last glass...dusty buckets...parched e-lips...sponge...drip...drop

2005-05-30 - 12:02 a.m.: cough

i spent almost all of yesterday splashing around at golden gardens--a long beach on the sound, filled with people and sailboats. splashing around and playing in the sand. and thinking. and experimenting.

i woke up in the morning after a pretty intense evening and deep, REM-filled sleep... feeling refreshed but disoriented. brand-new. sober. alive. there have been very few times in my life that emotion has taken me so close to the edge of who i am that i've been scared that i could actually fall off. to be inside of yourself when you're saying things you don't mean, in a voice you don't recognize with a big enough sliver of hysteria wedged in there to make things seem more urgent and final than they really are... it is enough to scare the piss out of anyone. i want to fight for this, but if fighting turns me into a person i don't recognize and can't control, is it worth it?

it's kind of strange, in a way. fighting for something--anything--causes you to fill yourself up with something a little bit foreign. it turns this *thing* that you're fighting for into something that is bigger than you. something that, at least temporarily, subverts your identity. you are no longer an individual, but a warrior representing a side in battle. i think that's why i don't normally fight for things. who knows?

spending a day at the beach is the best therapy for a confused soul. walk there--make sure it is far away--to get hot, sweaty, sunburned and sore. when you get there, forget everything you experienced in the last five years (or more, if you are older) and run into the water--splashing icy saltiness, seaweed and all--until you are in over your head. then, realizing that you've been a fool, scamper back out and let your numb, tingling body meet the hot, sparkling sand. use a towel if you want to. i use a sheet. let the tiny particles of glass burn themselves into your skin, creating little memories of their own. close your eyes. feel the heat of the sun tug at the water droplets on your back. feel the hairs all over your body dance whenever the breeze passes over you. feel the sun create impressions on your spine and the soles of your feet. hear waves breaking, children shrieking, footballs slamming against chests, bugs landing and taking off.

on the way home i passed some kids drawing on the sidewalk with chalk. they asked me to please draw a dragon for them. i said okay. then i asked them if they wanted a scary dragon or a nice dragon. they said scary. with wings or without? with. fire-breathing or flower-breathing? flower. we had a very nice time until it grew dark and their father called them in. i had a very big smile on my face the rest of the way home.

inward...outward