featured – Oceans of Mine

Listen, if you will.

These words are the result of Nothing.

I’ve been quiet for a very long time; most recently, for the bulk of four months.

That’s not to say that I’ve been silent or that I don’t speak my mind to people, nor that I’ve been completely isolated of people. I’m not repressed in my thoughts or feelings (though I do sometimes withhold or choose to express only certain thoughts and feelings).

But, by the nature of the way I am, and by circumstance of where I live, I am silent, alone with myself and my thoughts, my memories, my perceptions, the tides of my feelings for nearly nineteen out of twenty-four hours on weekdays, maybe twelve hours on weekends. I bask in the dreams my mind concocts at night, consider which of the dreams I concoct during the day that I want to follow; I watch, with peaceful habit when I’ve thought too much, the tall trees brushed by invisible gusts and breezes; I listen, my mind aching and yearning for adventure, to planes from near or far flying over this quiet tract of land, to the repetitive birdsong of my contented woodland neighbors who put my mind at ease.

Of course, in this well-connected and media-driven world, there are always ways to reach out, across the Atlantic and back to my home to communicate with my parents, my friends. There are always ways to distract my mind when it becomes too full of worry, of dismay at the stillness I now live after so many years of trial and turmoil — never mind that stillness is what I sought, never mind that a deep peace was what I need. When the ghosts in my mind start screaming that I’m not doing enough, that I need to meet people, that I need to have some kind of adventure; when I can’t convince my body-and-soul to listen anymore to the quiet in the woods that I nevertheless always love; when writing and coloring and doodling is too frustratingly unsatisfying, I watch for hours and days some soul-wrenching series on a widescreen TV, a luxury I’ve not taken for much of my life.

It’s the stories that keep me, the well-written screenplays exploring gangsters’ lives in the 1930s, creative genii inventing worlds and monsters in believable and unbelievable ways to pull viewers in and make us look over our shoulders in fear at night.

I watch them with a passion, with a thirst for adventure that doesn’t exist in this phase of my life, with gratitude that, when my mind is filled with too much danger or fantasy or incredulity, I have complete control to turn it off with the press of a button and set the stories aside to embrace, again, the cool breezes playing with palm fronds and shimmering leaves or the languid, grey days.

This is the therapy I give myself daily, for months, as I ease myself into the truly-peaceful life I feel is mine.

Finally, it is hot in a way that is familiar to my Southern-born skin. My mind pulls out long-ago-formed dreams of lazy walks on remote beaches under tall palm trees, of owning and creating a retreat so thoroughly, intoxicatingly relaxing that those who visit are changed while there, are converted to peace and beauty even after they leave, become so completely the antithesis of stress and commonplace angst that they change the world in the wake of their everyday lives.

I know this has been the dream of people, in various forms, through many ages; that even the hippies in my parents’ day were ultimately after this goal: to spread peace and love. It is the goal of many, even today, through so many venues of spiritualism and activism….

When I was a child, I watched and loved Fantasy Island. It was, to me, the most beautiful dream of a place where people went to live out their fantasies, where real magic happened and people left utterly changed for the better. My mind always wandered into reality and wished, hoped for, wondered where this place was in the world… wondered how one would create such a fantastical place.

I still don’t know how to create the place of my dreams such that others can enjoy it, can walk away changed from being in it… but I am certain that is what I am working on, more than any single piece of writing, more than visiting any single land, more than meeting any single culture of people, more than any single love affair.

I didn’t leave “to travel,” and I always knew it, even before I left Atlanta five months ago. I didn’t go to “see the sights,” to visit museums, to wander through cities — even if I love doing so. I came to Europe to find peace, to find myself again, to get lost wherever I was in ways I’ve not been lost before – since that is the best way I have found to face the demons I’ve carried with me, and to make peace with them again.

I came here to be terrified of being alone, and, through that terror, to remember that I’m most well when I’m alone.

I came here to feel morbidly unloved, and, through that desolation, to love myself and let myself be loved.

I came here to be bereft of everything, to have utterly nothing but the clothes in my bags, to find that nearly everything I owned was of no use to me – even most of my clothing, my computer, my iPhone and all of my apps, my pencils and pens and coloring books, my notebooks and fountain pens and the gifts others gave me… none of it satisfied me; none of it fit. I came here to discover that I am more well in myself, whatever size or weight I am, whatever little I was creating, whatever temperament I was in, however many days I thought I was wasting, however few people I had close to me…

I came here to learn what I always knew and forget, sometimes.

I came here to fall in love with myself again.

