9-27-05
It’s 6:00. I’m sitting in my attic bedroom drinking a Lone Star Beer. The can is excessively patriotic, with stars, long horn skulls, and red-blue-white coloring rimming the side. The slogans “Pure. Texan. Beer.” and “DON”T MESS WITH TEXAS!” scream in bold letters on the surface. I laugh to myself, wondering how a tin can, or a state for that matter, could ever get so cocky.
This last week has been a strange journey for me. I sat in my gloomy attic, days ago, staring at a black handled knife lying by my bedside. I remember everything clearly. The blade was motionless – quiet – with soft details of the room mirrored on its angled face. Though my gaze fell on its stationary form, I saw nothing. My eyes were affixed to far more distant things—lost in the off-putting vicissitudes of an errant mind. My disappointment with life, with human nature, and with the holes within myself had reached a final conclusive point. I had hit the pinnacle, the highest low known as rock bottom. I wanted the world to end, my world, and I wanted the freedom to feel no more.
Reality is perception, and perception merely a state of mind. For over a year and a half my head had fallen to the wayside, to the baleful end of misery’s field. My perception was colored, seen through shaded blues and blacks—through all of the somber tones of the emotive spectrum. Utterly consumed by my sadness, my internalized negativity, I realized then that depression is such a strange and dangerous thing. It can creep up on you slowly, sometimes without rhyme or reason, from some dark recess or hole. If you remain unaware, neither stalwart nor vigilant, it will pull you under, drowning your lungs to their very last. Or, as in my life, its presence can be instant, like a wraith killing the first-born in the night. You’re suddenly hit with a ton of bricks, and no matter how much weight you shed, a house still levels you from above.
I thought on these things, as I stared at that knife, it’s sharpened edge gleaming back at me with a toothy smile. How simple a thing, I reflected, to carve a hole in the self and watch as the life – red dissipation – flows effortlessly away.
In such moments, just before the making of choice, time seems to slow. You are presented with a split, where paths diverge, each leading to some place into the unknown. Find yourself, lose yourself. Press forward, fall behind. Plug in, or give up. Your choice must be made.
As I stared at that knife, as my time slowed, I came to a realization. I realized that I didn’t want the whole of me to die, just a part. There was a boy inside, a weak-supplicating fool harbored for years as the voice of diffidence. That scared little boy, screaming of anger and bitterness, buried in the fleshy cavity with my soul, was my prison. It was he, fed by the slaughters of my rejection, that pushed me away from happiness. His memories troubled my dreams, his attachment barred my release.
I realized, staring at the knife, that I was tired of his voice. That it was he, not I, who needed to die. And so, with silent acquiescence, I buried that knife. Buried it right into his dark little heart.
Path taken. Choice made.
No longer, I resolved, would the slimy tendrils of acrimony squeeze the joy out of my body. I would break through my cloud of shadows. I would emerge—through calm resignation—into a greener pasture of my life.
Out of the ashes, does the phoenix rise. I stood, looking forward, a new man.
10-13-05
I had a great time at the museum today. I played, did a little work, and then played some more. In the outer courtyard, just to the east of the main building, a logwood fur-trading fort was constructed back in 1981. The fort was modeled on the Red River garrison (circa 1830’s) built somewhere near
Today marked the semi-annual event known as the encampment, where k-middle school students come to watch and participate in lectures and historical reenactments in and around the fort. Compared with the daily torrent of kids that would visit my museum back home, our visitation was but a trickle. Perhaps 30 or 40 kids all together. I had the privilege of giving the orientation lecture to arriving groups, discussing with great animation what a museum/artifact is and how the kids could use their imagination to step back through time. As usual, my superiors insisted that I dress in garb and assume a historical persona throughout the day. Fitted with a long tailored blue vest, pants, and dark uncomfortable shoes, I was surprised to win compliments about my appearance, though admittedly I felt rakish and aristocratic wearing the clothes.
I had a couple of great experience gems later that day. The first came just before the last group of kids was about to leave. In the outside kitchen area, just off the main trading cabin, we decided to dole out small pieces of boiled cow tongue for our guests to enjoy (this was apparently a historical delicacy). Having witnessed the self-cleaning habits of a bovine, I was of the mind to shy away from my portion. But with all the courage of a Fear Factor food test appointee, I quickly threw an oozing slimy piece down. It truly wasn’t all that bad – a bit like roast beef I suppose – and I was happy to have eaten it (not happy enough to grab another piece though).
