EGR: The "Lost" Sends

"The clouds in the east are colored with the pink newness of the
day. Now I see that this place remembers me, is tending to me.
Blind for so long my eyes are opened in tears and sunrise."
www.lauriedoctor.com

"Sentimentality is a superstructure covering brutality."
Carl Gustav Jung

"As many of you have noticed, I deleted the last four EGR sends from the Topica archive. However bright the writing may have burned (some seemed to think so), they were attacks on someone I love and who loved me. Attacks that were keeping me going at another's expense. And they were. Keeping me going, breathing, able to feel I had any world at all worth speaking of."

• Why Is It Always About You?
  Saving Yourself from the Narcissists in Your Life
• Trapped in the Mirror:
  Adult Children of Narcissists in Their Struggle for Self
• Narcissism and Intimacy:
  Love and Marriage in an Age of Confusion

• Date: Sun Jan 20, 2002 12:42 am
  Subject: EGR: Burning Down The World
  
  I once knew a woman who dreamed of a snake. She told me about this dream, in which the snake was coiled near her, within striking distance, dangerous. But she didn't try to get away from it, and it didn't bite her. She sat where she was and watched it, paying close attention. After a while, it simply slithered away. It was an important dream, I could tell. I could tell that was why she was telling me.
  
  The problem with stories is that they often speak in tongues, to each who hears them differently. If we share the same vision, we grasp the same meaning. Look in my eyes; speak my language. But the stories themselves are how we say: "here is the way I see." Not what, but how. Like a hologram, another metaphor, the whole not only includes the parts -- the usual case -- the parts also include the whole. We have only these images, these words. When vision is occulted, despair is a black whole. The game is good if your heart is true. But true to what? We're getting to that.
  
  Or are we?
  
  In the dream of my friend, I tried to read if I truly was her friend and she mine. Reading, as ever, between the lines, I did not believe it showed that. I saw myself as the snake. I am dangerous to her, I thought. She is hoping that I -- or that part of me -- will go away. Without causing trouble. Without poisoning her. Even though I knew I could be wrong, was very likely wrong about what this dream meant to her, I felt a terrible deep sadness. She saw me and knew what I was. She made no judgment, didn't flee. And still, my leaving restored the balance of the world. Things as they are and should be. A deep and abiding sense of peace.
  
  Like a fool, I fought with her. I said to hell with that, I will not go gently. It is not peace you want. You are afraid. And I am not here to ease your fear or help you ignore it. I come out of the darkness that is also within you. You know me better than you think.
  
  I knew I was wrong about her vision. I thought I knew. I said, I think I am wrong about this, but I feel it anyway. This darkness is at the heart of how I see the world, so here, I want to show you: my anger, my refusal. And she said I cannot trust you with my dreams. It was our first real fight, but not our last -- yet another word that has two senses. Last can mean latest or final. Wherever the corrosion of trust began, we are no longer fighting. [more...]
  
  
• Date: Wed Apr 24, 2002 2:23 pm
  Subject: EGR: Day Tripper
  
  Dynamics. Some of these people did get raped. For real. Others metaphorically, but just as real. Got their worlds torn down, or never got to build one. Oppression, yeah, a real thing. My heart goes out. Genuinely. No irony. But still others looked at all that and began to pick up on the subtle bennies. A certain sympathy, a certain indulgence. And spinning those promising semiotics through the cultural mix of the times, came up with a whole new way of Healing. Here's how it works.
  
  You are in a desert. Nothing makes any sense. Every time you have trusted anyone, you've gotten fucked over. Bad. If you want to keep living, breathing, you're going to have to reach out to someone. Cautiously. Carefully. You look for someone who understands. Someone of the same sex. Has to be. Because the original damage came from that quarter most likely. And finally, after waiting so long, look! Here are sisters who care. They speak to you of going down into it, the hurt, the pain, the terrible Jehovah-like rejection. Too often to count: Dad. They help you understand this. Maybe. You want it to be true. You want the pain to end. You want to believe so bad, you would give anything.
  
  Yeah. Sounds familiar. Sounds real as it gets. I'm not hacking on any of it. Except there's that Maybe. It's a big maybe from many perspectives. Maybe the helpers will know what the fuck they're doing. Maybe they won't be vampires, feeding on your pain. It ain't all Buffy Goes to Suburbia out there. And maybe you won't have just found the custom-made algorithm to become a vampire yourself. One that can walk in the light. That can wrap itself in Light, in the Mystery of Mysteries, and never be exposed. Because exposure equals death. Relegation back to the desert, the empty place, the place of no warmth, no blood, no heart.
  
