What an odd evening.

I nearly died again today. The air raid sirens went off; after a couple minutes I called the office to see if it was my imagination. A funnel cloud had been spotted and was headed toward Lincoln Park, a neighborhood a mile from where I was at the time. Great time to be in traffic in my car.

(In the afternoon there'd been some, pretty far north of the city; they get clobbered all the time. I'd been on the roof deck before leaving work; the clouds over downtown were incredible; it had that mixture of light and dark that comes with bad weather, a sort of eerie glow, but none of the weird colors. It was so clear how the wind was moving on the water, from up there. Thought I saw a couple waterspouts trying to form on the lake, figured it was my imagination. Guess not. Camera phone would've been cool.)

Once I was off the phone, I was under a mile from my destination, and it seemed wiser to go for closer shelter than to bail on her and go home. The rain, nonexistent when the sirens sounded, got torrential just before I reached my destination - a concrete building, with parking garage. All safe.

It was surreal to be wandering through a shoe store and wondering if death was on its way. My friend was twenty minutes late coming from downtown, I managed not to worry much. Later in our expedition, I was overtired and hungry, and started feeling depressed and wanting to die. Not because I want to die but I'm not all too attached to life. I commented to her that rest and food would solve the problem, so it was funny that death was on my mind. It's odd to experience such emotions, and also be able to stop, just stop, and know - this - [space]. What a weird dichotomy. I'm dead already.

We went back to my friend's house and made crepes with crushed pecans and chocolate chips inside; it'd been a long week for each of us, and we were both silly. (The best way to make crepes, by the way, is to blend the eggs and dry ingredients, then add the milk and water. Much smoother consistency.) Then her husband joined us and we played a game for awhile before I came back home. I absconded with the loose sweater she'd lent me; the house was cold. It's a cozy sweater.

When I arrived, fire trucks were pulling up to the apartment building a couple of houses down. I'm pretty sure that nothing had happened; they left in about ten minutes.

What an odd evening.

Where does art come from?

I'm taking a new ceramics class; the teacher used to be a Jungian analyst and is now a sculptor. She was saying something utterly marvelous and very Zen, about not doing things that are too forced but keeping it loose, allowing your subconscious to be directing the work more. She was telling a story about one of her own pieces, how she'd undertaken some tedious drawing and it'd become all too contrived, and how it helped so much when the thing collapsed and found its soul.

And now it seems to me that there, with Jung and Freud too I guess, (I can't keep them straight) that there is yet another way of describing this, life, how things work inside us, or how they seem to from what we see... the unconscious is just the Unmanifest, the big Ocean, and all this we see, all waves and ripples and what-have-you. It was really exciting, as she was talking, because she said a fair amount before using the word "unconscious" and so I was completely following without getting hung up on a word.

It's difficult for me to do sculpture in a loose way, because craftsmanship is so important to me. Not to say that it can't be done, but I've got to learn to live with the intermediate messiness. I've practiced and practiced and learned to draw in a loose way, very relaxed, but sculpture is another matter entirely; perhaps I'll learn. Or I'll keep on making tumblers and things and drawing on them. Before the job switch, it was easy to dream onto a cup; now that I'm happier with life, I've little need to wish myself anyplace else, so finding a place for art to come from is more difficult.

Monday I made a little house with "rock star" stamped into it, to commemorate a very good trip downtown, doing permit stuff. Perhaps it'll just be lots of little pieces, comments on whatever's going on in my life at that moment; the real happenings, rather than the imaginary destinations.

I've been writing a lot, lately, about connection, about connecting with other people. Perhaps the details will fade from my mind over time and the poems will be fossils to us all; maybe I'll remember the unrecorded details and leave to everyone else the mystery. Does it matter?

rainy evening drive

the stillness that is me
touches
the stillness that is you.
bottom drops out,
silence explodes.
scarcely breathing, here, to hold it.

Well. That describes it perfectly.

A wonderful! bit of quote from Trev's latest entry:

If you are in the poustinia (internal "desert" or solitude) and God knocks on your door and speaks to you, that doesn't sound mystical to me; it sounds quite normal."

At times it's more like sitting down and drinking tea together. My perception, then, is split between the moment, where there's no question, no thought, only acting, being, and it's all as it should be... and a sort of outside perception, knowing that on some level something incredible is going on. And so these ordinary-extraoridinary moments are recorded, sometimes, so I can look back later, and remember.

