Dust of the Earth.

A Dream

you and I were working on some big architectural/excavation project outside a big city. You had some managerial position and I was in charge of the actual construction. I remember being happy with the situation. Then I was in the city, getting ready to leave for something long term (I was on a street corner with other people and all our bags, about to get picked up to go wherever). My brother was there acting frantic and really angry with what I was doing. Somehow I missed the bus and was suddenly alone. And I was night. I called you. I guess you were at work. I didn’t know what to do and you didn’t seem to care. I was pacing. I was upset. It started to rain. There was a wood structure (outside a restaurant) where I went to get out of the rain, but there was someone or someone’s stuff in there. I remember a guitar in a black case. I was naked all of a sudden. Still on the phone with you, still in a panic, I asked if there was something you needed to tell me. There was silence from your end for a bit. Then I woke up.

Im stronger than I look.

Rage.

Frustrates me to no end that people who defend owning guns or heterosexual marriage or other ‘traditions’ act like they’re doing the rest of us a favor. That we can’t see the obvious logic in their bigotry, ignorance and stubbornness.

A dream

Somehow my sister(who was a scientist) brought Thomas Jefferson into the present to solve some impending disaster. After showing him around some city and seeing how comfortable he was with our world, I ask, “this isn’t your first time you came to the future from your present, is it?” He said that I was correct, that he was brought to the late nineties. “So you understand the internet?” “More or less” he says.

The title will come later

Now, feel exactly like I used to before leaving for summer camp. Both times. It’s the anxiety of not knowing what to bring and the crazy, irrational feel of being unprepared and ill-equipped to handle such a sudden change. How do I decide what is essential? How do I define what essential means? I’ve moved so many times, I should know the answer. But this time, there are actual limits. Some things have to come; I tell myself I like the idea of the ultimate start over but I really want to bring myself with me. I want to wrap myself in the comfort of a personal history. Of a past studded with memory and identity but with room to absorb the inevitable new facet. But more important than photos or the journals are the things that represent the vague boundaries my narrative; things that, as single items, are not symbolic of anything in particular; things that have gravitated towards me; that became mine before I laid hands on them. I’ve always had a problem with answering the old question about what you’d grab if your house was burning down. No one thing is important enough for me to risk my life; I think I’d rather watch it all go - making room for the possibility of everything - rather than be left with  a piece of something whose magic was real only when it was part of a matrix. The composition trumps the element always.