Friday, February 5, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Incense hangs upon the boughs.
To have your eyes open and to sit up straight. But you open your eyes too wide and for too long to see more than is good for your body. Your eyes dry up and strain and you have to squeeze them shut. Now your lids together feel like your hands do while on a washcloth's tight twist when wringing it out.
And I would say a plague is the opportunity to think far ahead of a moment. And that this is brought out of pasting together what drips out, into one interpreted picture, something which turns the crisp of that present moment into translucence. But it may just be a thing of this life, to see pieces that are floating about separately and severally, yet to see them as already come together. The image of this dimly lit metaphor I offer, this candle, would be of a figure looking at the parts of a photograph, standing still as if before a camera, and watching them fit into place. To see a lense through which to see.
The whole of the photograph already exists, then, for each piece to be fitted together. There is an inverse of this, though, and though still flickering dim and noiseless. As if it is that photograph's puzzling pieces that peer, and see the person as if they are instead the object of view. The photograph taking the person. Where, and only analagously, if you think of an intervening camera being brought into an event, when standing within the sudden frames of a candid photograph, one blinks, and suddenly that candidness means more than the moment being captured. As if that blink is letting down, disobeying the camera's flash that has shot out, reaching, choosing only you. There is, always, more than that. And those eyes can open as wide as they can to see as much as they can, only to blot it all out with the longest blink.
And I would say a plague is the opportunity to think far ahead of a moment. And that this is brought out of pasting together what drips out, into one interpreted picture, something which turns the crisp of that present moment into translucence. But it may just be a thing of this life, to see pieces that are floating about separately and severally, yet to see them as already come together. The image of this dimly lit metaphor I offer, this candle, would be of a figure looking at the parts of a photograph, standing still as if before a camera, and watching them fit into place. To see a lense through which to see.
The whole of the photograph already exists, then, for each piece to be fitted together. There is an inverse of this, though, and though still flickering dim and noiseless. As if it is that photograph's puzzling pieces that peer, and see the person as if they are instead the object of view. The photograph taking the person. Where, and only analagously, if you think of an intervening camera being brought into an event, when standing within the sudden frames of a candid photograph, one blinks, and suddenly that candidness means more than the moment being captured. As if that blink is letting down, disobeying the camera's flash that has shot out, reaching, choosing only you. There is, always, more than that. And those eyes can open as wide as they can to see as much as they can, only to blot it all out with the longest blink.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
No sphere of immanence.
Someone I know said that Merleau-Ponty said, the best way to read things closely is to sit up with your eyes open.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Nothing where virtue is not.
A new child met his uncle today. I had never held a brand new baby in my life, had never thought I would or should. I had wished to, but the kind of shaking that my hands always have I thought would lead to some harm. But this, my young nephew, how could that be resisted.
A little boy whose sparking eyes looked up at me and whose hands grasped my fingertips. This perfect sort of thing, which made me think that I ought to tuck in my wrinkled shirt or clean my dirtied boots. Because it deserves the freshness it also holds. Such a change occurs in people when they hold in their arms this being that contains an entire long life in its freshly weighted lungs. They receive joy from the sight of the confident sleep of a baby.
Outside of his own blanket wrappings, surrounding structures and the hospital were under construction. All different sorts of objects on wheels were strewn about the hallways, incubators, computers, catheter stands, these things that seem important and like they should be in use or at least placed elsewhere, in a right spot. Sitting about, doing the things that they should not. Some rooms had those translucent, zippered curtains to seal them off from the hallways. And so now, of course, I am back over here on this armed chair with wheels and never elsewhere for use. There is that little baby boy, and if I could have carried him with me.
A little boy whose sparking eyes looked up at me and whose hands grasped my fingertips. This perfect sort of thing, which made me think that I ought to tuck in my wrinkled shirt or clean my dirtied boots. Because it deserves the freshness it also holds. Such a change occurs in people when they hold in their arms this being that contains an entire long life in its freshly weighted lungs. They receive joy from the sight of the confident sleep of a baby.
Outside of his own blanket wrappings, surrounding structures and the hospital were under construction. All different sorts of objects on wheels were strewn about the hallways, incubators, computers, catheter stands, these things that seem important and like they should be in use or at least placed elsewhere, in a right spot. Sitting about, doing the things that they should not. Some rooms had those translucent, zippered curtains to seal them off from the hallways. And so now, of course, I am back over here on this armed chair with wheels and never elsewhere for use. There is that little baby boy, and if I could have carried him with me.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
A giant's dead body.