  The modern term is narcissism. As you might suspect, I know something about this. I speak from experience. And we're talking Special People here. Like me, and yet not like me. From next to nothing, we construct a world, a world in which we are esteemed. Supremely. Without question. Unconditionally. That's what we want. That's what all of us want when we're two years old. Some of us don't get it. Some of us learned to compromise. Ambiguity, slop in the system, neglect, disorder. Life. Genuine acceptance. But there's another kind of "acceptance" which is supplied by others. Proffered willingly, love. Dangled as bait, desire. Doesn't matter. Makes no difference. All is taken as food. As fuel for an esteem of self that becomes an inverted religion. Disguised as spirit, a hunger so dark it remains forever hidden. So sealed, it admits nothing but itself.
  
  The words and catch phrases are significant, charged. They become sacred. "Ground" becomes an obsession because there is no ground. No earth. No human birth. Only a construct, an unacceptably accidental accretion of unconscious flotsam. Nobody home. And the fear of that. The dread. I speak from experience. We all know about this. It's not so funny when you get up close. Is it? We all of us know, but most of us do different things with it. Make different choices. I hope. I hope I make different choices. Not to sacrifice another life to my own willing blindness. Not to mistake "needs" sanctified by sleight of hand for love. Not to trade an open heart for a vacuous sense of ease and beauty. Otherwise, boundaries become critical to keep vision at bay. All the time masquerading as vision. A shallow vision, a tightly bounded surface. A thrilling reflection in a breathless pool. Calm. Serene. Deadly.
  
  Her voice was soft and cool
  Her eyes were clear and bright
  but she's not there...
  Too strange? Too twisted? Too much to swallow? Count yourself lucky if you have no idea what I'm talking about.
  
  Look to the audience. If there isn't one, beware. If it's you, unamaze yourself. Disenthrall. Whatever it takes. Or else you're going down, for good, and the waves will close silently over you, a tribute to her bountiful care and kindness. Her unparalleled, unquestionable beauty. [more...]
  
  
• Date: Sun Apr 28, 2002 11:52 pm
  Subject: EGR: Rubber Soul
  
  And so down and around again back toward my car. A girl is smoking outside the Indian restaurant. "Cigarette break?" I ask, flashing my own smoke. A kind of brotherhood/sisterhood thing I'm thinking. Weak, but what the hell. She smiles. Yeah. I'm going to walk past but I stop and say did you eat here tonight? Was the food good? Do you always hang out smoking between courses? Do you feel like shooting the shit? Words to that effect.
  
  And she does. Feel like talking. So I ask this and that. Where from, where to? Doing what why when? She's been married to this older guy, she says, for 12 years. Had a driver's license for nine, but he always drove. Very controlling. They were in Tucson but now she's at the Sunshine Community in Loveland, cooking. Oh yeah? I did that too, I say. For nine months at a Buddhist dude ranch up outside Fort Collins. This is Colorado talk. Mountains and edges of mountains.
  
  It was a recuperation sort of thing, I say, for me. I forget to mention that when I got shipped there, I'd just spent five days in the slammer.
  
  Oh yes, Sunshine is a spiritual community too, she says. I'm sort of finding myself. He had to leave. It was a pretty bad scene, she says. Ah yes, I know how hard that can be, I say. Yes, she says, but I was the one who wanted to end it. End it finally. We broke up three times. He called me last night. I haven't heard from him in seven months. It was a good talk. But I'm someone else now. I'm not the same as I was when I was with him. When I started driving, it was if I'd been driving all along.
  
  Out of the blue, with no provocation, people will tell you anything.
  
  So I say, and what do you do up there other than cook? I'm an artist, she says. Oh really? I say. And aren't we all? And that explains everything. But I don't really say those things. Instead I say, what kind of art? And she says well symbolism mostly. I swear to god. So I ask, what medium are we talking here. And she says acrylics. Primary colors, and secondary, and sometimes I throw in some earth tones. The garden is completely organic.
  
  By the way, just so there's no mistake, this isn't like me imagining I'm getting off on smack. This was a real person I met tonight walking past The Tandoori Grill. She isn't a character I'm making up. Not some allegorical bit player. I'm mostly not into symbolism myself.
  
  So you paint, I say, piecing it together. Oh yes, she says, and it comes from my Source. Somewhere way back in. Sometimes animals. Usually a male and female theme. I bet that feels good, I say. Oh yes, she says, it feels wonderful! Is she coming on to me with these furry male/female Source beings? I bet I know what they're doing back in there. But by this time I know I'm not coming back on to her, even if she is. Not that it hadn't crossed my mind.
  
  I'm a little sorry to realize it, but I'm now doing research for the book. The book I just flashed is the book, the book I've been looking for for a year and it just came together today. I also realize I'm fucking with her head. Not in a mean way. It's just that this conversation has gone so far south I'd have to leave my flyway. And after the events of the last few days, few weeks, months, decades, I'm thinking: better hold, better wait. Better take a pass. Until hell freezes over.
  
