Day 132 of a Month Long Writing Practice

Tomorrow I begin eleven days without internet access, eleven days where I don't catch up with other peoples concerns, jokes, links, lunches. I was wondering what I'd do about my writing and drawing daily routines. Well, here is the deal. I may still write, if I do I'll write on paper. I may still draw, if I do I'll draw on paper. I won't be uploading anything. The paper will just pile up - if I actually use it. I may not.
    After eleven days I will have access to the internet again. Do I take this pile of paper - if it exists - and translate it to pixels ? Do I scrap the paper and restart writing on the screen ? We'll see. Frankly, I don't really care one way or the other. I consider this project a success. I've written things, a handful of people have read some of the things I've written. I'm not keen to remind anyone that there is more here to read. People are flooded with information anyway. Chances are, I will rope in my efforts and energies and put them to use creating something of substance. Frittering away energy is something I've done for much too long, like eating when stress starts to rise within me. Like surrounding myself with acquaintances instead of solid friends.
    So, see you later, here or somewhere else. This has been day 132 of a daily writing practice.

Time For Reduction

The days sneak right by me, whistling and side-eyed so I don't notice. They be all nonchalant and before I know anything I'm yawning with hardly any time left but a list still full. Write some shit down, draw a damned cartoon bunny, heat up some almond milk and stir in some ghee, meditate for forty fucking minutes with hands of light over my eyes, my temples, the back of my head, my throat, my heart, my solar plexus, below my navel, at my groin, on my knees, my ankles, the soles of my feet. Breathe in, breathe out slowly, six times a minute. Counting the whole time, nodding off, entering some dream place, left it too long, tired.
    It's quarter to ten in the pm. Nine is the new midnight. Every half hour past that is a whole hour in this new reality. I haven't stopped since six am. No, lies, I had a nap from 8 to 9:30 this morning. I found a book, an anthology of diarists. I read some of it, book leaning on the stroller, in the shade of a big tree on L'Esplanade. Stroller rocked back and forth as kid slept. I'm getting the hang of this. The tiredness is setting in deep. The first few months were nothing. It's starting in for earnest now. My lady has never slept and I'm slowly catching up to her. There is no question, you boy up and get dressed and find the wipes and do the changing. Walk the baby to sleep, rock him, stroll him, shush him. Hours and my voice is strong, my rhythm near perfect.
    The days fly by. To slow them I sort through paper, I rip into my archives, collections of garbage i've held onto for years for no other reason than compulsion. No more. Piece by piece, sorting through the piles, separating gold from dross. Reducing it down. A fine sauce. The rest ? Pass it onto better hoarders, committed ones who see value where now I see weight. Get it out of my house, these stacks of paper, these bits of someone else's press kit. See you later.
    Thankfully I have a friend who can help me, who can watch and suggest and support me as I reduce my keepings by eighty percent. The days go fast. The nights are fleeting. My dreams forgotten. But when I finally rest, I'll know I'm no longer surrounded by bullshit.

Starting Right Now

Do I have the time to show up at the office and churn out a short paragraph about my thoughts and feelings ? Do I have the time to moisturize my face after working outside with sun beating down and pallets of earth moved across alleyways? Do I have the time to worry about Antarctica and the ice sheets and the people and Hydro Quebec and radical skepticism and ill informed rationalism and people who think way too much ? Do I have the time to consider and reconsider and reconsider still my contribution to what seems like a confused and collapsing civilization? Do I have the time to make a comic book and dream of a career in the arts instead of selling everything I have and moving to a small cabin in the countryside?

    Ask me what I would do if I had five years to live and I wouldn't answer 'what I'm doing now' so why am I doing what I'm doing now instead of what I'd do if I had only five years to live ?
    Tell me about it. Tell me about my choices and my decisions and my set backs and cop outs and excuses and fears and paralysis and devil you know. Devil you know will strangle every last breath out of you, five years or no. And by you I mean me.

    Here we are accumulating garbage for the big parade. Accumulating garbage to tuck into the loose corners of our coffins. And coffins ! What an extravagance. We'd be so lucky to get a nice lacquered wooden box to rot in. Some folks never get the option. They sink into the field where they are struck down, maybe thrown into the ravine with the others.

    Sure, go back to school to get a masters degree, join the post docs in line for food and clean water. Wait for the corporate overlords to have their ghost of Christmas past moment, wait for Dick Cheney to shudder at his reflection and take it all back, take it all back, restore the droned children to life, restore the forest to it's majesty, restore the women to their humanity.

