I never know how personal to get in this journal. Actually, I usually write my most personal things by hand in a plain notebook at home. Recently, I’ve been writing regularly, like clockwork, but something has disrupted this… I am sick. I think I may be over the worst of it, but it might be chronic, and I’m a bit worried. Am I going to die sooner rather than later?

Its that kind of thing that I don’t feel like I can write online. What if a family member reads this and asks me about being worried about dying? What if a friend does?

Blogs are latent… wait, no, they’re not latent. They’re like dreams. You can pay attention to the messages of friends by digging, or you can blow them off, answering emails and holding things away from consciousness.

But if you choose to pay attention to someone online, you can often follow them around and find out quite a bit of their state of mind, their behavior, or their relationships. Some of us keep fairly personal things online, which should make this easier, but then again, people lie.

There’s some inverse relationship between how personal someone is in public spaces and their authenticity. This isn’t absolute, but a good rule of thumb. If you know someone, like me, who keeps a personal journal online, you can safely bet that they are aware of their being on stage. Then there are those exceptional (or naive) people who actually use a public blog as if it were perfectly private. But even these people should be taken with a big grain of theatrical salt. Its helpful to assume that “everyone knows everything” in this case, and to take public messages stated in a private manner as being exactly what they are: public messages.

In my case, I know of 3 people who might just happen across this blog on something of a regular basis, and a half dozen more who potentially would scour it for tidbits. So, I cannot pretend that its private at all. There is no gateway, unless I post it as ‘private’, but what is the point of that? I think of this kind of blog as a sort of ‘unpublished letters’ that is nonetheless, published. Its significantly boring enough to deter all but those who read things like ‘letters from so and so, after their death’, and these happen not to be the same people I worry about confronting with the content here. So it works for me, but it is something of a dangerous line.

Why not write actual letters instead? Meh. I’ve done enough of that. No, that’s not honest. I’ve not got anything I feel like ‘lettering’, would be more accurate. I don’t mind the writing to dear friends part. I enjoy it, and my letters tend to be valued by their recipients. And I do want to connect with my friends in that way. Its just that… well, I feel so disorganized, ambiguous, ambivalent. Nothing I have to say has the weight of conviction really, and I really hate to bore people with details that may just become untrue while the letter is in the mail.

So I keep my journal here as something of an ongoing letter. Who would it be too?

Dear Whitney, Jody, David, Scott, Thayer, Tom, Liz, Tess, Christopher, Victor, Soren, Jenny, Nina, Clark, Rebecca, Rose, Adam, Rachel, Nicole, Luke, Sean, Peter Oishi!, Johnny Moore, Dodson, Barry, Anya, Amy, Linda, Patrick, Peter, Pav, and so many other people…

And the problem with intimate letters to friends is that I don’t get a copy. Its really that simple. I could photocopy my letters, but I am a bum, a lazy bum.

So I’ve written a bunch of paragraphs saying precisely nothing. I think you must agree: That is a talent!

I wanted to write on the nature of meaning and human existence, as a prelude to an essay for the main blog, but alas, I’m just mired in the bullshit of my nittering mind.

I’m finally lonely and bored. It takes a lot for me to get here. I don’t bore easily (let that be testimony to me smarts), but being sick has isolated me yet further from those rare things that keep me going without facing the simple emotions of my painful and never-resolving depressive obsession, or whatever the hell it is. I can’t quite seem to get up the energy to bring this conflict to a head, yet I continually get updates on my state of being, which (though probably clear to anyone else) always befuddle me.

I was thinking about what ‘having a life with meaning means. Doesn’t this just mean ‘believing one’s own egocentric bullshit’? How could one tell the difference? And what would it be like to know that one’s life meant nothing in the bigger picture? Could this be countered with relational meaning (IE, I mean a lot to my wife and kids (if I had those)), or with situational meaning: “Such and such needs done for so and so reason, and I’m going to do that, even though in the big picture it doesn’t matter”.?

I keep coming back to the idea that I’m stuck in some emotional moment of abandonment or wounding of some kind. And though my dreams have shown me the brilliant warmth of love and presence, I have strong doubts that I will ever be able to move past this frozen moment.

The basic idea is to either go back to the moment of inception (revisit rather than relive), or to challenge the assumptions of that solidified ‘knowledge’ until the walls are broken down and the true self re-emerges. What a hunk of bullshit really. I just want to be alive, in the flow of my potential, capable of risking and losing and moving on.

Please,

UNFREEZE

-Alex

Just woke from a dream a few minutes ago. It’s 1:11 am.

In the dream, I went out on some errands with a house-mate / friend. Maybe we saw a movie. I had a couple of minutes while he was in a store, so I went into a cheap, but huge grocery store and convenience. Like one of those gas-station shops, but with a real grocery as well. I saw they had Mellow Yellow, so I picked some up, and a cup of ice. I poured some in the store because I was really thirsty. At checkout, the girl said: “That’ll be $5.05”. I paid and said I thought she was trying to start a fight. She agreed that the price was ridiculous. I left.

Outside, I must have added rum to the soda, and then had another, because later in the dream I was drunk. But now the dream transitioned. I’m in Charles Village, at home. I decide to take a ride on my bike around the neighborhood. Its late afternoon, and a beautiful day. I ride through the heart of the neighborhood, looking for fun places to ride and play with the bike, and see people. I’m at the grocery store (Eddies). There’s an outdoor produce section. Well, it has automatic doors, but its not fully sealed. Its like a produce tent with a front door. I ride around in there and see that they’re closing up. There’s not much produce left on the tables. There’s one clerk taking their time cleaning up, and they don’t mind me riding around in there.