You know those people who you see and just fall in love with them, instantly? That boy or girl who is just so fantastically beautiful, who moves in ways that mesmerize, whose smile is so charmingly profound that seeing it sends you into fantasies – whether the smile is directed at you or elsewhere? You know those people whose faces you can see in your mind, whether your eyes are open or closed, to whom you feel connected even if you’ve only spoken a few times?

You know those people you fantasize about, who are larger-than-life… or sometimes just small enough that you want to put them in your pocket and carry them with you everywhere, like a totem that you can pull out whenever you’re unsure or alone or sad or frightened that will instantly make you smarter, brighter, happier, braver, more alive?

Everyone has them, I think. And it hardly matters if they are as wonderful as we see them, as we imagine; it hardly matters if they love us or don’t know we exist. They’re like angels, like fairies, like imaginary friends, and they make everything, everything better.

Well…

Imagine…

If that person…

Was you.

I don’t mean: Imagine you were that person for someone else. No doubt you are, for someone. Knowing you are might even make life harder for you, for you undoubtedly feel you are not worthy of such adoration, and you might feel you now have to work harder to be the person you’re expected to be… and those expectations are sometimes unreasonable. Unbearable.

I mean:

Imagine if you felt, knew, believed in and saw yourself as that fantastically-inspirational love.

This is not a pep-talk. Such pep-talks rarely work, I have found.

What it is, is a suggestion.

Because, what I have found through loving many, many people in such bright-and-beautiful ways, in holding them as the ultimate prize, in adoring them with fantastical ecstasy, in giving them the position of muse and profound inspiration…

And finding that they yet hold themselves accountable for countless things, despite their successes or failings…

What I have found in being rejected countless times, in having my gushing adoration refused and ignored and placated and even sometimes accepted for a time…

Is this:

No matter how many people I love.

No matter how many people I adore.

No matter to how many people I give myself and all of my talents and passions and skills and knowledge.

No matter what I do.

Every single person I love is a reflection, in the most profoundly simple way, of me…

of what I love…

of what I do and can do…

of what I enjoy and can enjoy…

of the way I am with others and how I’m seen with others…

exactly as beautiful and quirky and broken and together…

as old and young, as spirited and complacent…

as kind and as cruel.

I am drawn, over and over and over again, exactly to me.

So, you know that person who you hold so magically beautiful that you cry when you can’t have them, when you sob because you’ve been rejected, when you ache to have them near?

That person

YOU.

And that’s the trick to never being alone, to doing nothing at all or all kinds of things. That’s the trick to everything.

We’re just looking in a mirror, talking to ourselves, seeing and sharing the beauty in everything.

That is me.

The Rights of a Conscious, Constitutional Citizen

There are times when I tell myself in frustration, when I ask myself gravely if I no longer want to be an American.

There are times throughout my life when I have so questioned the dissimilarity from many of my countrymen of my political, economic and intellectual understanding regarding the basis of my native country, having studied deeply and rationally for years its political and philosophical history, having learned the fundaments of economics, having lived in other countries and having learned at least a basic appreciation for their democratically-elected political structures; when I feel myself so distant and removed from others of similarly rational passion and disposition that I have wondered if I might be better off abandoning my country to live a solitary life somewhere… much as an unwanted wife might leave an unhappy marriage in which promises were broken and core responsibilities neglected, ignored and dismissed as her misunderstanding of the relationship, in which injustices have mounted and continue to mount without apology or defense of her agreed-upon rights, in which the abandonment of a beloved home seems the only, if regrettable, resolution and possibility for an independent life – hard as it may be – and the unrestrained pursuit of happiness.

These questions assail me when I am faced with the current political spectrum in America; when I am faced with the current Presidential would-be’s; and when I am faced with the multitudinously reflex-like, ignorant, uneducated and misguided responses by my countrymen to such events as Great Britain’s vote to exit the European Union in an act of re-establishing their independence as the wealthiest nation in Europe from an unelected organization of bureaucrats and regulators who have, for the entirety of the existence of the EU, dictated to the citizens of every participating nation how they must run their businesses, engage in trade and immigration, and more.

I cannot stand to see such flagrant dismissal by my fellow Americans of the value of independence, whether in our country or in another. Still, the connection seems too clear; the reason comes to light as I observe from afar my country’s constant response to the limited “choice” of those presently vying for leadership of our country: people whom we constantly cry out that we do not trust, do not want, in whom we do not believe… and yet, amongst whom the bulk of the United States and the world is accepting will determine the next leader of the United States!

I cannot stand by and remain silent any longer.

