"Deep Thoughts": March 2008 Archives

"Sometimes a thing gets broke, can't be fixed." - Kaywinnit Lee Frye

I've been puzzled lately by how heartbroken I've been feeling, given that there isn't anyone in my life at the moment to feel heartbroken about. I was thinking about it all morning, as I yanked my reluctant body out of bed and poured a bunch of green tea into it, and then flung it into the pool and swam lap after lap after lap, finally beginning to breathe clearly and swim those long smooth strokes that I get into after about half an hour.

I still didn't have an answer when I got out.

And I didn't have an answer after I'd gotten home and showered, and kicked the cat out of the bathroom, and thrown some dry clothes on, and called the bike shop, and set off for the bike shop, and hung around the bike shop while they put a different-sized cog on. And I didn't have much of an answer as I rode over the bumpy roads and onto the bridge and through the semi-deserted Wednesday night streets and on and on and on into the mild night.

And I didn't have an answer as I pulled up in front of my building and felt that now-familiar reluctance to get off my bike, ever. I didn't have an answer as I ran into my super in front of the building, and he smiled at me and said hi in his sweet, friendly way.

I didn't have an answer as I slung my wheeled steel bird over my strong shoulder (all that swimming) and hauled it easily up the stairs. I didn't have an answer as I crammed a bunch of food into my face. I didn't have an answer as I stared at the work I ought to have done this afternoon and will have to do this weekend.

I don't have an answer still. But I can tell you this: I am a lot happier now, just sitting in my well-exercised body, than I was earlier today. Which suggests to me that it doesn't matter so much if my heart is broken - even if it turns out to be broken as a sort of lifelong state of affairs - if I can just get enough endorphins pumping through my veins and brains.

I'd forgotten that I didn't get any exercise yesterday (my knees were killing me, so I took it easy), and how glum that tends to make me feel. And how I just sit around feeling old and creaky and eating too much chocolate and yogurt and other things that tend to give me a stomachache. And how I wake up unwilling to face the day.

And how I put on my swimsuit and notice that it's so saggy that it's almost like swimming naked, though without the inherent sensory appeal of that.

I ordered two new suits tonight, even though I have no money to spare, and even though I'd already dropped quite a lot at the bike shop. Because I think these are my loves - the bike and the pool. And love is worth it.

I bought a blood orange today, though it had been renamed "pink navel" (no doubt by some horrible citrus marketing subcommittee), which is roughly the equivalent of NYC real estate agents renaming Hell's Kitchen "Clinton."

Basically, that's what's wrong with trying to make something interesting more palatable for the masses. It loses its juice.

I am wearing my "I Learned to Knit in Prison" t-shirt, and just had my head shorn (thank the fracking gods), so I am feeling butch, I guess. Speaking of feeling butch, I found myself in an interesting conversation the other day; a guy was telling a female friend of his that when he'd first met her, he'd thought she was gay.

We were trying to figure out why that was. She thought it might be her arms, because they're "ripped" (her term). He suggested it might be because he used to work in a lesbian bar and tends to just assume all women are homosexual until proven otherwise.

I commented that I have often wondered whether my short hair gives some people the impression that I am gay. But it's hard to figure out, because any guy who thought so would probably just keep his distance, and actual lesbians tend to be able to tell the difference, regardless of hair length.

Anyway, the girl with the ripped arms didn't strike me as gay; just awesome. She's a racer. Make that a serious fucking racer; she beats most men.

And she's very pretty, and not what I would think of as butch, so I still don't know why men would think she was gay - but apparently her friend is not the only man who's made that mistake.

Stereotypes, baby. Can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em.

It'll be an interesting summer. I am now a bit ripped myself, and we shall see what happens when that is on display. I like it, and I'd like to keep it if I can.

I've been having an interesting conversation (or rather, interchange, since there aren't technically voices involved) with Claudia about street photography, as a specific art form. Turns out, there are actually classes on the subject.

I'd never really thought about it as something that one might teach (or take) a class on. It seems so organic to me; you learn by doing, and maybe the streets teach you a thing or two about looking at things, ordinary things, and seeing their magnificence (and/or horror).

I find, for example, that the best shots come from the split-second pics I take without thinking: zap, zzap, zzzap. The faster I go, the more good stuff I seem to get - I think because then it all happens at the level of dreaming. It also helps that I am not burning film, though honestly when I shot more film, I - er - shot more film. I mean, I used to rip right through it, roll after roll after roll, because, you see, I'd already discovered the rule of unconscious genius. The more unconscious the artist, the greater his or her access to her particular genius. Well, that is my theory, anyway, and were I to start a school (a project I occasionally toy with), that would be part of the foundation of its curriculum. Developing the ability to be awake and yet only half-aware (or less) of what one is doing. It's a talent, honestly. Or a skill to be honed.

I don't know why, but I feel there is a connection between love and the unconscious. I think the things we adore, the things that TURN US ON are operating at the same level as art-making. They are tapping into parts of our brain of which we are only (if that) dimly aware, and which are perhaps meant to stay dreamlike.

Mystery is good.

***

The sands flame again
flowers crushed to ash
her feet held aloft
a bird untold
how to begin flight.

When again
he comes over the hill
bearing fruit in his trousers
She can't see the sun behind
his shoulder

That Laurence of Arabia
moment when he smiles
the blinding smile
That look of winter
in his one blue eye
(the other black, a dark
sea, an omen, a bird
she can't touch)

words and images copyright 2008 L. Grav. all rights reserved.

Another night at the wine bar, another day of photographs and cold wind, and strangers spitting on me and saying really horrendous things to me (the former I shrugged off; the latter made me cry, but only after I'd walked several blocks).

I wrote a very good poem the other day, on a piece of drawing paper, and it's been fluttering around my apartment, alighting here and there as if it has wings.

Someone is eating a slice of cake on TV, and I wish I could pull it out of the screen and have some. I thought today what a thin little line of people separates me from nothingness, from being completely alone in the world. Don't tell me that isn't true of you as well.

Well, maybe some people with large circles of friends feel more protected from the edge of the black. And maybe that is the real reason people feel compelled to have families. It's not even about posterity or immortality; it's an attempt to insulate themselves from loneliness, from the truth that Malcolm Reynolds puts so clearly, "Everyone dies alone."

So I suppose that being able to keep walking after a terrible old man says something terrible to me in response to being asked if I can take his photo - I suppose that is some sort of victory, or the only kind that we ever get.

The strength to just keep walking. Not, perhaps, to avoid crying when one is hurt; just to keep moving.