wasn't good at it, so I drew to the beat. I was a visual artist insisting on hanging out with this bunch of musical people. I could have been sitting around a table and laughing and drawing with other drawers but they weren't the ones who were my friends. It's complicated. Yes, there is regret.
    I can't get into all the shoulds right now because I'd run out of pixels and life is too short to boot, but I should have had more courage. I should have got up and left. I should have sought out another scene. I should have stayed home and I should have gone out. I should also cut myself some slack, now I know about that whole youth is wasted on the young thing, 20/20 hindsight and all that. At the time, all I was doing was hanging out with my friends. I didn't think that I was actually making decisions or that I had options or choices or any of that. I was hanging out with my friends. Passively. Repeatedly. Boringly.
    Man, get out there and try out people. Go to parties, meet strangers, buy your own drugs, sing out loud even if the whole world knows you suck because by doing so you won't. It's not to late for me, near forty-six and father to a baby boy. I'm learning new things and trying things out, slowly maybe but surely. And I don't want this kid to be too afraid of this old world of ours. I won't push it but I hope he falls farther from the tree than I did.

Watching The Clock

I'm tired. I worked all day and now I'm sitting with my machine attempting to write something to fulfill my daily writing commitment. I already fulfilled my daily drawing commitment but I chose an easy route, a simple line drawing, ragged outline, cross hatched back ground. Short and sweet. Yesterdays drawing was finely rendered. I shaded slowly and subtly while an acquaintance entertained me with stories of old men, service jobs and sociability. Today, I pounded out my drawing while at work so it wouldn't be on the list along with my text project once I got home.
    I'm forcing this one out, hence the self referential cop-out of writing about writing. One thing I told myself upon embarking on this project was to remain, for the most part, not too concerned with quality. If the primary motivation for starting a daily routine is the slaying dead of procrastination and a secondary motivation being simply to keep the wheels greased, one cannot start getting tripped up with notions of quality. One shows up at the office, so to speak, and one begins and finishes the task at hand. I have put off so many creative gestures because of a variety of nebulous reasons that to skip a day of writing because of having nothing to say would set me back horribly.
    An easy way out of an empty head is to start with the same old crap of discussing why and how you cannot write. This acts as a springboard. The case now is that once rolling I'm not going to go back and edit out my hesitations or make it seem like there was never an issue regarding today's task. I am still tired and still uninspired. I don't want to get into Easter stories, lamb bodies roasting in back yards. I don't want to get into family pressure during holidays, church, ritual, not belonging, not feeling particularly plugged in to the biggest holiday in the Hellenic year. I won't get into what happened at work today, how many stacks of paper I sorted, whether the sales were decent or not, if any visitor sparked my interest or if anything special occurred. I may list off negatives but i'll stay on course and continue writing about how little i have to say. My first impulse was to reiterate the personal myth angle. I even bought a book this morning about global myths. I'll fall asleep half way through the introduction.
    I'm tapping out letters and words. My eyes are stinging. My thoughts are dull. I need to wash my face. The cat seems hungry. She's coming around which is unlike her. The baby is finally asleep. The weather is beautiful but I'm inside. A restaurant would be great, a plate of bad meat and a soda, beer would steam roll me. Here I am and I'm done. Short and bitter. Jagged lines, quickly wrought, nothing much by way of message. There is always tomorrow. On a journey through the mountains, there must be days that aren't recalled, days that went by simply as a sequence of footsteps. Maybe a hawk spotted or a near stumble through gravel but otherwise a chore not forgotten because it was never absorbed in the first place.
    See you later.

Now And Never

Bullshit, loads of crap and onwards. Stifling thought, fidgeting body, aches and pains. The whole kit, not being able to sit still. Not being able to leave the ground and fly away. Pulled between worlds and tendencies. Monastic fantasies of one small room, a cot, a desk, a bowl, a rug.
Here I would read and write. I would contemplate the mysteries and The Mystery. I would tend my affairs, small and humble, away from the mad rush of the world.
    Off to the side of the magnificent Saint-Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal is a small building that I have visited a few times. The room above the chapel that Brother Andre lived in has left a deep impression on me. What simplicity. Of course, the small church beneath was opulent enough to render the stark wood of his homely room in relief. The saint lived simply, I'm sure, but he was a few steps from religious gold and wrought works of master craftsmen. I must visit this place again, and forget the line of tourists behind me, and just grip the hand rail that leads me through the tour and stare into that simple single room.
    The monastic fantasy, the single cell or tiny house, also echoes the recurring fantasy of true independence, answering to no one. I have never had the privilege of being truly alone. I have never been without sight of another human for longer than a couple of days in my entire life. It is something that lures me and terrifies me. When I first entered an isolation tank, I snapped the lid shut, turned the lights and soothing sounds off and floated in the dark alone. Within moments I pushed at the light switch and threw the door open with a gasp. I am not so hardy as I'd like. I may go stir crazy in the cabin in the woods. The creatures of the wilderness will quickly creep out from between my ears and unsettle me. I'll plan the trip nonetheless, a week on my own. And if not in complete isolation then close to it. I'll bring books and paper and drawing tools. I'll bring a good knife to whittle and food fit for a pauper playing king.
    The other world I'm pulled to is closer to the one I live in than Brother Andre's world. Opulence and grandeur, the feeding of a growing insatiable ego, servant boys bringing me fresh fruit. Luxury and whim, a not over large estate but one linked to a world of adventure and fine dining. Night life with a driver and a table reserved, companions fresh and charming, bottles filled and emptied. No care for the morrow, for others are doing the caring. Basking in the art of living, tasting culture refined and plenty. Plenty, that's the word. A buffet when I want it. The righteous privilege of choosing only steamed mushroom because it pleases me. Padding about great carpeted studies, selecting volumes rare and lavish. Devoting hours of study, brandy nearby. A huge door to throw open to let the night air in as I smoke a pinch of hashish rolled in fine tobacco. Guests asleep in the far wing.
    This tug of war leads me nowhere. I'm not having any of it. A bowl of steamed mushrooms next to a paperback, my child sleeping in the other room, my partner trying to rest. Planning a camping trip or a morning outing can exhaust me. My man servant isn't up to the job. Push it aside, the task at hand and worry. This isn't what I wanted. This cascade of adulthood. But I never threw a duffle bag over my shoulder and I never hit the road and I never starved and buffets are ok but they are sad things too. This world that pulls me to pieces, it's a world I made. This war is my war alone and both sides fling their error and assumptions at my feet. I wade through it, victim and jailer.
    There is light somewhere. I'll have to rake the ground to find it. I'll have to cast away thought to find it. Stretch this aging body and trade my lust for love. Learning to sit still in my old age.