It's been on my mind, lately, to try to describe why, of all things, I still practice Catholicism. Yes, I go to Mass, and am even the strong alto in choir. (My family is Catholic, I was raised Catholic. It amuses me that some people take on spiritual names at some point; Catholics choose theirs at confirmation.) But then I say things that are so apparently unorthodox. I feel inconsistent.

There's everything to say, but few words for it. I like singing. A lot. It's good for me. A different sort of breathing exercise, but more than that. I like the ritual. A lot. A different sort of meditation, but beyond that. Mass was once described as a framework in which other things can occur - in the original context, funeral Mass and grieving. I like the sense of being part of something greater, something ancient and enduring and universal. A different sort of depth, a different sort of center. And there's a sort of gritty reality to it all.

Catholicism is kind of the odd duck in Christianity for the Eucharist. Conceptually, I prefer it, but haven't found a need to revisit the question in the last months, much less the divinity of Christ, or the Trinity, or... The truth of it matters deeply and not at all. I feel excluded at times for having grown up with transubstantiation and being rather fond of it, like an eccentric great-aunt, and furthermore, feeling that something is real about it. Which is kind of weird-sounding too.

The insubstantial conclusion is just that I like it. Something connects. It helps.

rainy afternoon intimacy, or, zero 7, distractions, simple things, or, a day at work

a couple hours of wonderfully relaxed music
finished with a song that we both love.
the silence at the end, deafening,
perfect,
peace,
depth,
stillness.

after long minutes,
he picks the next album.
so unexpectedly tender, so gorgeous,
not filling the silence but filled with it,
fitting, perfect,
i find myself nearly in tears.
and when some songs later he starts quietly singing along,
a phrase here and there,
i close my eyes and and breathe deep,
holding back tears, filled with emotion, for an unexpected moment so strangely perfect.

Five years later: V for...

Ceramics class started tonight, and the instructor had an exercise for us. Fifteen minutes. September 11. Make something. Go.

Five years, what's changed? Fifteen minutes isn't long; I ran with my first impulse, and time was up too soon. We took turns discussing what we'd created, what we were thinking about or expressing.

The fragility of life. Memories of a mother wanting to fill up all the cars that day. A sense of removal, sitting in a restaurant in California, eating sushi. Remembering images of people falling, and wishing to give them wings. Watching the collapse, at once with horror and amazement at the beauty of it. Deep sadness at the events, and at the dismissed opportunity to wonder, why did this happen? How even now, all one artist still has are questions, questions.

I talked about Paradise Now and the perspective it gave me; V for Vendetta, wondering if the war's nothing more than repayment, anymore; V for victory, from WWII, at this point, hollow at best; V for versus, us against them, no communication, no understanding, no empathy... this isn't going to change anything. And forgot to mention where it started: V for five.

It's weird to find myself thinking such things, much less speaking them to a group of strangers in class. Even with the best of intentions, any action undertaken without full understanding... without dialog, without the willingness to enter into somebody else's world, somebody else's experience, to consider that there might be another perspective outside our own, and to see from there...

long moments

What with being the rational type and all, I'm not terribly comfortable with posting something I've written from a feeling standpoint - being of the viewpoint that emotions are generally insubstantial and create a lot of trouble; they're nice human things but ultimately... well, anyway, it's more important to be honest to the experience, so here goes. Written early Sunday afternoon.

my heart breaks open, to hold the world.
a cool breeze through the window brushes my face,
(signs of autumn, i love the cool, the barn-ish-ness)
and i feel - and i feel, and i feel, and i feel -
this.

held, caressed, loved,
a sob rising, or something, rising, for sure.
rising, pressing through, pushing thought aside,
demanding to be it, and only it, occupying my attention.
i am happy to oblige, and sit here, with it

and i want to remember this gentle kiss
stay forever where i feel, now
i haven't been far, lately,
but this is closer still, and so i draw,
closer, and closer still.

but held close,
as in that sketch of my longing
to be held,
i am.
even as i draw the world to myself, it holds me.

sitting, perfectly content,
arms round knee, head laid down,
as though held - and truly, held eternally
but i find it now
corners of mouth turn up, though still i want to cry
deep breath brings me nearly to tears
for how sweet this is.