After all of the kids left, I had the pleasure of puffing away on a clay tobacco pipe with Tim, the museums living history interpreter. The pipe was a replica, much like one of the white short-stemmed pieces that you can find at many historic archaeological sites. They are quite ubiquitous, having been a popular respite for the butch mountain men occupying such sites. I’m really not much of a smoker, but I was happy to live the experience and play at a little ‘experimental archaeology’.
By mid afternoon, Tim had taught me how to start a fire with flint and steel, which is very satisfying in a “Me man….ugh….me make fire!” sort of way. We then proceeded to break from our “work” by eating hamburgers in the trade cabin. That was rather strange, eating a messy hamburger with people dressed in garb in a roughneck nineteenth century setting.
* * *
My eyes are open. Wide open. Brilliant shades of possibility now line the streets.
The shades have ascended, the curtains are drawn, and the color has come bursting forth. I see a chair, a car, a passerby—some still, others motion bound, each in their own inimitable hue. Their colors reach out. They beckon, pulling me in to their small corner of the world. With details they blissfully surround, knocking into my company, like raindrops on a moonlit pond. Their waves remind me, through every shared inch, that I am still alive. That I feel them and they feel me too.
Well it’s official. I think that I’m finally ready to exhale. There comes a point when you become too full to internalize any more garbage. You either suck more in, and drown, or use your last bit of energy to blow it all away. I am so sick of falling beneath the surface, feeling desperate and alone, at a loss for the love I used to feel. I miss her greatly, that fallen angel of mine. But I have a new reality now, and I’m finally ready to face up to it.
It seems that wherever you stand on any given issue depends on where you sit. Life is the same way. It’s all about perspective. Do I sit on the boulder of despair, or perch on the summit of delight? Your view inevitably depends on your position. The way you look at the world, the way the world approaches you, all depends on that view. It is inescapable.
This has been my goal of late. Climb away from my misery. Leave it all behind. Find some new perch to take in my world, one that is positive and progressive and that will lead me to better places. I am accomplishing this, step by step, through the medium of self-improvement. I am honing in to all of things that I do not like about myself – underdeveloped qualities, overdeveloped sensitivities, off-putting patterns - using all my available energy to evolve as a person.
Turn off negative dialogue; replace with positive dialogue; learn to control all emotional impulses and states; stay one step ahead of the outer environment; cultivate a healthy spirit; learn to see and bring out the best in others; develop a thorough understanding of human behavior and systems; dismantle all actions and learn how to improve them; develop a code of personal ethics; etc.
I suppose that the most basic level, all I want to do is to come to understand the who behind the me. To find out what I want out of life and to pursue that. To attain some basic control over myself and my environment. This is my quest at large, and I am determined to attack it from every angle.
One area, shallow though it may be, that I am determined to first take on is my status as a single male (hey I’m young, what do you expect!). Women, quite obviously, are my greatest conundrum, and I’m determined to figure them out (as much as my puny caveman brain will allow). Forced to now compete in the dog-eat-dog single scene (this was not my choice, must I remind you), I am quite determined to understand what women want, what they desire, or in the very least, what they hunger for. In the past, I thought that I knew a great deal about women. To some extent I did. But what I didn’t know, what unfortunately was never taught to me, is what it means to be a man. Like most of the average frustrated chumps around me, I had no conception of how to keep and retain the attraction of a woman (I do blame, in part, the break up of my marriage to this fact, thus my great desire to understand this). I am therefore set, as time would allow, on a Don Juan education of sorts. I am now reading books on body language, on social dynamics, on human behavior and sexuality. I am learning how to dance, how to dress, how to communicate cool quiet confidence (laugh if you will, but you cannot argue that these are learned traits – skills – that like anything else can be improved with work and time). And most importantly, I am working on my ‘inner game’, learning to not care what anyone else thinks about me, secure in what it means to be who I am.
Essentially, I seek to unravel the formula for success. With women, work, or whatever challenge is put before me. The former challenge just so happens to be that which most consumes my head at this point in life (show me one single straight male of my age who doesn’t feel this way and I will show you a liar).
So, this is what I am determined to seek in my last few months in
(sunset of the darkened soul) 
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