positively you

Irony.

It is the fairest of the seasons (early June, the solstice this Sunday, June 21^st as we revolve on our axis and tip a little bit more toward the sun on this, the longest day) and the two songs that most apply to this moment, (these days, as Nico mournfully sings in “These Days”) are “The Fairest of the Seasons” by the Velvet Underground and Nico and “Positively 4th Street” by Bob Dylan.

This cannot be a good thing.

That I have actually created a playlist on my iPod in consecutive is just masochism uncut and straight-up. More, and worse, it is self-pity (on the stadium level) and utterly (and repulsively) self-indulgent. But fuck it, I have tried to change my frame of mind, shake it out, and all of the things that one does and none have worked, so perhaps you have to just go through things and feel what you are feeling. As a person with a deep-rooted fear of strong emotion, as I’ve written before, I do not like this.

But, I’ve made an exucutive decision. Since both play on a repeat loop in my head all day anyway perhaps my plan may work as some sort of over-exposure therapy. I intend to play them so much that they lose all and any context because they have so much context that they are not affixed to any one thing or any one event or any one person. Ta-dah! Sheer genius. So I slip in the earbuds. And I write. Like Nico sings so very well, these days,

I've been out walking

I don't do too much talking

These days, these days.

These days I seem to think a lot

About the things that I forgot to do

And all the times I had the chance to.

I’ve held my cool silence for so very long the way a stone would hold it clenched in some darkened, hallowed, holy place. I know the sound of the silent scream, a grey and heavy thud. The inner shreak that tears and shreds the insides: such fisurres. I understand the horror of Edvard Munch’s painting. I understand the tragedy of his painting “Vampire”. Or I think I do – because it’s all subjective. My emotional response is bound to be different from yours. We remain uniquely individual in our experience of art, yet we choose to uphold the illusion that we share a common language. Yes, there are those rare times when we connect and share a true experience, which can best be described as ineffable – for experiencing the exact same thing in the same moment and perceiving the same way with someone who is Other – this is recognition. As I read somewhere in my Qabalah practice, experiencing such a thing with another person, “It is like meeting the self to the nth degree…like meeting the sun behind the sun.”

I keep quiet for the benefit of others in case I should hurt anyone else’s feelings. I keep saying “I am fine” when people ask how I am doing (“You say ‘Hey how are you, good luck…”). I say, “I’m fine.” Don’t worry, “It’s alright ma, I’m only bleeding (ho, ho, ho).” So in this fairest of the seasons, I have questions and decisions, like Nico’s “Fairest of the Seasons”,

I want to know do I stay or do I go

And do I have to do just one

And can I choose again if I should lose the reason ?

Can I choose again? Can I speak now? Van Gogh said that he felt compelled, he wrote in a letter to his brother Theo, “I feel the terrible need of religion…then I am compelled to go out at night and paint the stars.” I feel this “terrible need” for some thing to hold onto – some faith (please). And likewise, I feel compelled to “go out at night’ only I write the stars, I do not paint them. But I have held my silence, my meteors and comets, my shooting stars, my nebulas, so very very long. This is the moment before the Big Boom. Understand please, before I speak, that, like Dylan, “I’m not angry, I’m delightful.” (really).

You’re here. Do you hear?

*

You gotta lotta nerve. You really do. Saying you’re “my friend”? Hell, you were more than that but we never could define it, quite pin the thing down, but who cared. It didn’t matter. We were (are?) kindred. Still can’t define it. Still don’t care to. But we never did believe in definitions. Or I didn’t. You said you did not. But you said a lot of things, and I really don’t know anymore what was real and true and what was not, and that is perhaps one of the worse things of all: which memories, if any, can one hold onto if they had no truth to them?

Now, at least for now (pray it passes, I really do) that our friendship was beyond any other “normal friendship” – that it transcended that somehow, to some almost ineffable level - that’s almost laughable in these torn and desperate days. What’s even more laughable (because let’s face it, this is so fucking tragic that it could almost be comic is that my latest book went live on Barnes and Noble today and it said, “People who bought this book also bought…” and it listed as the top it The Divine Comedy and number two was I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and then The Prophet. No comment on the first two, and as to The Prophet, well call me one because I saw this coming and I so so so very much, dear, hoped that I was wrong. I had faith. But prophecies arose from the smoke – and here we are, in the thick of the prophetic bullshit.

I wish I could say exactly what happened between us (even if only for the sake of a book) but I cannot because I have absolutely no idea. I only know that you turned your back on me – some Judas. That you smiled and stuck to me for all of the wrong reasons. But you’ll never fess up to that. You’re smiling now. That and getting angry. Mostly you’re feeling validated because you found your way into another piece of my writing. Thing is, nobody knows who you are and this isn’t about you.

