Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Stercus Mundi*

I want to have exotic names and
old photo booth pictures:

The way I see it, we are constellation.
that's true.
In reality we are
light year's away. (from one another)
Yoked together by the thin
and
tense thread of a child's want imagination
breathless moments
rustle of sheets
et al.
Holding tight. Tilling gravity. Bending
the
laws of science
at this stage , it might just be alchemy,
I don't think you're ready.
A little smoke and a little mirrors.
I suppose the past doesn't
Matter half
a quarter
a lightyear
as much as the future.
Perfect timing
steady (prove me wrong) breaths
I'm just a child waving my basket full of milky way
----- until then I'll just hold (let me in) still, because sometimes I feel like woman in window and somtimes I'm just kid on the outside (smirking cause he know something you don't know).

And here on this day and in these days:
but today more specifically in class with professor McDreamy, we were talking about Peter Dale Scott's "Minding the Darkness." Scott's style covers a great deal of political/social/religious inequities, but not once does he raise his literary voice. The way in which he tackles the atrocities of war (religious and otherwise) is so balanced, peacful, and loving. At one point in my life I was tolerant gentle and loving. Somehow along the way of living life, I lost that patience. Amidst the big picture I'm still all those things, but in the microcosm of everyday life I don't love as much as I once did. I am impatient of much tolerant of little.

Peter Dale Scott is from Canada. Now if you know me well, especially from a certain period in my life I jokingly held much disdain for Canada. Oh I had a silly long list of reasons why I didn't like Canada (ex. they drink their milk from bags, Celine Dion, Mounties, lower literacy rate than the U.S., Ralphie was Canada for model U.N.), but nothing ever serious. I went camping with some Canads once, and they were the most ridiculously sweet people I've ever met. They didn't know me at all but they offered up their shade and drink. They even played me some sweet Canadian folk music. McDreamy talked about how important it is to practice love in daily life. But how can I ever hope to love everyone!? A very similar conversation had manifested itself earlier in the week with the boy and once again with Mr. Morose.

At first I thought it was ludicrous and criminal. Evenly distributed love is not pure love.
Pure love is not unique love and so on. But ahh love is a multi-faceted concept. Universal love is different from Romantic love such as familial love differs from love for hummus (still with me?). McDreamy illuminated the concept by marrying love with the idea of temperament. If a community loves one another and looks out for one another's general well-being, not because they are sleeping with them but because they are a part of a whole it effects the general temperament of the collective. If everyone is invested in the other (even minutely) they make decisions based on the well-being of the whole. Those rascally Canadians might be on to something.

Once again take Canada for example, a country of notable positive cultural temperament, they are more likely to enact social/political policies regarding the well-being of the community (Universal health care). Another important question to ask is why not? Why not love your neighbor? Why not practice daily tolerance? Why must negativity and one upmanship rule our daily lives?

McDreamy, Peter Dale Scott, Canada, and a bit of internal reflection helped me to realize I need to practice daily acts of l-o-v-e, and if I can't love I can just be neutral.

That said let me take my first step:
Girl who addresses me in a really impersonal moderately awkward (circa 1996) way I hope you have an amazing day. I don't dislike you at all. I just wish in passing perhaps you could say hi or if it suits you just a smile and head nod. I'm sorry for letting your greeting get to me, because after all it was a greeting. But just so you know you aren't obligated. Neutrality is okay with me. I'm sure you're really stinkin neat.

And in general these days I have all these huge feelings nesting inside of me wanting to break out, but I couldn't possibly know how to accurately articulate them without sounding like a complete donkey's rear-end.

Oh I like the way his voice cracks when something incredulous happens.

*latin: the shit of everday life
All pictures c/o very talented artist Peter Turnley (www.peterturnley.com). If you have a couple thousand dollars do purchase his lovely and most beautiful fine photography.

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