Starting one of those very timely new year posts here, the sort where you begin to talk about spending your time really living this life, and Lord knows I'm trying. But writing that can sometimes not quite work when the year just past is made to be continually precipitating upon the moments in which my eyes can not be anything but awake, the year end's abrupt changes occuring one after another to where you almost want to let them pass by while under a most incredibly perfect wool blanket. To keep things wrapped up where things can be, that is where I type this from.
What I have been thinking and writing about for some while now is that, as persons among people, we gain a sense of ourselves from others, most often to a greater extent than from only sensing ourselves. They have themselves been woven, like us, and what they present then wraps around you. When, suddenly, you are no longer able to spend that close time with those people because they have moved away or because of your own move, you can feel your whole stabbing insides stop as a result. This happens at varying levels per individual, but this stoppage reveals the sort of dependence you have upon standing nearby those ones closest to your soul. And that is because they are not simply close, or near, to your soul, but are within it. In addition to what and who you are, what they are is what has made you become. I may say for myself, then, that I am so brokenly grateful for the containment of souls I have been given. It is a grace which, to my specific ones, is an inexpressible sentiment. One could whirl obliviously and forgetfully into a new January, but it feels best to sense that grace from within this wool. From right here is where I am able to do so.
What I have been thinking and writing about for some while now is that, as persons among people, we gain a sense of ourselves from others, most often to a greater extent than from only sensing ourselves. They have themselves been woven, like us, and what they present then wraps around you. When, suddenly, you are no longer able to spend that close time with those people because they have moved away or because of your own move, you can feel your whole stabbing insides stop as a result. This happens at varying levels per individual, but this stoppage reveals the sort of dependence you have upon standing nearby those ones closest to your soul. And that is because they are not simply close, or near, to your soul, but are within it. In addition to what and who you are, what they are is what has made you become. I may say for myself, then, that I am so brokenly grateful for the containment of souls I have been given. It is a grace which, to my specific ones, is an inexpressible sentiment. One could whirl obliviously and forgetfully into a new January, but it feels best to sense that grace from within this wool. From right here is where I am able to do so.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Another round, another round, another round.
I wonder how much room is allowed for one to voice a complaint. If I want to say that I am tired or worn down by important elements of my life, of what value are those to the facts that I have youth and ability. Relatively, though sometimes separately, if I say that I am tired from being awake for twenty out of twenty-four hours each day, and that when I do sleep I am plagued by some of the worst dreams I can remember having, the truth is that I have a chair to sit on and a bed to sleep in. I can open my fridge and I can type on my computers. The place that we live in is a lucky place, and it is our only one. And, further, I have chosen this life. If I want to keep to the topic of academia, I have chosen this school, these classes, these assignments to write and to grade, these applications to send out, this time of night. 4:37 AM. Wait, no, 4:38 AM.
But I walked home through the loveliest blustering snowfall, you know. And so I do not know how bad these things are in truth. Someone next to me in the library wails "FML," bemoaning their shoe that has been scuffed by some heavy swinging door, and is met by their friend sharing anecdotally in the other's grief by lamenting that there is nothing worse but that their dryer shrunk one of their shirts. And they are going to some beach for the holidays.
We should of course feel guilty, I think, for supposing that our whole lives are so taxing to the energies of our soul. There are complaints to make, though, and yes, if there are negative points in a person's life they may feel that they are able to feel negatively about them. So they may do so, but I wonder when that should be challenged. By what means is one enabled to ache over some aspect of their life, and to what level, and why not some other aspect. When one has the kind of breath that is free to deepen as its body tires, I would wish to know where the brimming aches must cease.
But I walked home through the loveliest blustering snowfall, you know. And so I do not know how bad these things are in truth. Someone next to me in the library wails "FML," bemoaning their shoe that has been scuffed by some heavy swinging door, and is met by their friend sharing anecdotally in the other's grief by lamenting that there is nothing worse but that their dryer shrunk one of their shirts. And they are going to some beach for the holidays.
We should of course feel guilty, I think, for supposing that our whole lives are so taxing to the energies of our soul. There are complaints to make, though, and yes, if there are negative points in a person's life they may feel that they are able to feel negatively about them. So they may do so, but I wonder when that should be challenged. By what means is one enabled to ache over some aspect of their life, and to what level, and why not some other aspect. When one has the kind of breath that is free to deepen as its body tires, I would wish to know where the brimming aches must cease.
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