On Presence

I've been asked by a couple of my friends, with more than a little suspicion in their voices, when do I write my blog entries?

Touché.

One of the last blog posts I composed while working at the symphony. Literally. Sitting in the wings, making sure assholes don't rush into the theater and try to find a seat while the musicians are playing.

Which, the more I thought about it, I realized is kind of cheating.

Cheating because, here I am, sitting in in front of this great orchestra playing some phenomenal works of Great composers, and I'm writing a fucking blog entry?

Apparently, it's really difficult to be present. Like, completely and wholly present in the moment, whatever that moment is. I suck at it.

Yoga is one of the only things that does it for me. For the one hour or forty-five minutes or the seventeen minutes I manage to squeeze in before my id monster wakes up from her always-too-short nap, I can be doing yoga and 100% present in the movements of my body and breath and mind. It is addicting.

But what about when I'm not doing yoga? I'm all over the freaking place. I am constantly finding myself reading, checking the weather, checking effing facebook, playing games on my phone, pretty much ANYTHING but being present.

Which really sucks. I mean, here I am, spending more time at home with my kiddo, having left my job TO DO SO, and I'm checking facebook? What the fuck is wrong with me? I could be sitting next to the little monster playing on the floor, talking to her, all up in her face (probably distributing my reeking breath from my lazily unbrushed teeth; since leaving work, my personal hygeine has plummeted) trying to make her giggle and connecting and bonding and shit.

But I'm writing a blog entry in my head. I gotta work on that, man.

On a related, but probably tangential subject, I wrote another poem. It's got kind of buddhist-y feel to it. And the post above was kind of buddhist-y about mindfulness, so I thought this was the best chance I had to slip it in, even though it's hard for me not to associate poetry with emo right now. I mean, isn't most poetry emo?

except HIP-HOP. I should start rapping.

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True story: last night I dreamed I haunted
an oceanside house filled with sand drifts and
whisperings of hushed regrets.

The walls were weepy driftwood

bowed and warped and splintering

my fingertips as I groped my way through  

unfurnished and salt-streaked rooms

colonized by dear-johns I’d slighted

and old lovers I had carelessly stung,

come to collect on my conscience’s debt.

I tried to undress my long skirted sorrow,

as if contrition were garments to shed

or redress could be sewn up by apology only.

Then the house

sighed on its hinges,

flung wide a window,

shuddered and groaned

a tone poem born

of the vast nearby Sea

frothed and nudging tenderly

to summon fresh its first memory

with a whoosh: to forgive

to let go, to be friendly and soft

hearted, warm; to let peace murmur in

with the tide, to remit

the damages done

and pardon
us all.

Then the wind dwindled to low humming lilt,

familiar and brisk and filling my palms

with a palpable heat. I unghosted the halls,

unlatching doors, and quietly crooning

these words of absolution

for the loafers and pokes who were dawdling.

They could stay at their will or go when they would:

I told them this treaty will hold, and it did.

Yes, even on waking.