Rain, life, it's actually quite simple.

The rain is falling quite prettily now; the drops are so fine they’re almost mist, but it still soaks you if you stand in it long enough. It’s pretty, but it’s not my favorite kind of rain. I love the raging storms, gales that ravage the landscape, leaving leaves strewn across the sidewalk, hurling sheets of water into your face even under an overhang, deafening you with thunder and blinding streaks of lightning across the face of the sky. I feel so alive, with a storm so fierce in my face that they spawn tornados and hail and think nothing of it. It’s a rush of adrenaline; it’s the marrow of life and the core, and the lifeblood of my soul. Even as a child, I feared thunderstorms but was drawn in by them. Logically, I knew they could kill me, burn down the house, anything. But I loved that feeling. It’s something that hasn’t gone away; if anything, that’s grown stronger as I got older. I seek out that feeling now, the rush of life.

When it’s dark, and cold, and the air is thick with swirling snow, I slip out the back door, and only manage to keep my hood up for a few minutes before I need more. I love the silence, the breeze in the icy air, the snow in my hair, the flurry just visible in the orange light here and there, at just the right angle. On days in early winter, when the sleet comes and the ice pounds my windows, I rush out into the biting evening, and chase the twilight through the sidewalks, quiet but for the crackle of frozen leaves and the ongoing rattle of tiny droplets of ice hurtling onto the ground. There’s ice in my hair, and on my coat, and in my eyelashes, and I’m wind-burned by the time I get home, but it’s a good thing.

Someone wrote the newspaper to complain about those punk kids who lurk around at night, and I smiled, seeing their preemptive anger concerning preemptive vandalism, and register with amusement the annoyance at all those stupid fools who come out of the woodwork on summer nights. Yes, teenagers roam in the summer nights. But you haven’t lived until you’ve wandered the streets in the middle of a raging winter storm; when the summer thunderstorms come, it’s best to lie on the ground, or lean on a fence, and let the rain wash your worries away.

It’s a pretty, quiet rain tonight. That’s probably why I’m sitting here, listening to music and typing up a blog entry, instead of curled up against a rock in the park, watching the drops fall.

Again, on love, and life, and indifference.

indifference, numbness, cold. things i want, desire, need. since the first day desire touched the heart of a man, since the first night a woman suffered dreams, since the first emotion in the first moment of the world, it has been as much a harm as a help, if not moreso. more, actually, definitely. Indifference is a wall, a shield, an insulator that we need so much, that never comes when we need it most; indifference is a thing that changes us, takes our most human parts and cloaks or steals or destroys them. unfair, perhaps, but true, nonetheless.

i do not want to be human, today. i do not want to love, i do not want to hurt.

there are times, when in despair or jest, i tell those i trust of my most beloved, terrifying dream, in sleep or awake. but, despite it all, i am human, whether i will or no.

And I feel, and love, and hurt. And I am powerless to stop that. I am powerless to deny platonic love, the empathetic pain that comes with it; I am powerless to deny romantic love, and all the desire and pain that comes with that; I am powerless to hold back emotion for my family, as much as that hurts me. As many times as friends may hurt me with a careless, or aimed, jest, as many times as I am betrayed, as many disagreements as we may have, I will love them. As many times as I am denied, or lied to, or used, I will fall in love, stupidly, helplessly, repeatedly. As many times as my family hurts me, denies me, turns from me, steals from me, lies to me, I will love them. Each and every one of them. Forever. And my God, it fucking hurts. Because love doesn't always mean turning the other cheek, especially when more than one life is at stake. Love doesn't always mean gentle kindness. So I'm not sorry. I'm sorry for the events that led up to this, and I'm sorry that it had to happen, and I'm sorry for the pain. But, it was not my decision, and, that aside, I would stand by it.

Friends that I grew up with, and friends I made later, might notice with disapproval that Agape I have left out of the above. And Charity. Both of those are as true, and as painful, in a way-- Charity, I have had less reason to fear; I suspect that I'm not doing it right. Agape? Painful. More personal, less for and to other people. Agape is a private thing, I think, especially for one without a church. I love God. It's true. I think, sometimes, that I have been given ample reason not to. But, nevertheless.