  Sounds archetypal, I say. Oh yes, she says, I am totally into Jungian Philosophy. I'm starting to get cold. Her friends come out of the restaurant. Oh she says, I have to go. I shake hands with her. Why, I'm wondering now. Whatever for? Perhaps to signal that we've had a like totally mature, adult interchange with no ulterior motives. She's thinking: I'm going to make it. I'm thinking: she's going to make it. I'm also thinking: I'm not usually this covertly cynical. I ask myself if I've let it show. I tell myself no, I haven't. Good. Goodnight, she says. Good luck, I say back.
  
  How totally weird. Friday night, full moon in Scorpio... I'm way into Jungian Philosophy myself. Solve et coagula, baby. Make my day. [more...]
  
  
• Date: Wed May 1, 2002 9:19 am
  Subject: EGR: Here Come the Miracles
  
  ...let's be realistic. And OK, I admit that when I get realistic, it's a little different from when most people get realistic. But that's what makes it interesting, right? Sure makes it interesting for me. To demonstrate, here's a completely realistic down-to-earth conversation I remember having when I was about 18...

  Grace Slick: Don't you want somebody to love?
  Me: Yes.
  Grace Slick: Don't you need somebody to love?
  Me: Yes.

  Sure everybody likes to dump on the '60s, but as the Bard once said, love is not love that alters when it alteration finds, motherfucker. However, it might need to get an image upgrade. Dante had to go through hell to find Beatrice. Me, I'm a modern sort of guy. I don't go in for this heaven and hell shit. I go to Starbucks.
  
  You see what I'm getting at here? You do, don't you. See, I knew you'd pick right up on it right away. You're amazing really. Practically reading my mind. (Think about that one for a second.)
  
  Of course, maybe I should resist porting these fantasies altogether. Lest I cause harm. You'll hear certain people express such concerns these days. Especially if you happen to live in Boulder, which is crawling with Buddhists. Or if you live anywhere on planet Earth, such is the incredible power of the Dalai Lama's literary agent. Jesus Christ, how many books has that fucker published now? About 683, I think.
  
  But as I was saying, might I not better renounce my defiled grasping so as not to cause harm to others? This sounds good in principle, but it's so unilateral. How about if they stop first? Could we maybe work something out? Get a like pre-nup or something on general all-around pain causing?
  
  Here's what I think. When you hear people talk about "not causing harm" you are listening to the words of either saints or liars. Guess which is more likely.
  
  So this notion of forgoing human (read sexual) relationships until I have achieved Perfect Great Enlightenment is just not gonna fly, Orville. I mean, if I'd gone down that road at 18, I'd still be sitting on my ass in some louse-ridden ashram going OM all fucking day and still wondering what the hell was up. And I'd have no stories to tell you, so what good would I be? And then what of the happiness of all sentient beings?
  
  Instead, I've put myself in harm's way, you could say. I loved and got laid just as much as I could. For, as I also heard, around the same time, from the fulsome lips of St. Jagger himself: an empty heart is like an empty life.
  
  Sex, lies and TCP/IP. You could almost dance to it.
  
  What's amazing me today is that I'm angry. And it feels good. Not like one of Liz Keebler-Wroth's denial-ridden Polly-Wanna-Cracker Stages of Grief. No, like being good and fucking pissed. Angry to have been tossed aside like a spoiled calligraphy. The last time I saw her, she showed me this piece she'd just finished. It was exquisitely done, as usual. But see here, she said, I misspelled a word. Can't you fix it, I asked. No, she said, probably not. I could tell she was upset. It was a fatal flaw in an otherwise perfect work of art.
  
  The word she'd misspelled was "judgment." No comment.
  
  No, comment. Did you know that "to spell" originally came from the same place in our collective history as "to cast a spell"? Do you believe in magic? No? How about self-fulfilling prophecies? Like trying to tell a stranger about rock and roll: that spoon, that spoon, that spoonful...
  
  Amazed at myself because always before I was so sorry I'd ruined everything. So devastated, guilty, ashamed. But I ain't gonna take the hit this time. I never was your artwork anyway. Cry me a river, I'm not ruined. Not an error of judgment. Not going down for this one.
  
  I tell myself these things, I feel better. Not good, not glad. Just better. As in: can't get no worse. Gods willing. [more...]
  

as ever,

chris

My computer (Clarence T. Mojo) has been down for two freakin weeks, but I finally whipped the motherfucker into shape. Thanks to everyone who suggested I should buy a Mac. Next time, fer shure. So now I can redownload and reinstall 4,000 apps, which is the best medicine I know to ward of productive, paying work. Wish me luck! Oi vey is mir.