Blooming Late

A few things came late in life. Learning to tie my shoes, learning to tell time and learning to ride a bicycle are the triumvirate symbols of my late blooming. My tricycle was large and green and I couldn't keep up with my brother and his friend from down the street. I do remember ramming into the friend's bike, with him on it, because he was teasing me. I didn't do the damage I craved, but the hit was somewhat satisfying. I don't remember clearly but I probably had tears streaming down my face to ensure total glory could never be mine.
    Shoe laces are confounding things and I didn't get the hang of the over under loops until several months after my peers. I have no particular story associated with laces from back in the day but I do choose slip ons almost exclusively now. Is life long enough to tie and untie shoe laces? No, it isn't. Life demands footwear be thrown on for feet to move body quickly out of the house, down the street and to the coffee shop where it can loll about over a damned game of Sudoku and a coffee enhanced by an unnecessary pastry.
    Clocks went digital for a reason. Time is a fiction we don't need to encourage by sweating over which of the arms is long or short. I still have trouble with analog clocks. I pause over them a little too long for an adult. It took me years to tell the arms apart, that fast third one whipping around confusing me. Of course, so many clocks get fancy with roman numerals, or no digits at all. I don't bother. I stopped wearing a watch, usually a black plastic Casio, often strap snapped off and watch rammed in pocket. I stopped because I would check the time incessantly and forget what I read the moment it went back into my pocket. I lament the endangered status of pay phones, my current source of time telling when out and about.
    Other examples of tardiness are things like responsible adulthood or saving money or acquiring a credit card. Anything that requires bureaucratic process, finance or planning ahead more than a few weeks has only lost it's fear factor in the last five to ten years. Now I open the envelopes as the come through the mail-slot, unwilling to let the snarl of the tax man turn to a bite.
    I have conveniently forgotten the best example. I still don't have a driver's license. This avoidance of the driver's seat is, in what passes for our culture, the prime symbol of ineffectual manhood. Are other areas of life that require proactivity affected because of my lack of driving skills ? Once I grab that steering wheel, will I also grab other opportunities and sail away to self-actualization ? To becoming some archetypal top-dog ? Climb to the top of that ladder in my slip on boots ? A box of gift watches in the drawer of my power desk.

33° Burns

When I turned thirty three years old I was six years past the age I thought I'd be when I got my shit together. For some reason twenty seven was the magic number. It popped into my head in my late teens as the marker when I'd be what I was destined to become. It sounds good to a younger person. Still young but far away enough to continue being a little dumb ass.
    All I did at that age was actually move out of my parents house. One maybe hoped for something more dramatic, something beyond the 'well, you should do that anyway' category. It was a step for me. I had friendly support and the change was made. Moving out allowed me to no longer crash on the floors of my friends who lived downtown. It also allowed me to have people over to my place, which I rarely did. Jesus Christ, six short years later I moved back in with my family.
    My father convinced me, he is very convincing at times, how awesome it would be to move into the building he bought. I could run the shop he opened, live upstairs from it and never stray too far. I bought it hook line and sinker. It was a tug, for sure. My mother was very clear that I didn't have to do this. I should have listened to mom. Well, I didn't and the lure of low overhead won out. And what was I doing with my life anyway ? I was making bits of art while unloading trucks and pricing stock at a downtown record store chain. I had two university degrees that occasionally worked out at parties but I was not using my so-called potential.
    I ran the shop. I still run the shop. I moved into the bigger apartment in the building when it was vacated. I did so in anticipation of a future girlfriend maybe moving in with me. Now we both live with my family so to speak. We enjoy the perks of a low cost of living along with the agony of being between a rock and a soft place. How does one untangle the lines, move to another place, away from the business we've claimed as our own and made fancy ?
    Today, almost twenty years later, the conundrum reverberates in my heart every day. We have a great apartment that is too noisy at times above a business that looks better than it operates. In the heart of a great neighbourhood surrounded by the best community anyone can ask for and yet…and yet. Gratitude exercises come and go, privilege is seared into every mouthful I eat, kids making noise in the alley is constant. The traffic outside my door will never ever stop. I'm middle aged and I can't help but feel I took the easy way out in this life, the road paved with minimum effort. I live in my father's house which means I haven't built my own yet. That lost hobbit hole I dreamed of as a kid.
    I am not a carpenter like he was, I'm kinda handy but not so much. I've learned a thing or two about odd jobs and upkeep. I open the bill envelopes when they come but have a hard time saving any money. My mother warned me about planning for the future, I told her things would work out. Somehow they have worked out but on their own terms not on mine. I've left life to do it's thing and only recently have awoken to the fact that I'm the one steering this clunky boat.
    At thirty three you're either crucified or given honorary degrees. I retreated into my nest.
    At forty six all I can think of are my fifties. So how does one steer a near lifetime of passivity into total action ?