Dancing, or something a bit like it.

One of my favorite things about life is the crazily silly dances I manage to get away with most of the time, alone. Anyone who knows me would be able to tell you that I Do Not Dance, mostly because I Cannot Dance. But the crazy bobbing-head and waving-arms gestures that pop up around my keyboard must surely count for something! Every so often I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the screen and have to suppress the embarrassed part of my brain, because a wince would interfere with the beat. And there is a beat, and I do carry it, in my own rather wild way. The other fun thing is the crazy leaping, twisting, capering-and-cavorting sort of dance that I only do when it is a truly joyful song on my mp3 player and I am on the part of the path by the pond that is completely hidden from the rest of the park. Or the crazy dance that came with Pride, by U2, which was performed in a series of leaps and twirls, and presented the major problem with this entire category of behavior.

As with so many of the things I do, there is no good explanation. There is no respectable way to explain a minor injury incurred while dancing wildly away from observers. Fortunately, the worst that ever happened was when I landed partly on a piece of furniture, on my ankle, in the living room in mid-leap and was limping for a day or two. With any luck at all, I’ll never have to explain a sprain in my shoulder or something this way. I might just have to make something up.

I have been wandering

I have been wandering, as is my wont, at night, in the dark streets, under the orange streetlights, under the pale stars, the waning moon, down paths that have been mine for so long. Down into the woods I go, when dusk is beginning to scatter in the face of the darkness of night, and I find a place, and I sit, and think, and look, and wonder. In this place, these woods, this pond, I have found sanctuary, I have found reason, I have found peace. I have seen the great birds and the small birds soar, I have heard the song of the bullfrogs like living violins and teeming bass drums, I have seen beaver, and possum, and hawk, and heron. I have gone and watched the night glitter and shine in the light of thousands of fireflies, wherever you look a sparkling light, orange and yellow and green, a little different in each flash, which becomes apparent when they fly past your face, two inches away. I have been lost in the trails when it began to rain, in the dark—that was years ago, I could not be lost there now if I tried. I have found peace, and hope, and despair, and hurt, and love in that place, I have seen snow-covered trees lit by only the moon’s blue light, I have gone to the path for solace and been confronted by my own shadow and more. I have found myself on my knees in the mud, ice touching the bare skin of my legs as I cried aloud in a voice I did not know I had. I have sung, in the dark night, in the pitch between the trees and the dusk in the sky, I have whistled in the day, I have prayed for a thunderstorm, I have reveled in the mist; I have laid flat on my back, and seen the sky, framed by trees, gilt by the sunset, glorious.

Often, I have been convinced that such a place is all I need in this world. It is a place for peace, one of the few in my life. I am still convinced that I could spend the rest of my life wandering the wilderness, at peace, without seeing another office building ever. I am probably not alone in this view.

I do think that peace and restlessness are not incompatible. I think that true peace needs more than tranquility, I think that a balance is necessary. I remember running out of the house, down the driveway, angry and hurt and barefoot in the full moon, and walking far on sidewalks that seemed better than the alternative. I remember crying aloud, punching telephone poles bare-fisted, full force, in the dark, because I did not know where to turn. I remember standing for long, long moments on the street before a church, watching, wondering, wishing, more alone than anything. I remember nights of shadows, masks in the dark behind me, figures that haunted the corners of my eye, impossible, terrifying.

Restlessness is a part of me. Peace is a part of restlessness, something unattainable, something impossibly beautiful, a moment that surprises by being real, after all. Peace cannot be taken, it cannot be bought, it cannot be sought out. Restlessness is a part of me, and peace is a part of restlessness, and this does not strike me as impossible, because life is made up of paradoxes.

Stories

the thing is, i don't know if i want a normal life. i don't think i even want a normal job. i don't want to get rich selling juice-- or even sharing juice. i don't want an excellent business opportunity, i don't want to have a LIFE, in any sense of the word. i don't. want. anything. at least, not anything like that. and yet, you people continue to tell me that it is Necessary, and that i should Compromise, or at least look beyond whatever stupid world i'm living in in my head (okay, you haven't said it like that, but i think you want to, at least a few of you, a few times), and try to get some kind of stability before i try to be an Artist. here's the thing though.

