- (A Demonology) pt 2

Slowly.

So slow it didn't seem like such a big deal at first - I cut one rope, then the next.

Never really knowing how many I had left. Just a desire to remove.

I'll take an aside here to say, I know I'm talking about a lot of abstracts and metaphors here. Stay with me.

>>> cut/cut/cut

I thought the only way I could learn to be a better person was to remove the excess. 

Slice and hack away at outdated beliefs. Superstitions. 

Anything that didn't serve me to be better. Anything that held me back from progressing as a thinker. As a writer. As a person. Anything that clouded my judgment had to go. 

The more I cut, the more I kept finding. 

Always, layered underneath, these old undesired parts of my character hiding away. What did I believe that wasn't inherited from some past belief or circumstance of history? What did Rene really care about? What do I believe in?  What do I want to be? My life seemed to be false understandings masquerading as Truths, until I began to believe there wasn't anything left of me that was real.

But those old ropes were my safety. The links to my family, history, city, state, country, god, dreams, masculinity, and self. Whatever perspective held me down also used to be an old comfort. They gave me answers to questions I couldn't know. They made me feel secure in this infinite mystery of existence. Protected me from the fear of ignorance, even if by giving me a different ignorance instead.

I wish, mostly in my weaker moments, that I could turn back to those old comforts, but I can't. 

I know.  

I learned how dangerous it is to put a knife to an old belief. 

There is no way back. Imagine trying to re-believe in Santa.

When you sever yourself from a tie like family or religion, or masculinity, there is no way to re-thread it. They become cut forever. Having been proven to be brittle. Frayed. Devoid of old power.

And the magic of those bindings are equal parts safety and danger. Some of us protected by it. Some strangled. Because their power is in fear. Without them I became alone to face my fears of the unknown, my fears of humanity and existence alone. 

And the more we have to fear, the more we need and the more necessary those bindings become. Clinging tighter to something that felt real but is daily slipping.

...

So to my nights (if you are following from the last post) when my mind is buzzing in thoughts and sleep won't come and the dark room seems filled with my memories. And I want to reach for past comforts, but dead prayers don't get answered.

There is an out. Understanding is the knife. The knife is freedom. Yes, there is fear in my freedom. What do I cling to when drift is stormy and the path is dark? When I have nothing but my own voice to answer to? But fear doesn't have to be bad.

You can drift. If you want.

I know. I learned.

So I try to imagine a quiet.

I imagine floating above myself. Free of sound. Free of smell. Free of taste. Only seeing the bed below and the body I've come through the world with and float higher into the night air looking down on the smallness of that bed and the shadow of person left lying.

For a long time it might seem that I am floating in the empty dark, but further still in this meditation, are all the stars and planets. All moving alone like me in to the infinite dark.

Somewhere in that strange dark imagining. There is music. There are words. There is mystery and answers. Cold, sterile, beautiful answers.

Answers that come from no-where. 

Thoughts that bubble and fade.

Everything is

alone

together 

in this natural, terrifying beauty.

-rene

ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, youtube, facebook and twitter. Also my new website ReneTheWriter.

- (A Demonology) pt 1

I have these nights every few weeks.

Bad nights when sleep went come. Even as the heavy weight of exhaustion sits on my mind. Pushing my eyes half-closed. The feeling of falling into the bed hitting like waves. Sleep seems so close.

But the waves wash back, and the eyes never fully fall, and the dreamy mind is busy making a thousand thoughts from all my days past. Rising like ghosts from the dark fissures of my brain.

It has to do with anxiety...

If I think about it too much, everything gets tighter, my body starts to tingle with the lack of oxygen, my heart constantly jolts awake every time I start to drift too close to sleep. And it makes me think about it more. And the more I think, the tighter everything gets.

When I was really young. I'd have these nights and my young mind took this feeling for fear and panic. My mother would lie with me.  Slowly running her fingers thru my hair. Her hands always felt cool. I remember her gentle fingers like a breeze. And her chest. 

The long, slow breaths she would take,as I buried my face against her, telling me to match her.

-In. She'd whisper and start at the crown of my head drawing back thru my thick unkempt tangles, as we breathed together. Her fingers gently flew out of my hair and returned to the top.

-Out. And again her cool fingers brushed thru me. And slowly the jitters would cease. My mind would stay with her. My air would open. And I could breath. And I could fall.

The bad nights still come. I've only grown heavier with ghosts. My mother is now one of them. A face to visit me on sleepless nights. 

Sometimes I can close my eyes and breath with her.

Sometimes.

But I have learned other ways to deal with the bad nights, since then.

Writing is one.

If you can't tell, tonight is a bad night...

One thing about these nights, I know I should sleep. My body is begging for it. I know. 

But.

Ghosts need exorcising.

Maybe I'll work my way thru them. Maybe this will be my book of demonology. Maybe I'll write and write. And cleanse my heart. 

And there won't be any bad nights. And there won't be anything left to haunt me. And I will breathe. And my heart will be light. And sleep will be beautiful.

If only I believed in such things. Still won't hurt to clean out demons you don't believe in... right? It never hurts to write.

I haven't blogged cause I needed a refocus. And now I think I know. Perfect in the time of think pieces. Start some medicinal writing as well as updates as I get closer to my book.

