2004-10-03
Never The Same Thing Twice
hearing: Aqua Vera - The Soundtrack of Our Lives
reading: for now, we'll say that I'm not reading anything at all
feeling: a good, healthy, living tired
I feel like everything I've said lately has missed the mark of what I mean and feel lately altogether. It's utterly frustrating. Most of the time, my diary is a close connection between my emotional, thought, and physical life; recently though, I've felt a million miles away. I'm in one place, feeling one way, doing one set of things, and in my diary, something so much less and something so cheap and jaded is going on. If this doesn't improve soon, my updating might get pretty sparse.
The increasing pressures of the vanity and uselessness of my life drive me to do as much as I can so that I cannot feel them.
For yesterday's endeavor, I watched movies with my sister. Annie and... I don't remember what else now. I meant to watch Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, when I finally remembered why I don't like it. I gave up that idea, but spending the time with my sister was fun. I prefer playing music for her though. Bobbing our heads together to my favorite tunes is a lot more personal than most things we do. I make her pay attention to the lyrics and tell me how she likes them. I can probe how she responds and get just a tiny bit of insight into her head. She's liked almost everything I've played for her thus far. She particularly enjoyed the new single from U2, Vertigo. It was way cool to have her enjoy it so much and gush like she did. She adored the lyrics on the mewithoutYou songs, and the screamy quality of the vocals didn't even overwhelm her. I intend to play more for her when we have the chance. I love manipulating her music taste... Haha.
Today, my adventure was centered in the fresh air. Outside. I longed to explore. I wanted to snake through my neighborhood and go down as many streets as I could. I was expecting a grand sort of adventure.
I saddled a hand me down bike from my younger cousin, my sister saddled my old bike, and my brother hopped on his way awesome motor scooter. I slung a messenger bag with a thermos of ice water (the only portable drink carrying device in our house) about my brother's shoulders, stuck my cell phone in my pocket, and we set off.
I led, because I was the only one who seemed to want to pay attention to the streets and the directions we were going, and the directions we could follow. Huffing and puffing up hills, gliding down slopes, we traversed every street which led anywhere in our entire neighborhood. We even scoured down a few courts. The blue sky beamed above us, and the slightly chill air kept us comfortable throughout our strenuous activities.
Our neighborhood is quiet and quaint. Few people were outside. We passed men outside doing housework here and there. We passed a group of silly boys a little older than my brother. A child playing in their front yard here and there. Plenty of open garage doors. And a dog or two to bark at us. There was one street where the houses were older and smaller and the trees were bigger and older. The leaf colors had all changed, the shade was abundant, and the smells were delicious. There were some kind of pine trees growing in someone's yard on that street. There must have been. The smell was so poignant and delightful. I'd like to take a slow walk down that street. The weather is perfect. It would be heavenly.
But slowly, after two rounds of checking down streets, I sunk into an oppressive despair. I realized how very small and enclosed our neighborhood was. There was so little to explore. There were so few main streets to ride. In such a short time, we were able to scour the entirity of the neighborhood.
I sit here in my room feeling drained and incarcerated. I have seen everything there is to see in my neighborhood in the entirity of an afternoon. I should have guessed we were that small. I should have known from the emptinees which stretches on three sides of us.
But the fourth, across the main road, is another neighborhood. I am afraid that it is not much bigger than our own though. My siblings and I would go journeying in it, only to find that once an afternoon was gone, we had seen everything there was to see again.
And then what? How much is there to explore in my corner of suburbia? How little there is to see... How small my cage is. In a short matter of weeks, I could have the entire neighborhood, possibly on both sides of the street, memorized. And then to go further? I couldn't, and even if I could, it would only be more small networks of houses like my own. Little variation. Little change.
But I want to flex further...I want to go farther... I want so much more... I want constant change. I want constant refreshment of surroundings to explore. I bore too easily, I must always have something new to see and do.
Can't we tell by how often I change the layout of my diary? How often I will change my msn nick? My display pic? How often I must have new music and new books? How often I need to change pace with my wardrobe? Constant upheaval. Everything must be fresh and new. Intriguing. Sometimes even mysterious.
I always thought I was a person of routine. But I've come to realize that routine is my antithesis. As neat and orderly as I am, I thrive under constant change. I thrive in upheaval and chaos. I am neat and orderly, but I need everything else to change constantly. I need everything else to be a mess for me to solve and straighten out. And then, once the chaos is brought to order, I need a new set of chaos to disrupt.
Change and revolve...never the same thing twice. Never the same place twice... New colours and flavours, new topics and philosophies to explore every day. Routine is unbearable and stifling.