I don't WANT to be an Artist. Or, really, a Writer. (I want to meet a very specific writer sometimes, but that's different.)

I want to tell stories. That's all, in one way. In another way, I want to LIVE, to feel the salt on my face in every way possible, to climb mountains like a goat like i did when i was young, to see forever the dappled sunlight on the forest floor, to hear forever the brook singing over rocks, to lose myself in the thunderstorms, spontaneous and forever. but mostly, i want to tell stories. I want to take all the characters floating around in my head, and all the landscapes that exist a thousand worlds over, and all the meadows and flowers and faires and sprites and genies and gargoyles and assassins and thieves and shepherds and everything. i want to live, live all of it forever, and then come back and tell people.

and that's often why i don't mingle well, or why i can't be coaxed to dinners and parties and things, and why you meet me in the mist and the dark, with no good reason for being there, and why i might choose a notebook over a car. because mingling, gossip about folks who aren't there, laughter, light, takes me away from the Stories, mine or someone else's, and life as it should be pales in contrast with life i want to live.

there is a part of a book i read that says something like "The thing about stories is, they don't mean a damn if there's nobody listening," which sometimes i kind of agree with. I want to go to the edge of the world, the end of life, and then come back and tell the stories to people who want to hear them. And it seems like that's not an acceptable goal, these days. And that saddens me.

So it turns out Neil Gaiman really is that amazing.

Sometimes, my life feels like something out of a nightmare. I came home from food-not-bombs yesterday to find three lawnmowers at random places in the backyard, the shed door open, and the light inside on. Sighing, I went into the house to find corn kernels drying to the floor and counter in the kitchen, living room, hallway, and bathroom—only, in the bathroom they were accompanied by a fist-sized ball of crushed up hotdog roll in the sink, also slowly drying to the surface. In the kitchen and parts of the living room, they were accompanied by sparse handfuls of cheerios. On the kitchen counter, where there were no dishes, there was a plastic bag of taco shells, a container of cheerios, an open bag of hotdog rolls, a nearly empty jug of iced tea, and other unidentified debris. In an attempt to clean some of this up, I started by taking out the over-full garbage under the sink, rescuing two glass bottles and an empty milk jug in the process, and found that, outside, there was a smashed glass all over the patch of pavement behind the steps. The irony to all this is that, that very morning, my brother, who is one-and-a-half years younger than me, had called telling me that my father had agreed to lend him twenty dollars through me if he mowed the lawn and did the dishes (which entails cleaning the kitchen to some extent). When I had left the house, the only messes were that the lawn was a bit shaggy, and the sink was full of dishes (with some overspill on the counter, I’ll admit).

It is scenes like this which make me chant under my breath, “I hate my life, I hate my life, I hate my life,” as though verbalizing it somehow makes it a little easier to bear. (When my brother came home, at seven-thirty, demanding twenty-five dollars, as he had mowed the lawn, he applied the very excellent method of asking me to babysit two eight-week-old kittens, smaller than my head, as a surprise for his girlfriend, so I really couldn’t say no, because they were SO CUTE.)

Anyway, I soon gave up on the mess, went into my room, and wrote something on my other journal about Neil Gaiman, and his super-inspiring powers which bring me back to the passion of writing that I had so many years ago. And, being a little curious about this amazing writer who pretty much is a huge part of why my life is bearable, I looked him up on TV Tropes, which told me that he is One Of Us, which is pretty obvious, and linked me to an interview with Stephen Colbert (which made me first smile, and then laugh aloud), and also told me that he has remained kind and very nice to his fans, which was… not surprising, but kind of surprising to read. Know what I mean? It wasn’t that he was nice that surprised me, but that he was so nice that it was a mentionable fact. Curious, I checked Wikipedia, and found that he had his own blog, which I immediately headed over to, and started poking through.