-rene

ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, youtube, facebook and twitter. Also my new website ReneTheWriter.

A Human Example

We are 14 days into the new year and I feel like I've been surrounded by death. Most recently: Lemmy, Bowie, Rickman. I know people are dying all the time not just celebrities, just like I know people born all the time, but it really feels immediate and heavy right now. 

Having also lost my mother to cancer maybe it all hits a little harder as the never ending news cycle rotates through the loss of artists I've looked up to. 

Not to mention this plague of public violence that seems to be getting worse every year, and the amount of strange and terrifyingly xenophobic rhetoric that is coming out of this election cycle. 

So it all makes me want to vent some thoughts on it, and this is my blog so...

Because Love is an Attachment and Attachment is Suffering. And so a million songs are sung. And a million poems are penned. 

I live in night. Always have. That's when I feel the world the most. Like the noise is turned down. The city moves quietly and I can finally think. I can let my mind can wander way beyond the limits of day.

When I was younger. In my early teens. I would stay up late. Lying in bed. Thinking about ideas of Forever. Trying to imagine the feeling of Nothingness. Blackness. Emptiness. Missing Time. Years passing by the thousands. Millions. Eons. The rise and fall of countless people and civilizations passing away. Worlds. Galaxies. The Universe born and expanding out forever then quietly burning out. I imagined life before I was born. The loves, the losses. How much happened. 

How much I missed.

I felt tuned into the endlessness of black space. It's wild stories of imagination. The air filled with folk songs of the past. Like a visionary radio station. Playing endless now gone music. From now gone voices.

It was on a night like that. When a voice came like the strum of a chord. And I sat up in bed. 

'What will they know about you?'

'I don't know what you're talking about,' I lied.

'What will they know about you?'

I sat still. Giving no answer.

'You... this body... when the flesh has worn off, and the maggots have tunneled through your eyes and out your ears, and the dirt has been packed and settled, and these things around here... This lamp. These books. These scribbled half-writings, and unfinished thoughts... everything you think is yours, when all of it has been sorted out into "things to be thrown away" and "things to be given away." What will be left of you? What will they know?' 

'I'm not sure,' the thoughts hurt more than I imagined. It was hollowing. 'I'm only 14.'

'14 now but that will pass quick. And age isn't an immunity from anything you know. Especially Death.'

'I know.'

'There are so many that have never lived to see a day much less 14 years.'

'I know.'

'And what have you done with it?'

-

'What have you done with your time? And how much more do you need? How many more years will it take to get you somewhere useful?'

And with an anger that comes with not having any answer. I tried to push out the thoughts. I snuck into the kitchen and drank a bottle of water. I paced the halls a bit. I stretched my body. Took deep breaths. I pulled out my CD player and put on Best of Beach Boys Vol.1. And for a moment I had forgotten those ideas. 

And the heaviness of sleep again fell on my brain. And I lay back in bed. And there was peace. 

'You...'

'Go away.'

'How will they know you?'

'Go away.'

'You will only be the things you've done.'

'I am so much more than that. I am capable of,'

'Ha. That might actually earn you one tear. No one will know what you are capable of unless they see it. No one could ever know the secrets you keep for yourself.'

'Some know. They should know...'

'Maybe... but people won't remember that. Not long anyways... They mourn lost potential only for a moment. But what you say and do, that is your legacy. What you make... That is your memory. That is what people will carry. That is who you are. The things you make. That is all you are. If the action is great than your memory will be so much more. Potential is forgotten. Intentions are always lost. Dreams die with you. You will only be the things you've done.'

'And if I can't be great? If I can't make a legacy? If I'm only worth a single tear? What then?'

'What makes you think you can't be great?'

'You brought it up!' I fought back, 'You tell me what is great. Why don't you tell me!'

 -

'Nothing?'

'Intentions are lost. Dreams die. You'll only be the things you've done.'

'You've said that already.'

Intentions, lost dreams, only.'

And that is how it left me. The voice in the darkness. I don't have to say I couldn't sleep well after that. 

That hollowness of confronting the feeling of Death has stayed with me. I think it haunts us all. And to this day, on a quiet night it might come back. 

These last few days maybe worse than I've had for a long time. I think that's what hits us harder about a celebrity dying. It makes the idea of something bigger seem small and human. It makes forever seem intimate. 

As I have gotten older I'm no longer worried about success on a grand scale. But I very much believe in the idea that we are our actions. And we can and should do great things with our brief moment of existence. Memorable things. For the world and especially for those around us, and that is more than enough to make a great legacy. 

To be a great human example.

American's may have an unhealthy obsession with celebrity, but it is a human one. Celebrities are avatars of our dreams and aspirations. Especially ones like Lemmy and Bowie. They are guys like us. They are the outsiders. The freaks. The strangers. And they succeeded in a fantasy way that we want. They say you could be this too. Or at the very least, you can be yourself and succeed. 

And they keep giving us more. Maybe this. This hollowness. This fear. Maybe it can be the motivator to make that one idea you've always had in the back of your mind. To say that one thing you've always wanted to say. To do whatever it is you want to do. To be yourself. 

You only have your actions. Live kindly. Make kindly. Share kindly. 

And what better way is there to be remembered?

-rene

ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, facebook and twitter and R.I.P. to all the great ones famous or not.