I ride up to the auto-door, and it opens while I’m balanced on the bike. I ride out. I decide to do it again, maybe because I saw two other people in there just before leaving. They’re standing on the far side of the tent from the store, where there’s a flap that lets the farmers take their produce in and out. Maybe they’re farmers? I ride in and park my bike next to them, and stand over the bike and look at them. The younger woman, a blond about my age, says something like “Wow, that’s a nice bike”. And she gives me a genuine smile. I ask her on a date, on the spot. She agrees. Another sweet smile, and I feel totally comfortable with her immediately.

We go outside, and after we both look at my wheels, we agree that we’ll need other transport if we’re going anywhere. I say: “I have my car here as well, lets take that”. My car is magically right there, and we start to get in. She says that she has a place for us to go: a party or dance of some kind, downtown, “just past Chase Street”. I drive us out onto the main road, which turns out to be a country road.

Soon, the country road becomes snowy. Its getting dark. I realize that I’m drunk. I can’t seem to slow the car down to a crawl, and keep carreening around the cars in front of me, and the oncoming traffic. I do this twice and scare myself pretty badly. She gives no hint that she’s scared; only happy to be with me, and concerned that I look anxious. We have some conversation in which I realize that she’s my unconscious princess figure. So its partly a lucid dream. She is beautiful, genuine, warm, exciting. Love itself.

I tell her that I’m drunk and being terribly irresponsible, and that I’m pulling over. Would she drive the rest of the way? She will. She says “Perhaps thats a good idea” when I tell her I’m pulling over. No anger, no judgment of any kind. Just a quiet but powerful advocacy for our happiness. I apologize several times, but she doesn’t respond at all. She just smiles. She doesn’t take the bait. She knows that I know that I’ve put our lives in danger, so what’s to say?

I think I suggest that we end our date there, because I then transition ‘home’, which now turns out to be a house on that country road, where I have roommates, perhaps 4 of them, all bachelors. As I recount the story of my day, my good friend at the house tells me how stupid I was for having 2! rum and yellows (musta been what I made at the grocery earlier), when I know I should only have 1, at most. (apparently I’ve been an ass before. Am I an alcoholic?). Just as I’m starting to explain how I know that this woman is a Goddess, our landlady pulls up in a stationwagon. She’s our mother’s age.

We all come out of the house onto the porch to greet her. Apparently we’re expecting her. She pulls a washer-dryer set out of her trunk. Its connected by a solid hose. Its so small that she can hold it in one hand, by the connecting hose. I think, but don’t say: “That has to be a joke!”. Someone thanks her for the thing. Apparently we’re going to install it ourselves too. She drives off.

I see that at the end of our sidewalk we have a single ground-lamp. The sidewalk goes out to the country road, parallel to our driveway, but 20 yards away. I say to my friend: “You know, it would be funny if we put another light down there so that it looked like our sidewalk was our driveway. People might turn into it by mistake and crunch into the steps”. He agrees that this is funny.

I feel angry at the landlady. I feel excited about the young woman. I see now (in the dream) that I have been living in the wrong manner, that I have to live to be a prince, to honor this young goddess in the same way that she honored me.

I wake up.

………….

I lay awake for awhile thinking about that last part. To live with deep compassion and love of others. Presence, care, advocacy without judgment. Is that Witness? It feels powerful.

And I had a hard lesson regarding my careless attitude towards my health. It seemed to me that my being drunk, smoking, and driving a ratty car (after a ratty bicycle), are all ways to tell other people that I am ashamed of myself. They are shame symbols of some kind. I have to think more about that too.

Though I wasn’t quite ready for our ‘date’ in the dream, because of the above frailties, the whole thing was a step in the right direction. I recognized the woman as a powerful being. I didn’t shrink from the connection, though I felt weak-kneed in her presence for certain. I began to see how she was in the world, and that although I was currently incapable of reciprocating, that I really could, and want to see her again. I don’t even have to wonder if I’ll see her again. I know that I will. But I shouldn’t take this lightly. I have no right to her affections, and she’s been incredibly generous with me so far. And though she knows that we are one and the same person, she’ll never dishonor herself or me by ‘Chase’ing me (Chase street, in the dream, apropos?).

So there was something in there about realizing that there are plenty of wonderful people in the world. The real world. And that I have to bring respect and curiosity and awareness on my own in order to see them, share space with them, and connect. I could start to see the obstacles to this in the dreamscape. And maybe how I have on some level been ‘waiting to be rescued’, though I have not been conscious of this.

The landlady appearing in the dream, and the house full of bachelors is so obviously symbolic that its funny. So I’m in a little boy’s world, hoping to be cared for by someone else. And of course its pathetic, but its important to see more clearly for what it is. I’m alive, and I can now see the false kings and false queens, and most importantly, the princess.

So when do I realize that I’m the prince? How do I get from the unconscious bachelor-boy world to the realm of the hero? It seems a long leap from here. But every time I see the princess I realize that it isn’t so far as to be impossible. Its as close as reaching out a hand.

And I have a few more hours to sleep yet tonight….maybe I’ll understand a bit more… Dreams can be so rich.

Just a little update:

I’m at a new place, a house in Charles Village, Baltimore, MD. Charles Village is basically Johns Hopkins East. Its full of students and professors. But my ‘hood is so much more. I’m really enjoying it here. I ‘should’ have a roommate, seeing as I have 3 bedrooms, but I don’t. I’m still too much into enjoying the space.

I went to Sandy Spring Friends School’s 20th highschool reunion last weekend. The party part. It was actually really worth the trip down to Bethesda, MD to see 6 of my classmates (class of 52 graduates in 1988). A friend with whom I’d recently made contact and I tried talking over the noise (the classes of 1983, 88, 93, 98, and 03 were there), and we managed to share a salad and some conversation.

Working long hours on a house on Mainfield road, Lauraville, Baltimore. Perhaps more later….

-GF