I cannot bear to watch the so-called ‘Presidential Debates,’ in which the media and whatever powers have sway over the topics discussed divert attention from the true responsibilities of P.O.T.U.S.:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

I wonder, as the debates rage on, as each candidate makes raging promises to the populous for all sorts of changes, by what right they feel they have to make such changes, whether elected or not — particularly when so very many of their proposals and promises break so many tenants of the Constitution.

Have we Americans forgotten that this little, old document is the basis for our life and livelihoods? Have we forgotten that it has been repeatedly ignored, trampled upon, undermined, bit-by-bit and then more and more flagrantly by the leaders of our nation — whom we elect?

I cannot help but wonder: How many of our elected officials have read the Constitution end-to-end? How many comprehend the meaning of the language therein?

And: How many of those conducting debates of political candidates have read and understood the Constitution; and why, if they understand it and the gravity of responsibility any elected politician might hold, would they direct discussion away from projected upholding of the key job descriptions of any Federal politician, when they have those job descriptions laid out in black-and-white, as agreed upon, and as yet unaltered except by ratified Amendments, two-hundred-and-twenty-eight years ago?

I wonder: How many American citizens have read and comprehend the archaic-yet-articulate legalese of our Constitution?

That there will be debates over the meanings of our core political document is without question; there were debates even when the document was written, over clauses included and excluded, over wording and placement of wording; and there have been debates ever since. But, why not voice those debates that may exist now — if any such do — unless we no longer respect, love, cherish and uphold the Constitution? And, if we do not… should we not be open, as citizens of the United States, to expressing, as potential political leader or as ordinary citizens, if we find the document dismissible, no longer valid; and then allow for discussion of what comes next, instead of maintaining the farce of our current political sphere, instead of avoiding the discussion altogether by forcing sub-intelligent banter between power-hungry individuals to take the fore of our consciousness; as if such chatter had some validity; as if we were without other subjects to fill our mind and attention, without other persons to protect and uphold our fundamental values; as if we must accept this half-witted conversation as the only one to be had?

I, for one, have had enough; and I want my questions answered.

I, as a citizen of the United States, get to choose what person, amongst all people who are legitimate options – as outlined by the Constitution – I believe will perform the duties of the President of the United States of America in the upcoming election. It is a hefty job to uphold a Constitution that I cherish dearly, and I would like to know in detail what each and every one of the wishful leaders thinks about every sentence, clause and paragraph of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and how he or she plans to fulfill the responsibilities of preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States.

As citizens of most countries, unless we are being mistreated, we take for granted our citizenship; we take for granted that our countrymen – including and particularly our country’s political leaders – will protect and care for us in whatever ways the nation’s fundamental principles outline. Some countries may not have a written document stating how citizens are to be protected and what rights they have, and what rights and ways the leaders may and may not take in their duties as protectors.

We, in America, have such a document. It is called The Constitution of The United States of America, and it was first ratified on June 21, 1788; and has been amended, in small fragments and with extreme occasion, in the years since – as was provided for within the original Constitution, itself.

This Constitution, by way of ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, is the only reason why I am, by law, bound to the land that is considered “The United States of America” — yet, if the entirety of that Constitution is not preserved, if it is not protected, if it is not defended in the true spirit in which it was written, then I am no longer an American, because that document is no longer valid, because America’s founding laws no longer hold weight, and because America, as it was created, no longer exists.

I may be a citizen of the country of my birth or of no country whatsoever, as circumstances and truth may have it; but I am not and will never be a slave to a brand.

~ Libertas

Wonderland Has Come

He doesn’t know -
And neither do I -
How much time passed in the netherverse of love
How much power heartbeats have in times of need.

Years passed by without him near,
And mere moments since I have returned,
Thick with love and sweetness;
And we’re drunk on each other, again.

With every breath, I inhale a world that was mine.
With every glance, he takes me in.
This is not the love, the passion of children,
Of hurt adults fumbling towards ecstasy;

This is the love between worlds,
Between the seconds of real time;
This is violet love, of the kind Tesla knew…
This is fantasy-come-true.

Don’t talk to me of what might have been.
Don’t utter words of dissent, of discontent.
These are the times worth saving,
Moments worth living…

These are the worlds unseen and yet alive;
So:
Live
And love

Endlessly.

The Gods’ Portion

I actually found myself depressed as 5pm rolled around and the number of people at the cafe thinned out. The guys next to me moved to another empty table where they’d have more room to spread out and discuss whatever Internet venture they were concocting, one guy a very obviously-artsy type and the other, with his laptop, moved and dressed like a prototypical modern nerd: khakis and a colored button-down with comfortable shoes, and practical, monotone-rimmed glasses, all covering his smooth, mocha skin and slight frame.