It’s not funny anyway. But first you’ll spin this into some kind of light-hearted episode before you comfortably segue into some heavy wistful melancholic episode during which you’ll write maudlin poems about simple twists of fate and trains passing by on separate tracks and other crap like that that you swipe from Yeats or Byron or Marvell, except they are better at it.

We both know that there will be no inbetween because you must make some grand sweeping gesture – it’s your nature. You didn’t know it always, but you’ve discovered through this relationship that you are capable of feeling things you never felt before. So you will make some gesture, but only do half-heartedly, but just enough to satisfy and affirm that you are whatever it is you want to be in that moment (because you constantly change your mind about your ethnicity, which is understandable to a point, but you cannot or have not woven the strands and integrated. You’ll do all of this half-hearted bullshit because in your mind it equates with some popular-culture-movie reference of what you think Michael Corleone would do in Godfather II. You tell yourself, “He’s a good guy, forced to do bad things.” Yeah, kinda like you.

Let me clue you in: A. He’s not really a great guy, you know this, right? He kills people and has no feelings. B. There’s a name for that: it’s sociopath. C. I get what you like about the film. I like it for the same reasons, but let’s be honest here: I hung out with real mafia guys when I was in my twenties and saw some serious shit go down, and think I’ve had far more exposure. As far as I know, you’ve had none. Let’s not play this game. It’s stupid. You make everything a competiton. D. Everything I do like about Michael Corleone – his backbone, his odd integrity, his passion for Appolonia (who I do believe he loved, but, who, of course, gets blown up by a rival mob because of something he did (wow, I can relate to that) – you are none of those things (apart from the blowing up the one he supposedly loves bit). I thought you had those qualities, but it seems not. Prove me wrong if I’m wrong. But you won’t. Courage is key. Everyone is afraid. The courageous face up.

Life tipped for me a bit, didn’t it. My personal life went like a pinball machine on “tilt” and nothing could stop the balls from sinking into the hole, no matter how hard I fluttered the levers – the tilt alarm screaming, flashing. Professionally things couldn’t be better, but you know that (what did we say, joking about my epilepsy, it was “tonic-ironic”). I find myself here and there, one side of my face smiling, the other half sobbing jerked tears. Both are real…I suppose (I suppose). Everytime I’ve spoken with you, I realize now, as l look back and as I pay attention, you always bring my work into the equation. It’s always this or that project. You’re always wanting to co-write or have me read your work and help shape it or asking questions to get the inside line on whatever.

I never thought of that time and those conversations – so many- long and interesting, always, - as more anything other than just a natural part of our “unnatural” (so we’re told, but whatever with that, I long ago gave up caring) closeness. It seemed natural to share. Our sharing of everything - and so I always shared. Things you know, nobody knows. Such secrets as these. I wonder, did you share?

But that’s not it. Never was. Are we close? Were we ever? It seems to me, yes, perhaps we really were, but now? Well, I hate this, because as you would spit, “It Hurts Me Too” (not that it would hurt you too, and that’s Dylan’s line, and you’re a thief), but you - “You just want to be on the side that’s winning.” Sure, sure, don’t bother with you’re about to say (“It’s not a competiton, Sadi,” in that oh-so-grown-up voice you put on). It was never a competition to me. I never once thought in those terms until you mentioned the word and I was genuinely shocked. But it always was for you and I can’t believe I didn’t see that before now. It was game on from the get-go.

God, I’m glad I met you. I’m glad I met you because I do love you. I really do. So I know I am capable of loving in this way and I didn’t know that before. So many good things. I’m glad because I do not live a life of regret and I do not repent (I think things through beforehand).

I’m glad I met you because I thought for so long you were the other part of me. I thought you were like my brother, and that’s on me – my own lack of insight, I did not realize that you reminded me of him on some very deep level. My twin, kindred, my cousin. Then one day you arrive, some miracle. You were a match-exact, and perhaps you really are “I still believe she was my twin…” (Simple Twist of Fate). If you learn anything from that song, perhaps it is to not fuck with fate.

Dylan advises us to leave “the past behind it will not follow you.”