About six hours of reading through his blogs (after the first three entries or so, I went back to the start of the archives, where he’d begun it as a project for American Gods, and started reading chronologically, which is a bit of a hassle with the scrolling, but definitely worth it), Neil Gaiman has skyrocketed to the very head of my list of Awesome Dudes, about even with Bono/U2 (they’re awesome, but they’re not geeks; also, they’re awesome, but they’re rock stars. I will never be a rock star, lacking as I do any real skill in that area). Seriously. As though his amazing writing wasn’t enough (and, I’d bet my last dollar and a whole lot more than that), the guy is basically the sweetest, most personable, amazing person imaginable. And he feeds birds. And loves his kids, and his dog. I am now even more determined to go buy a copy of Sandman, or at least Coraline, or one other of his books or WHATEVER. He’s freaking amazing. I am determined to meet him one day, and after I found myself too tired to continue reading, laid in bed and wrote him a fan letter, which I may or may not be too embarrassed to send, written as it was at about three in the morning, and thus lacking any kind of self-censor. (Not in the area of crudeness, but… squeeing and generally rambling. And stuff.)

So yeah. Neil Gaiman? Awesome Dude.

Choices, Scenery, Guilt

The window is open, before me. Outside, the rain is falling steadily down, and straight down, which is good, because otherwise I’d have to shut the glass, and I like the breeze. I’m just about eye-level with the bottom of the screen if I sit up, but from my slouched position, I can’t see the top of the shed—just that maple, I think it’s a sugar maple, and behind its fairly skimpy branches, a shorter, but thicker, red maple. There’s a tree larger than both of them, with four main trunks, to the left, and to the right, I can just see the tops of the trees on the other side of the block. There are maple keys sticking to the screen, wet and limp. They’ll probably be stuck there all summer, or until it rains again, possibly tomorrow. On the white part below the sill, there’s a picture of my sister with some girl I don’t know, and another shot of the park in Hartford, the ink washed strangely by rains long past. My desk is littered with objects: a red pen, a purple pen that writes black, two empty plastic bottles, a paycheck, a watch, several coins, broken headphones, a bead, half-filled coffee mugs from a week ago or so, a sketchpad… On an index card stuck to the wall, it says “And if you’re looking for the answer, and if you’re looking for the Light that leads the Way, take my hand and I will lead you where the torture and the pain will drift away.” At the end it gets all small and scrunched up, because I have problems with margining. There’s a vaguely demonic-looking picture on the jelly-cabinet-turned-bookcase, to my left, and above that, a sketch of a broken chain with six links. Actually, ‘sketch’ is being generous. My cat is sleeping underneath it, on a nest of plastic bags that I don’t have the heart to throw away. My sneakers are wet, as are the cuffs of my jeans; my t-shirt is dry, because I wore a sweatshirt when I went out to get some cash from the convenience store ATM at the bottom of the street. I remarked, amusedly, when I left, that I was turning into a human, doing crazy things like wearing layers in the rain. On the wall to my right, just before the corner, there’s an oil painting that my mother did: a red-haired woman walks a grey pony which pulls two warmly dressed children (this is unrealistic; I usually ran out into the snow in a T-shirt or somesuch; also we definitely never had a pony, and there were five of us) on a sled, through the snow. In the background is a hedge of holly bushes that turns into a stone wall and cuts away, back towards the right. There is a swing, hanging from one of the trees in the background. The snow is very realistic. In blue, it says smudgedly “Lo…” in the bottom right hand corner, where it would say “Love Mommy,” but the paint smudged in the rain when she gave it to me. Under that, on my dresser, is a plastic black hat which has a bunch of pennies in it.

The house is quiet. Everyone’s off, to one place or another. I don’t really mind, not today, and I’m getting used to it. I need to be here because I have to work tomorrow, and I suspect rather strongly that I won’t be on time if I go with my family, Friday nights.

I’m lonely, and angry, and I wanted to write a story about two crows who were given the choice of safety or freedom, and they made two different choices. And then I decided “Fuck the metaphor, why don’t I just write what I feel?” But I don’t know if I can. Besides, this is not a choice I made. All the important choices in my life have been made for me. Oh God, I’m sorry.