    Let's work a tad harder, let's do a little spring cleaning all year round, let's whip it out and get it on, let's high five until the sun rises, let's sort the recycling, reuse the reusables, take out the trash, forgive our shitty neighbours, rejoice with our cousins and see where that takes us.

    This is a moment of missives, this is the time for all times, we've made so many children, let's scrub the sidewalks for them so we don't have to pick glass shards out of their kneecaps. Let's turn off the power so they can breathe. Let's stop with the filth so they can eat some decent food and make their teenage parties something not tinged with ragged desperation born of hopelessness.

    We'll turn around in circles until we straighten out this mess. We'll pull the plug and wear extra sweaters in the winter. We'll collect family members to live with us. We'll turn this boat around, I swear, and plant gardens in every cop car.

    Starting now, starting right exactly now.

And Baby Makes Writing And Drawing Happen

This is the fifty-sixth instalment of a daily writing practice. I started with the intention of doing it for one month. I'm now nearing two. It was been a good thing. Sometimes I have no idea what to write about but to date I have yet to skip a day. This exercise has allowed me to hone a skill long desired but generally dormant. I've wanted to do this for a long time but never made the time for it, never showed up to the office, so to speak. Now I am showing up and even doing some work.
    Six months ago my son was born. I never really imagined that being a parent would be part of my life but alas, it is so. This parenthood has forced me to face several pressing issues in my life, one being my penchant for putting things off until the boiling point. With a baby one can't really change the diaper later or make some toast for your hard working partner later. One gets out of bed and jumps into action at a moment's notice. One does things now in groggy states, in wakeful states, no matter.
    When I embarked on a daily writing habit, I wasn't sure what would happen. Several things did. The first thing I noticed was a severe release of pressure. Anxiety long slow-cooking in me and raging out at inopportune times was slowly dissipating. I was not fully released from it's grips of course but I was palpably helping myself. I was doing something good for me that didn't involve hedonism. I found that I was organizing my thoughts and feelings. I was expressing myself, first with memoir and later with personal essay. I reached into my memories and dragged old stories out, nothing earth shaking, nothing dramatic. It felt good, though. It was still a release. I'm sharing the occasional link on social networks and am getting the very occasional page hit or compliment. This is practice. If I pull off a year, I'll have more than enough raw material for some sort of book. If I don't have a book, I'll have a bunch of stuff I wrote.
    Two weeks ago I decided to add another small task to my already over full plate. I started a daily drawing routine. I would cut some four by six inch piece of card and draw a cartoon bunny on it with pencil. I would use a smudge stick to render it. When the drawing was finished I'd stamp my name on the back side, sign it and scribble the year. Then I'd slip it into a plastic collectors bag meant for manga books. I've sold two of these things for forty dollars each. This feels like I've already written about this. I cannot real whether I have or not and the last thing I'll do is slog through previous blog posts to see if I have.
    The drawing is keeping my hand limber. Bunnies are easy and fun to draw and come in a variety of moods and styles. It's all pencil so far, which I enjoy. It's less committal than ink and lends itself to fast techniques of shading.
    So I have a baby, a business that I am not neglecting, a new writing routine and now a daily drawing one. I don't go out as much anymore, I certainly am not drinking or getting high anymore. I have time, I have energy. I'm trying to work towers a plan that will continue to change my life for the better. So far so good.

Guess What ?