I love how these days you ask me how I am doing. The “How are you?" “Good luck,” to quote Dylan, but you say, “Hay,” and then “I’m glad everything’s okay.” My favorite part is when you actually do wish me “good luck” as if you’re referencing Positively 4^th Street, and maybe you are, and if so, that’s funny (not at all). Is this your way practicing being clever? Rehearsing? Or did it really not occur to you. Let’s assume it is intentional. So then maybe we can do that thing, you know, stand in each other’s shoes because I’d like to do this. I want this:

I wish that for just one time

You could stand inside my shoes

And just for that one moment

I could be you.

Yes, I wish that for just one time

You could stand inside my shoes

You'd know what a drag it is

To see you

See, that’s the thing. I, sort of like the way you were physically present but never once heard me when I spoke; likewise, I’ve listened to Positively 4th so many times but I never really heard it until now. I just realized that the real is slipped-in in two simple words, and they are “one moment”. I thought this the other day when I had the song blaring and I was driving down the highway, a red Mini bullet fired from the gun of Jesse James, tires sucking slick grey cement. I heard, “for just that moment I could be you,” I thought “Fuck, I wouldn’t want to be you for more than a moment, but yes, just for a moment. Just to try and understand how you could be so hurtful…” I wanted to know if there was any logic at all.

Sure, you could be me for some time, or “one time” as he says, because I think it would be sort of okay to be me because I don’t think I’m superior to most people but I don’t think I suck as much as you do in this moment, I will say that. You’re lying to someone here, me or yourself. Either way, that makes you suck because you’re hurting me. And that sucks. It is unkind. Argue as you will (and you will) but you’re wrong. I’d rather be me than you. Anyone else would too given a choice. But to be you for just “one moment”? Sure.

 I guess “I used to be among the crowd you’re in with” in some ways. Not for long anyway, and I don’t even know the word “crowd” really. I’ve always been a loner. What did you say, “indie”. And that was right. But the good stuff that’s happening with me – god, I’ve brought you along for part of the ride, or even tried, and you’ve climbed and hung with me to some extent but part of you (just admit it) hates me for it. You even do say “good luck” which is funny. But like Dylan’s “friend,” (she hears Todd Rungren’s “Couldn’t We Still Be Friends?”) you don’t mean it. 

It’s the whole,

“You know as well as me

You'd rather see me paralyzed

Why don't you just come out once

And scream it.”

What was it you said (and said and said)? “I am surrounded by illness. I make everyone around me sick.” It struck me as arrogant, at the time, and I told you as much. There is no just reason for suffering. There is no “reason”, no hidden meaning. There is no divine being that makes children die and people suffer or me or you suffer for some Greater Purpose bullshit. Don’t overestimate your importance. People get sick. People suffer. Looking for meaning in it, well, it won’t get you very far. Amen. I am not epileptic because of you. You are not God. In other words, you’re not even 15.

Those heartbreaks you embrace? Where do I even begin. You tell of me so many, as if you are Jesus himself carrying a great cross. Well, get off: we need the wood, as they say. Well, now you know you’ve got at least one real hearbreak because I’ve more than proven it and now you get to see it in print (that must be especially validating). You love that you caused this pain. Somehow you get off on your own misery. It’s narcisstic really. I’m an afterthought at best. My misery is collateral and by-product. Your misery is the star of the show. Frankly, the whole thing is so sick I can’t even begin to sort it out. I do know that it is not not “misery” the way misery can be intended, but I mean “misery” as in miserable miserable, emotional sticky masturbation crap. Not “Buckets Of Rain”. So of those things you embrace? If I was a master thief? You bet - I’d rob them.

But this? This is life. This is now. You cannot live for some promise of what may or may not be. Or you can, but christ, I do believe in something truly Divine, but I also believe in the tangible here and now and that the Divine, and my sense of the Divine tells me that I am here for a reason and that is to live my life and seek the truth and and to live bravely every single day.

I’ve tried to anyway - to light the way – tikkun blue – through Qabalah, help you find your way home. But then, I can’t say it any better, “You have no faith to lose and you know it.” You never did have faith. If you did, you would have made choices, hard though that is, you would have faced up and made some leaps which are (must I explain this to you?) faith based. As in, there is no logical reason. You believe simply because you believe.

But at this point, “Don’t you understand it’s not my problem.” Nico says in “The Fairest of the Seasons”,

Now that it's time

Now that the hour hand has landed at the end

Now that it's real

Now that the dreams have given all they had to lend

I want to know do I stay or do I go

And maybe try another time

And do I really have a hand in my forgetting ?

This is me, Juliet, Act V, Scene III. I would guess that soon for you I will be no more than a ghostly burnished shimmer like the contrails in the afterward of an Indpendence Day firework falling sparkling and fading like a great, great willow that finally vanishes leaving you with only the burnt after-smell of dynamite.