proteanme

RU indulged me tonight in some musical reminiscing. We listened to a handful of random FIP songs, a couple old and unfinished solo tracks, and the two most recent songs I’ve recorded. It made me really wish that Matt and I had recorded the second record because we hit this good streak on song writing and six years later it still sounds good to me. Ah well.

I was trying to explain to someone the other day, maybe it was PM, that lately when I reflect on my life, I feel like I’m looking at terrain from the 30,000 feet. I couldn’t really make out the patterns and shapes while I was so in the midst of them. I needed some distance that I suppose age has given me. Or maybe it’s age and grief. I dunno, but now I see things more clearly, like how I move from place to place. In fact, bet I’ve lived in at least 20 different apartments, houses, etc. in the last 30 years, but I’ve only had three real jobs since I was 22.  Work has been my stability, which is not to0 different from my dad, something I didn’t realize until tonight, when it occured to me my dad only had two real jobs. Worked for Kenny Meiring and then worked for Joe Breach. Of course it’s not unusual for anyone from his generation to have had lifetime jobs. So I don’t want to draw too much from the similarity.

Mostly, what’s interesting is the idea of terrain — that at some point you can see the shape of your life.

I saw a line across the sky tonight. This thin and elongated break in the clouds that was so beautiful. I tried to take a picture, but it was more like a painting. Its poignancy could not be captured in the LCD. It’s gone now. It seems like it only lasted for a few minutes but it’s quite possible it was there long before I looked up and noticed.

Riding home today, I was thinking today about how our economy doesn’t exist outside of our culture, and considering expansion, acquisition and achievement are pillars of the American way of life, I’m not surprised that things are collapsing the way they are. Because one can’t expand and acquire forever, which made me think of this Wendell Berry essay I read this past summer.

I keep thinking of all the talk about the great American values of freedom and justice, equality and democracy, especially in light this past historic presidential election, but it seems that since the 70’s we’ve been living on greed and consumption and entitlement. Unchecked. Unrestrained.

What if room for growth is not about spreading out and getting more, what if it’s about growing closer and getting the most out of what we already have.

What to say when mostly what I want to say is “fuck it”. The thing is I’m not getting done the things I’d wanted to get done, like writing or playing music or working out or updating my resume. In part, it’s because my sleep is not so great and my energy level has taken a hit. But I think the larger part is that right now I can’t stand to open myself  up to heartbreak or hope or longing or disappointment. I don’t want to deal with wanting something.

So I’m doing what I can to get by. Going to work. Cooking food. Doing my dishes. Riding me bike. Paying my bills. Reading the New Yorker in bits.  Watching TV here and there. Eating donuts.  I love donuts.

Grief is not a reasonable companion.

I go to work and try and sell lighting and hardware online; my work is weighed against our sales. I’m as good as my next idea. I pay my rent every month but when my hot water goes out and the land lord won’t fix it on a Saturday, I’m reminded that I’m just a check.

Reasonable expectations, work and rent. Except it’s an unreasonable time.

Lately, I’ve had good luck with a run of recipes that feature some kind of ground meat. The overhead is low but the taste is high. So run don’t walk to your kitchen and try one of these: Curried pork noodles, Thai Basil chicken, and Green chili with pork.

With the economy so uncertain and having endured a round of layoffs, I updated my freelance site. Next up my resume.

At the end of 2008, I recorded a couple songs. These are scratch tracks and  here’s one of them Just Now (at 3am).

I’m more sad than I thought I would be. I was going to write more fucked up, but really I think it’s just more sad.  A lot of it is about my dad dying and facing all that means, including the current state of affairs with my family, which is on the brutal side. But there are other things too: the girl I like in western Mass is sicker than she’s ever been, the job situation is starting to feel pretty unstable and the layoffs were a big hit, and it’s not just me, RU got laid off, and then there’s this growing feeling that Portland isn’t the right fit. All of it scares the shit out of me, and at the same time it all touches on a big bunch of sadness. I’m often tempted to spin out on future tripping, but then I work at reminding myself it’s not real. The future is in my head. And I can move torward it, trying to shape my life in a way that I think will have more meaning to me, including and maybe most important the movement itself. I’ve lived so much of my life in response to external events. I swear I’ve hunkered down for years at a time, as though I was waiting for something bad to happen. And the few times I’ve made a choice and committed to it – quitting the Youth Shelter, going back to school – I was so scared, but I also felt so alive.

I am much more tired than I’d anticipated. I can’t express how tired I am. So I’ve sleeping extra. At the same time, in my gut I feel it’s important to keep working at things – go through the stuff I brought back from Indiana, make calls about sorting through my dad’s estate, talk candidly about my family and the experience of growing up with them. The secrets, the privacy, the disassociation has not served me. Not sure it served anyone, really. My dad had a second family after he divorced and he was in fact a pretty good step dad. I want to get that in the mix of how I understand my dad. There are other things too, but things best left off the blog. The point is . . . well what is my point . . . hm . . . it’s a mess, but it’s my mess and one I’d like to figure out how to negotiate with.