Certainty is a crutch. Knowledge is false comfort. Being informed is one of the biggest wastes of energy one can participate in. Go ahead, read the news, see if I care. Oh damn it, I do care. I care about our collective search for meaning, I care that you think keeping up on the press releases from our owners is a good and important pursuit. I care because I have compassion. The news junkie is akin to the Moonie, hanging on the every last word from his master. Of course, I'm not in the deprogramming business, so every man for himself.
    I've been in a cult already. I know that sweet flavour of group mind. It's real. It's also short lasting and in the long run no one can say if the pros outweigh the cons. Having done my short tour of duty in a group project, a group intent on worshiping the elementals and celebrating feast day after feast day, I am better equipped to realize that I partake of belief systems. I know that I just may believe certain things. Knowledge of what my faith may be, mind you, is false comfort. It is also widely inaccurate in that everything constantly shifts. Some pet opinion of mine is dashed to bits with a new article read. Just like changing shirts as some old bastard said of belief. Switch it up.
    The sorriest fools I've encountered are the one's with faith unrecognized. They puff and preen regarding the latest finding, doled out to them from sanctioned sources of course. Sceptical about any questionable thing except their own news sources. This happens time and again. If you are going to be sceptical, go for the whole thing, old friend. Question everything, not only the straw men your favourite podcasts have already selected. Question what and who you are, why you eat what you eat, why you feel how you feel, always and often. Question your brand loyalty, even if their reputation is based on quality and low low prices both. There is a catch somewhere.
    How is it that one can recoil from pundits and authors and honoured guests of Oprah yet swallow whole lines fed by governmental agencies. The mind boggles.
    It's not that I side with the legendary Hashishin and the wry motto hijacked by video-gamed slaves, 'nothing is true, everything is permitted'. No, not so. Lots of things are true. Even some contradictory things. Permissiveness I leave to the society at hand, without having any inclination to agree. We are, to a one, searching for meaning in our lives. Even the cynics and the materialists, even the ones who dismiss meaning and it's search as wastes of time. Even them. They too search. They may search for it in endless fouled up relationships, in extended grudges with best selling authors, in the collecting of immaterial details surrounding television serials. You do it, you think it, you feel it, chalk it up to your humanity. No one can shake that search. Cold grave or waving dead relatives welcoming you into the light, same thing. God, no god, moot point, same thing. Paradox all, paradox always. There is no escape. The thing is the thing. We are one, we are splintered fragments. There is no difference. Pull out all the logic stops, draw charts proving my words empty and I'll laugh if I have the time to honour how you have wasted yours.
    What do I believe ? Who's asking ? And why would you care ? Follow me around and gauge my deeds. Crunch the numbers and conduct severe meta-analysis. There is a creature out there who tricks. There are liars and there are storytellers. There are magicians and wizards. There are cobblers who hoard diamonds under the floorboards, still others who heal the poor souls who come to get some shoes repaired. The cosmos is made of a warp and woof, a black and white tiled checkerboard floor like the stodgy Masons dance on. This fabric wobbles and careens. Upon, within and through it exist all manner of realities, enjoying all grades of existence. That there monster is only sixty-four percent real, that table closer to ninety-eight. Of course, it all depends on where you are standing and who you really are. Stop it, my head hurts. Now, it's yours, is it ? We'll see about that.
    The trickster lives in a place between places. The world axis may determine the land that is ours but others still creep about the borderland. Two is not the biggest number around. Who among you relish ambiguity ? Come then, we'll sit at the same table and tell jokes at the expense of those who think they know what's going on.

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.

Day 31 - Approaching A Corner

The recurring dream goes something like this. I'm embedded in some darkness, an organic mass. I manage to emerge out of it onto a number line (an elementary school math tool used to teach fractions). I count to infinity and end up on the top of a tower, bright and clear, so high up above the clouds. I immediately find myself in the murk again. I have to count to infinity again. I wake up screaming.
    Screaming, agitated, crying, scared, shook up. I may have had this dream twice, maybe three times. I've considered going to hypnosis to see if I can recall more. I have told it so often to myself and others that I fear a broken telephone has set in, a memory of a memory, infinite regress.
    I must have been five the first time, by seven the last time.
    Number lines. Imagine a ruler of ten segments. Draw an arc from the start of one segment to the start of another. Do that the whole way across. Draw an arc spanning two segments. Draw that the whole way across. You'll have five of those arcs. Draw an arc spanning five segments. You'll only need two arcs. Now imagine if each segment was subdivided into ten. Arcs aplenty. You can go on forever. Counting to infinity, I guess.
    When I was older I was drawn to mythology and later symbolism. I read a bit about motifs found all over the place in human history. Art, stories, architecture, dreams, myths. Lots of overlap. I read enough to know that my dream was text book symbolism at it's basic. Dark, cold, wet, organic to start with, Light, airy, angular & crystalline (the rooftop was diamond shaped). I emerged horizontal, I ended up vertical. Here we go again.
    I've interpreted it to my own satisfaction at times through out my life but have often missed the crux, literally, of the story. How did I, the roving point of view that was me in the dream, for there were no figures, turn the bend from my horizontal number line and start climbing the tower ? That's the missing part. Where the X and Y axes meet.
   