My world is too small to hold and contain me...
before & & after
2004-10-03
She Was Turned Out Of Heaven When She Knocked To Come In
hearing: Bands With Managers - Pedro The Lion
reading: for now, we'll say that I'm not reading anything at all
feeling: pensive
Two nights in a row, I have dreamt of my deceased grandmother. She has not been on my mind, and she has not been spoken of recently. So why she is on my subconcious is beyond me.
This wouldn't be so bad if the dreams were normal, but when involving her, my dreams are dark, strange, vivid, scary, and ominuous.
She was in my bedroom. I was curled around the corner behind our couch. The detail was perfect. The couch was tilted at just the right angle. The pillows were all in the right place. Even the carpet fibers scattered around the cats' scratching post were in place. The lighting was even right.
I was eavesdropping on a conversation my grandmother and grandfather were having with a pastor. I could see none of them from my vantage point, but I could hear them very clearly.
The pastor was telling my grandmother that she was not saved, that her salvation had never been real, and that now, it was too late for her to be saved. The pastor was kindly but sadly telling her of the falseness of her imagined relationship with Christ. He was sad. He did not rejoice in telling her these things. But he had to. And she was selfishly angry. She was not repentant. She was angry with him for telling her these things. She was angry at being told she was wrong. They argued particularly about her only natural son. She wanted him to go with her. She was trying to bargain to keep him with her forever whichever way they both went, and the pastor was telling her that this was impossible and ridiculous.
It reminded me of the mother in The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis who thought she loved her son so fiercely and selflessly, when she was damagingly possessive and selfish.
In the end, she gave up. The conversation didn't last long, and my grandfather never said a word. She was utterly terrified now of her fate. She lapsed into a dreadful, terrified, drunken insanity.
She wailed, she cried, she lamented. Hardly in repentence.
Then the pastor rounded the corner and went up the stairs. He was a tall, plain man aged fifty to sixty years. He had wavy, gray hair and he was wearing a long black robe with a spot of white at the throat. Now that I think of it, he vaguely reminded me of my paternal grandfather before Lou Gehrig's disease debilitated and eventually stole him.
My maternal grandfather left his crazed wife after fruitless attempts at consoling her, and he followed the pastor up the stairs. He was extremely grieved by what had just happened. I could see the sorrow etched on his face, but there was nothing he could do.
And then my grandmother came. Her eyes wild. And she came after us. Staggering drunkenly. Banging into walls. Making a horrible racket. She glared with fire in her eyes. But she put on an aura of calmness. A front of calmness to hide her rage. To hide her evil schemes.
I went to hide behind my bed from her. And here was the only difference. My bed was nigh where my desk is in reality, directly in front of my mirror and slightly at an angle. I darted behind the bed, but she saw me. She followed me. She came over to the bed. I was trying not to cry. I was terrified. I wanted to call out and scream in terror against her, but I did not dare make a noise. I wanted to see what she would do.
She sat on the bed, and fixed her eyes on me with a restrained vengence. She read me a story book. Something about flowers. And then she babbled wildly to me. She would haunt me. She would haunt me like a ghost. She would do something to me.
But somehow, I escaped. I escaped from her with that behavior, and the look in her eyes imprinted clearly on my memory.
From there, the dream is vague. There were a lot of people. There was a theme park. There were clouds threatening rain. We were fleeing, I was pushing everyone to flee, but I did not say why. My mother was in the group, and I wondered how to tell her what her mother had become. I was afraid to tell my mother. It might crush her.
From here, my memory fades completely. The dream went on. The fear of my grandmother pressing on my mind the whole time. Eventually I awoke.
I stared at my clock a long time as I blinked myself slowly awake. Turning over this extremely bizarre dream and the reappearance of my deceased grandmother.
Is there anything to it? Is there anything for me to learn from it?
Probably not...I just take my dreams too seriously sometimes.
I think this song from Pedro the Lion was my grandmother's theme song in the dream. That, or I simply thought of it in connection with her pysche. In any case, the two seem inseperable now...
I don't want to believe that all of the above is true
but I could be persuaded if you were to give me proof
why don't you come over Thursday maybe we can talk it through
as if some new information were possible to comprehend or introduce
after all you and I are nothing more than foregone conclusions
you were too busy steering the conversation toward the lord
to hear the voice of the spirit saying shut the fuck up
you thought it must be the devil trying to make you go astray
besides it couldn't have been the lord because you don't believe he talks that way
too close to call yet
still so tightly wound around our foregone conclusions