Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Fortunato.


I curse the static in my veins. Once prolific, now I am lucky, I guess, that people still consider me to be and introduce me as a writer - for, long have my hands been idle. Save the few creative ways of explaining, say, that the previous "for" is what is called a "conjunction," I don't create much of anything. Well - anything of my own. Each day that I strive, that I push, that I motivate out of total blankness -- each day that I make my students see the gravity of their voice and the size of their footprints -- I am "creating."

Still, so constant is the roaring of hunger.

I got lost somewhere. Amidst the brilliance of better tomorrows. Amongst the infinite stretches of possibilities.

The more I see youth through experienced eyes, the more I realize how wind-blown and liquid it really is. How like a cartoon. For all the timbre of dreams, it seems really that we are but floating on waves of scent towards the next ham. For all of my foresight and best intentions, I feel like I have strayed far from my heart.

I love teaching. I love writing.

Must sacrifice be part of the equation?

I feel so often now like I am not a significant part of my own life. I know that may strike some as a dark and brooding sort of statement - but I mean it out of total confusion and insecurity. When did choosing grape vs. strawberry jelly turn into such dire stakes? When did those, then, turn into having no voice at all? I used to scan so far ahead that these spikes were averted with time to spare. Now, it seems, that I am an ant, navigating an impossible ever-changing path with only a vague memory as a map. Maybe that's overly metaphorical. Perhaps I am a turd circling the drain and frantically grabbing for a hand.

I must speak in metaphor, lest I lose my mind.

Picture a lonely gardener. He plants a garden that will become a beautiful bed of flowers. He loves it, though it is only a concept. It is only a picture on a seed-pack. One day, with no warning, it is gone. Infuriatingly, there is no one to blame. There is no reason. There is only a void and splendid visions that were yanked away to die - just too far beyond his pleading grasp. He mourns. He turns to what he knows to comfort himself. But it is gone. The words don't come. Something is broken. He is broken. All around him now are new gardens planted. Ones that he wants to hate, but cannot. He cannot. Because of the very joy they bring to their planters, he cannot.

Call me Fortunato, for irony is surely my closest friend.

Thursday, December 4, 2008