    •••

In 2012 I completed my first graphic novel, Inside Outside Overlap. It used this dream imagery as a spring board. It was clear that this recurring dream was the story I needed to tell. I had poked around with some poetry and graphics before but never a project of this size devoted to this topic. As far as I was concerned, this was the only topic to tackle. This puzzling dream, often thought of, came to be my story. At least my first story.
    In the comic my character uses ritual and meditation to enter an inner world wherein he finds a dormant version of himself covered (made?) with goo. He dives into the cesspool and begins the arduous task of digging through the mire, pulling the sludge off until a clarity is revealed. This leads to a crystallization and voilà, our hero is made peaceful.
    I haven't been able to pull this off. My sludge is chipped off at a rate of a flake a month if not a year. I'm not shoveling the shit out of me fast enough to reach catharsis. My meditation practise is still nil, despite my age-old yearning to integrate one into my life. Too often for a healthy mind to deal with, have I wondered what benefits such a routine may yield. I wonder more than actively explore this domain.
    I have slid into mundanity these last many years. Fourteen, I'd hazard. Before that I would perform ritual, pray to deities one and all, change my mind like I'd change a shirt. I felt initiated into the mysteries with each step. Of course with the years I concretized and calcified, gained weight and developed nagging health issues. My thyroid slowed down. My bowels rebelled. My skin said fuck you to my hands. My middle-agedness jumped out of the bushes and beat the shit out of my skinny rock star delusions about who I thought I was always going to be.
    Here I am today, the last day of my self-imposed daily writing routine and I don't know where to go. I can pack it all in, like Greek school or boxing or yoga, and continue the gnawing interior welt that has dogged me since I awoke into adulthood. I can banish the murk by embracing what I seem to fear most, stepping confidently into the light of a daily balanced routine. I can abandon that clarity and sink again into the morass of my many broken dreams. I can go upsy-daisy and down-under a thousand more times before I die. I don't want to wake up screaming every time I hit the squishy starting point again. I don't want to keep starting over. I don't want to count to infinity again.     I'm going to get to the crux of this thing, turn that damned corner, shoot to the top of that tower and stay there.
    You coming along ?

Abs 'n Cash

I don't remember how long I was in Cub Scouts. Not long. Same with hockey lessons. Not long at all. A few early freezing mornings, with torture devices strapped to my aching feet, decked out in heavy rigid gear. It was way more fun to collect hockey cards than to skate back and forth, feet splayed apart, never a game in sight. Just practice. And more practice.
    Soccer was at least outside in nice weather for the most part and we played games right away. There wasn't this learning curve and it didn't require accessories that weighed a ton. I could run around all day. Getting a stinging soccer ball to the face made me call it quits. No thanks, the orange wedges were the best part of it anyway. Greek school didn't fare too well either. Whatever Mimi and Anna and the chicken were up to in the grammar book, they weren't getting me to stay after school for more school. Grade two and I was out of there.
    My mom admits she should have been stricter, not letting me bail out of every activity. In hindsight, which is crystal clear, I wish my folks new about track and field or gymnastics or something where I could just cavort around. Alas, no such luck. I probably would have quit those activities anyway. I'm still not too good with activities. I've taken boxing lessons, tai chi, yoga, all for a semesters worth at most and I loved all of it. Then pop!, never again. Non committal, I guess. Or flighty. Couldn't care less…no, not that. I care. I even rationalize how this activity, if seen through, will just pull me up to the next level of awesome. Well, no.
    Probably way too much pressure put on these poor little pastimes. Poor little yoga class just wanted to limber me up a little, but no, I had to go and convince myself that this is activity was exactly what would pull it all together for me, the chips lining up just so, ease of mobility, deepened empathy, my taxes filed on time and a diet devoid of gummy candy and gas station beef jerky. Radiant health and cash money. One thing that I took away from the Church Of The SubGenius, an organization I kept at arms length, was the concept of the ShoDurPerSav, the short duration personal saviour. This is what Bruce Lee is when you get high and watch all his movies in a row. Or when Fly By Night by Rush is the best album in the world…for today. You move on, the Church knows that and so personal saviours come ready for our short attention spans.
    My enthusiasm would overflow for something for a week and then just unceremoniously trail off into limbo. I would talk up a storm about how amazing such-and-such is, how a daily spoonful of clarified butter is the cat's meow. How with just fifteen minutes a day meditation I was starting to see auras. A month later and I'm bumming cigarettes again or have rediscovered Swiss Rolls.
    I'm waiting for the thing that will catch. The thing that isn't sugar or caffeine, that isn't just reading or surfing the net. I'm  adept at those things, a veritable master. I'm waiting for the good thing to come and build its nest in my nervous system. Seems I may wait a long time. I may just have to see good habits as lovers in every port. When the stars align just so we have a magical love affair and when it's over we move on, nary a harsh word spoken.
    That's my special system.