I gathered my things as the guys were readying themselves to move, feeling a dank heaviness in my stomach and a thickness building in my head. I didn’t want to leave, but what was I going to do? Move in here? I’d been at the cafe all afternoon, reading and highlighting my journals in a long-overdue task from The Artist’s Way, feeding off the ambiance of this corner of the reclaimed warehouse that is The Jane, sipping really good pour-over coffee and a mediocre Americano and a plastic restaurant-style juice-cup of water, nibbling extraordinary French butter cookies called sablés. And trying to write while watching people come and go.

I’m not really a people-watching kind of person, in that I don’t deliberately go out to watch people. I’d rather be more active in just about any circumstance, and this case was no different: I listened to conversations between business people, between a father and his two young children, between the baristas and bakers, and I wished I had some reason to be involved. I’d rather be conversing with any of them on just about any level instead of sitting alone in this incredibly-cool coffeehouse, rather than watching slightly-enviously the stylish girl at the table next to me as she typed away on her Macbook, somewhat snobbishly-resistant to the rest of the world and projecting enough of a sense that she didn’t really care what anyone else was doing.

I, on the other hand, was far too aware of the entire scene. The buttery pastries being rolled and cut on the corner-counter by two cute college-aged girls lured me, as I know enough about baking to love the task of it, to hunger as I watched for more knowledge about baking such fine pastries as these. The melded scents of toasted flour, caramelized sugar and melted butter wafted from the kitchen and through the room in a constant, unmistakable fragrance, tickling familiar memories of joy. I sipped my pour-over and watched the baristas playfully drizzling hot streams of water over filters full of ground coffee beans, two boys and their fun, transforming mud-colored grounds into addictively-acidic, bittersweet cups of black coffee.

My eyes found fascination drinking in every aspect of this cafe, wherever I gazed: at long, manila-colored wooden counters; at the age-pocked concrete floor that groped persistently its antique green paint; at huge, antique-framed mirrors hanging in portrait behind the pastry counter and tilted in landscape above the registers. Cute souvenirs are arranged attractively near the pastry counter: bags and coffee cups and more; and, under the registers one can find pour-over kettles and stands identical to the ones used by Octane’s baristas, and fanned-out copies of my favorite local foodie journal, Brother.

The thought gripped me as surprisingly as it did strongly: I wanted to work here; the feeling followed firmly that I would not. This was a place for me to enjoy; but with every moment of enjoyment, I craved that the moment would continue longer than it would. Everyone enjoying his or her coffee here was a part of this place, a part of this community, and I was not. I was a stranger, a visitor, even if the baristas and bakers were kind to me: I lived in the ‘burbs, an hour away, and everyone here was within walking distance, within biking distance, within short driving distance. They belonged.

I realized, later, how much it reminded me of the coffeehouses in my former home of Hamilton, Ontario: artsy, hip places with such a fun vibe and shabby-chic decor; only this was more friendly, more open, with much better quality goods. It was all I ever wanted in a coffeehouse and more, and so inaccessible to me in the ways I most wanted.

I finished my Americano and my cup of water, savored several bites of a lavender-lemon sablé as the unusual floral scent filled my palate unexpectedly every time, and left half of the delicious cookie in the 9” metal cake pan acting as a plate, wondering why I would do such a thing.

But I gathered my bag and slipped out from behind the table along the giant roll-up door with large windowpanes, savoring for the last time that day the wrap-around bar and tall case full of liquors that I noticed only halfway through my stay, admiring the remarkable transformation passion can achieve, especially in a corner of Atlanta once dangerous enough that none of these people would spend hours, as they did regularly, in this corner of this warehouse.

As I stepped from the glass-framed entranceway and into the light of an overcast sky, I knew why I’d left that half of the most exquisitely unique cookie I’d ever tasted:

I was leaving a piece for the gods to savor, as I recall some culture was said to leave the last sip in their glass.

And, since I am the only god I believe in, I knew I’d be back, to have another one.

*Edited 4/10/2014: Thanks to The Little Tart’s General Manager, Sarah, who corrected me. The name of the exquisite cookies I enjoyed are “sablés”, not “santés”.

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These words are the result of Nothing.

Imagine…

If that person…

Was you.

Every single person I love is a reflection, in the most profoundly simple way, of me…

I am drawn, over and over and over again, exactly to me.

That is me.

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