To sing my song.

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

"The Laughing Heart" by Charles Bukowski

************************************************

I drove the old roads yesterday, as I rarely do anymore unless someone died, as someone had. Turning instinctively on numbered streets -- that party there, that unfortunate conversation on that street corner, I knew the sounds and the smells of the neighborhoods, felt the grit of the pavement and the echoes of so many voices up through the undercarriage of a car I never could have afforded then, can barely afford now. 

Road miles, they carry us, somehow.

Monday was PG County and a dead body in a Hawaiian shirt, unbearable grief and chicken joints and that school I went to once. I forgot about D's corner lot house, the irritation of the left turn. The shortcut through the 7-11 that I made still-instinctively after 20 years away made me want to smoke more than usual, an urge staved off mostly by the almost seven dollar price for a pack that made me smile big.

It's all so much the same, it's crazy how it stays that way when it seems like it ought not to, when you've been away and looking at so much other stuff. It's just so much more expensive in all ways now.

 ************************************************

you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.

 ***********************************************

I am afraid, I admit it. I said some horrible things a few days ago, things that came from the worst place, the most unpleasant, the most fearful and preemptively abandoned. I felt as worthless and pointless as I have in months, as incapable of...I don't know? Anything. It was bad, and it was at the same time, regardless of immediate outcome, immediately productive. Watersheds are few and far between in a life, really.

I had needed it for years and never saw it coming really. Idealism is a certain circle of hell, I'm here to tell. 

Yesterday on the highway Ramble On came up in the mix and I cried and smiled, Page and Plant's mix of hubris and brilliance (the darkest depths of Mordor. MORDOR.) what it needed to be as it always is bumped up against the simple, crucial declarative that defines the song. So much, so much, so much. I looked up at the roof upholstery at a red light, wiping my stupid weeping eyes, grateful for the familiarity, for the music, for the construct. I knew anew what I had to do, as I had when my feet hit the floor behind a heavy curtain in Tennessee two days prior. 

Now's the time. The time is now. 

 ************************************************

I will never be easy. I will always be difficult, sometimes the most in the times that I'm trying the hardest not to be. This is genetic, some of this, a design that I fight with every bit of good that I know I possess from competing genes and nurture and the sheer instruction of living kindly. I don't count on the same companions for the long haul so much anymore, because it's almost too much to ask in larger than small doses. I'm conversely coming upon the truth, however, that some greater consistency in this regard may be some of what I need for the longer run, and whether I think it's really possible or not, I will keep wrecking the prospect of ever having it if I don't fix me for real. 

I have been broken for a long time, in a variety of small and large ways, despite my progress, despite longstanding white-knuckled efforts to the contrary. I have the softest, brightest comprehension now though that I don't think I'm going to be for very long anymore, and regardless, I will no longer break you, not even a little if I can help it, no matter who you are. Unacceptable harsh words finished that story. The main answer -- surrender, no knuckles -- was long overdue. The time for so many (good and gentle, fun and interesting) things, the time for the real second half, is now. 

Comments

[sue]

You've got this.

[heather]

Laurie, your gorgeous words are a reflection of a gorgeous YOU. You are grace and goodness. See it? It's all over you.
I am always broken and difficult and getting in my own way too. All my so-called faults cause the stupid words to slap faces sometimes...but they are also what make me feel deeply enough to regret and let go, un-white-knuckling and beginning.

LOVE YOU.

[Josette Plank (used to be Halu shki)]

Holy smokes, Laurie - that was an amazing piece of writing! I was spellbound and stunned at how much this entire piece touched me.

I hope the big, huge, weird life stuff isn't too much of a firewalk. That you are able to share it in this way leaves me in the peculiar position of being grateful for your capacity to share they way you do in your writing - at the same time, wishing there wasn't the life turbulence that inspires the need. Does that make sense? I hope so.

[Josette Plank (used to be Halu shki)]

("Big, huge, weird stuff" from reading the previous post, as well.)

[Deb]

"know them/take them." oh Bukowski. He nailed it, right? That seeing the way is hard enough, takes courage and the almost impossible risk of wanting it and all that, and then even then there is another step. "Take them." So hard, so much work, but always worth it.

[schmutzie]

Surrender. I like that.

I'm behind you, lady.

[Laurie]

Go.

We're beside you, behind you, ahead of you and beneath you all the way.

Go.

[Amy]

Damn, I love this. Wishing you well.

[zchamu]

You know we'll lift you up from anywhere.

[Jessica Ashley (Sassafrass)]

With you. I hope you feel this. xo