Moments

"If I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I'm grateful that so many of those moments are nice."

-Kurt Vonnegut

There are so many times in my life where I take for granted the wonderful life I have been given. I wallow in despair over the fact that I will not be able to get to live with my husband for a year. I stress over my job and school, frozen with fear of inevitable tiny failures I will make. I can't look in a mirror all day because I feel ugly. I get angry with a friend.

But,

There are moments in my life that make me realize how lucky I am to even be alive. I've had long, revealing walks with friends. I've listened to the roar of the ocean while gazing at thousands of stars on a porch. The feeling after I've written something that reveals something about me or others is one of the best feelings I've ever had in my life. All of these are moments that make me feel that I'm not alone in this crazy, twisted world.

I thought about collecting all these moments that make me feel that I am a part of something in this world. Douglas Coupland even suggested it (and explains it much better) when he wrote:

"My mind then wandered. I thought of this: I thought of how every day each of us experiences a few little moments that have just a bit more resonance than other moments—we hear a word that sticks in our mind—or maybe we have a small experience that pulls us out of ourselves, if only briefly—we share a hotel elevator with a bride in her veils, say, or a stranger gives us a piece of bread to feed to the mallard ducks in the lagoon; a small child starts a conversation with us in a Dairy Queen—or we have an episode like the one I had with the M&M cars back at the Husky station.

And if we were to collect these small moments in a notebook and save them over a period of months we would see certain trends emerge from our collection—certain voices would emerge that have been trying to speak through us. We would realize that we have been having another life altogether; one we didn’t even know was going on inside us. And maybe this other life is more important than the one we think of as being real—this clunky day-to-day world of furniture and noise and metal. So just maybe it is these small silent moments which are the true story-making events of our lives."

Though I attempted to write them down once, I found there was something significant in not allowing it to be permanent. That if we remembered every special moment, the next special moment wouldn't be as "special." Sometimes things just can't be written down, just like there are things in my heart that I will never be able to express in actual words. Who can describe the feeling one gets while looking up at the stars at night?

Even now, I flopped on my bed and looked at the ceiling, thinking of Stephen while listening to a good song. I feel so blessed to even be able to think of someone as amazing as Stephen, and know that through some miraculous event, he is thinking of me also. You probably can't even comprehend that moment, how the smell of my sheets almost still smells like him and why I smile as I think of the way he laughs at me when I do something weird. Though you can't understand mine (and might think it's super lame), you have your own moment too that makes you think, "Wow. I have been given life. What a blessing that is," even as you are dealing with troubles, no matter how small or horrible they may be.

I will end with yet another excerpt from a Bukowski poem (who do you think I am?):

there is always that space there

just before they get to us

that space

that fine relaxer

the breather

while say

flopping on a bed

thinking of nothing

or say

pouring a glass of water from the

spigot

while entranced by

nothing

that space

there

before they get to us

ensures

that

when they do

they won't

get it all

ever.

Obsession

we've got a world full of dreams and sometimes

when I can't sleep

and my mind won't think of anything at all then I

spend the night

looking up at the dark ceiling.

-Charles Bukowski

When I read Bukowski for the first time, it was like meeting my soul mate. I was a seventeen year old blonde in high school living in suburban Maryland, but somehow this dirty, vulgar old man became something that I know will be a lifelong obsession. I have about eight of his poetry books on a bookshelf and I keep the one I am currently reading close by me. I used to spend a few days solely reading them but now I realize, since he's dead, that eventually there will not be any more new ones to read so I savor them for longer now.

I've written poems about him even after I stopped writing poetry. He is the only thing I feel like writing about now poetry-wise since he was the one that inspired me to write in the first place.

Like any adolescent obsession, my obsession with Bukowski has lessened, although it seems that in my darkest times I imagine him, looking up at the dark ceiling, feeling as alone as I do.

One thing I love and need in writing is honesty, and I have never seen any other author match how honest he is in his writing. When I say honest, I do not mean non-fiction, I mean just honest about the human condition. Many authors masquerade their own horrible emotions through outlandish characters so as to hide their own insecurities and terrible thoughts. Or sometimes, these things will be written off as a joke. He had the courage to tell the truth, which is so rare nowadays, but I bet people in other lifetimes felt the same way about this lack of courage, both from their writers and from each other.

One good thing about blogging is that I'm able to write all these thoughts down and then I can erase them right away, and forget. I have probably erased about five paragraphs just from this post alone. It's comforting. Most of our thoughts aren't real winners, and this post is no exception, but sometimes adding a little permanence, however futile and meaningless, is just what is needed to ease our troubled or discouraged thoughts.

One more Charles Bukowski excerpt for the road:

I promised myself never to write old man poems

but this one's funny, you see, excusable, be-

cause I've long gone past using myself and there's

still more left

here at 3 a.m. I am going to take this sheet from

the typer

pour another glass and

insert

make love to the fresh new whiteness