a little Pablo Neruda for our times

KEEPING QUIET

Now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still. For once on the face of the earth, let's not speak in any language; let's stop for a second, and not move our arms so much. It would be an exotic moment without rush, without engines; we would all be together in a sudden strangeness. Those who prepare green wars, wars with gas, wars with fire, victories with no survivors, would put on clean clothes and walk about with their brothers in the shade, doing nothing. What I want should not be confused with total inactivity. Life is what it is about; I want no truck with death. If we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving, and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death. Perhaps even the earth can teach us, as when everything seems to be dead in winter and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve and you keep quiet and I will go.

-Pablo Neruda

twirling the blue carbon copy sky

sometimes people have a heart-melting way of expressing their intrinsic ability to love. fear forgotten, they suddenly open up and speak out, not attempting to gain anything, just to let me know that they care. and i'm somehow pierced, through and through, by something that sweeps me away from all the shit that just doesn't matter. reminders of goodness, such moments are. someone reminded me again today. something. some things. many things remind me.

but here i hit confusion, because of what i've been thinking about, on 'otherness'.

and another thing keeping me occupied is being human. yesterday, in the bus, i had a conversation with myself on why is it so difficult for me to participate in many of the things that are generally referred to as 'human'. i can and do love the world as it is, but i don't love the way the world is. i can't contribute to something that feels so wrong to me. i feel i'm at the very heart of the world, but at the same time feel so very distant from its surface, where all the politics and conflicts and passions and other common expressions of humanity take place. i find myself dwindling away somehow, becoming less, yet simultaneously expanding... in physical terms, i feel like i was losing skin, losing the very thing that keeps me together. in writing, it sounds frightening. but i don't feel frightened. just sad, sometimes, because sometimes i feel terribly alone in this.

sometimes i wonder if somewhere along the line i took a very wrong turn and am now heading towards some evil end. these are thoughts entertained on lonely nights. people look for companionship in life, but from what i've seen, most of them are worried about not finding anybody that they could love. me, i don't worry about that: i already love. no, when i worry, i worry about there not being anybody who'd love me. often people require the strangest things in partners. i find myself lacking in most things that they want. and i can't force myself to become something that just feels wrong, even if it's generally thought of as 'human'. these 'human' ways of being make no sense to me, i can't force myself to behave in ways that seem absurd and unnecessary, even harmful. yet when i don't, i hear it's 'false' and 'inhuman'.

fuck but it makes me so sad and mad, too. this, this is what it feels like to be distanced from the surface. it's a hollow world. there are so many people on the surface, and so very few moving around in depth. and though my arms are a million miles long, theirs can barely reach to touch the person standing next to them.

jane green wrote this

i remember lucy once saying that the relationships she carried with her, the ones that hadn't seem to die, no matter how far in the past they were, were always the ones that didn't actually have an end. they were the ones that were cut short before their life span was up. the relationship where one person decided they'd had enough - invariably the men - and the other person never had a chance to say their piece, to explain how they felt, to be acknowledged at all."

"she was like the sister i never had, the best friend, mother,father, brother, the everything, and i do not believe that you can simply walk away from friendships like that. you cannot simply drift apart and get on with your lives, never giving one another a second thought."

"i might be remembering someone who doesn't exist anymore, or perhaps in name alone."

"unfinished business"

jane green wrote this

"i remember lucy once saying that the relationships she carried with her, the ones that hadn't seem to die, no matter how far in the past they were, were always the ones that didn't actually have an end. they were the ones that were cut short before their life span was up. the relationship where one person decided they'd had enough - invariably the men - and the other person never had a chance to say their piece, to explain how they felt, to be acknowledged at all."

"she was like the sister i never had, the best friend, mother,father, brother, the everything, and i do not believe that you can simply walk away from friendships like that. you cannot simply drift apart and get on with your lives, never giving one another a second thought."

"i might be remembering someone who doesn't exist anymore, or perhaps in name alone."

"unfinished business"