Friday, August 15, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
This one is boring...
It is late, I am awake, thus I shall blog.
OK, so if you have read any of the past tripe that I have posted, you can probably deduce that things are not exactly as I would like them to be. The last blog was my rather rusty attempt to write something in a literary fashion. Of course it was based on the current situation, but it was not a cry for help. Here is the deal, I am in therapy (the whole world breathes a collective sigh of relief...) my therapist thought that I should try to express my feelings in a creative way. Singing isn't my favorite right now, I don't have the will for craft projects, and well that is it... writing it is, so now you are stuck with me...
On to more interesting news, did I tell you that my therapist is from the KC area and went to college at the college that my mom and brother went to? No? Did I tell you that she was illicitly ordained as a Catholic priest? I know, funny! She is from Kansas?! Ok just kidding... I don't think that it is widely known that she was ordained as a priest, the only way that I found out was through a back issue of the Oregonian at the Dr's office. At any rate, she is a good therapist, whatever... Just funny given that most of my professional and personal life revolves, in some sense, around the Church.
Not a lot to say about Emillie, things are here. No news is good news...
House is put together, I have this new love for decoupage... I have a desire to glue bits of paper to well, pretty much everything. First order of business, the French table in the Dining Room.
Girls are good, growing at an exponential rate. Erin has work drama, I could use a little. Sometimes feel like I barely have a pulse.
Really would like to travel to KS, damn tickets are a budger...
I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that I would like to contact some of the relatives that I have spent the better part of 16 years avoiding. Cousins, Aunts and Uncles, just interested.
I guess this all came about when we found out that my maternal grandmother has forgotten the greater part of the last 20 years. Maybe it has improved my chances with her. The cousins are coming out of the woodwork, some via myspace, some from the web, just odd. I had rather forgotten that we were related outside of the practical necessity for a family tree. Not that I don't want them, just don't have a real connection to them at this point.
In less serious news, I have experienced a serious of rather absurd pratfalls lo these last three weeks. Twice I have fallen, a la Dick Van Dyke into a flowerbed (one while getting out of the car at our house, once in front of the girls school.) I fell one time coming up the stairs to our house, scabbed my elbow (I don't remember the last time that I had a scab.) Perhaps most spectacularly was the fall out of Charlotte's bed. I had decided to line the girl's drapes in the hope that they would sleep past sunrise. This required a stint on a step ladder and then on the antique Swedish pine bed that the girls both have slept in. I stupidly took a step back, caught myself on the stupid rail, flew into the air, narrowly missed Abigail's iron bed, and landed on my shoulders. Two chiropractor visits later, I am nearly back to my original height. You may ask: Are you an alcoholic? No, I wasn't even drinking. Maybe your thinking that I have a brain tumor? No, I had an EKG a while ago for other things, nothing more abnormal than this. Really, I think that I am constantly being followed by leprechauns that are thwarting me in my attempt to find their pot of gold, wait, did I write that? No, really, I am fine, just old, and don't have the balance that I once had (the 2-stone extra that I have put on is surely no help as well.) As a precaution, I ordered new glasses... That is all, told you it would be boring.
OK, so if you have read any of the past tripe that I have posted, you can probably deduce that things are not exactly as I would like them to be. The last blog was my rather rusty attempt to write something in a literary fashion. Of course it was based on the current situation, but it was not a cry for help. Here is the deal, I am in therapy (the whole world breathes a collective sigh of relief...) my therapist thought that I should try to express my feelings in a creative way. Singing isn't my favorite right now, I don't have the will for craft projects, and well that is it... writing it is, so now you are stuck with me...
On to more interesting news, did I tell you that my therapist is from the KC area and went to college at the college that my mom and brother went to? No? Did I tell you that she was illicitly ordained as a Catholic priest? I know, funny! She is from Kansas?! Ok just kidding... I don't think that it is widely known that she was ordained as a priest, the only way that I found out was through a back issue of the Oregonian at the Dr's office. At any rate, she is a good therapist, whatever... Just funny given that most of my professional and personal life revolves, in some sense, around the Church.
Not a lot to say about Emillie, things are here. No news is good news...
House is put together, I have this new love for decoupage... I have a desire to glue bits of paper to well, pretty much everything. First order of business, the French table in the Dining Room.
Girls are good, growing at an exponential rate. Erin has work drama, I could use a little. Sometimes feel like I barely have a pulse.
Really would like to travel to KS, damn tickets are a budger...
I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that I would like to contact some of the relatives that I have spent the better part of 16 years avoiding. Cousins, Aunts and Uncles, just interested.
I guess this all came about when we found out that my maternal grandmother has forgotten the greater part of the last 20 years. Maybe it has improved my chances with her. The cousins are coming out of the woodwork, some via myspace, some from the web, just odd. I had rather forgotten that we were related outside of the practical necessity for a family tree. Not that I don't want them, just don't have a real connection to them at this point.
In less serious news, I have experienced a serious of rather absurd pratfalls lo these last three weeks. Twice I have fallen, a la Dick Van Dyke into a flowerbed (one while getting out of the car at our house, once in front of the girls school.) I fell one time coming up the stairs to our house, scabbed my elbow (I don't remember the last time that I had a scab.) Perhaps most spectacularly was the fall out of Charlotte's bed. I had decided to line the girl's drapes in the hope that they would sleep past sunrise. This required a stint on a step ladder and then on the antique Swedish pine bed that the girls both have slept in. I stupidly took a step back, caught myself on the stupid rail, flew into the air, narrowly missed Abigail's iron bed, and landed on my shoulders. Two chiropractor visits later, I am nearly back to my original height. You may ask: Are you an alcoholic? No, I wasn't even drinking. Maybe your thinking that I have a brain tumor? No, I had an EKG a while ago for other things, nothing more abnormal than this. Really, I think that I am constantly being followed by leprechauns that are thwarting me in my attempt to find their pot of gold, wait, did I write that? No, really, I am fine, just old, and don't have the balance that I once had (the 2-stone extra that I have put on is surely no help as well.) As a precaution, I ordered new glasses... That is all, told you it would be boring.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Birdsong
Olivier Messian, Saint Thomas Aquinas
O sacred banquet!
in which Christ is received,
the memory of his Passion is renewed,
the mind is filled with grace,
and a pledge of future glory to us is given.
Alleluia.
O sacred banquet!
in which Christ is received,
the memory of his Passion is renewed,
the mind is filled with grace,
and a pledge of future glory to us is given.
Alleluia.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
The Patient's File
This one, he struggles a lot to fit in. Not to a group or a mold, but more to a self definition.
There is (of course) the music, that is a given. Also, there are the "things", the trinkets, they play some role.
His personality is a mash of introvert and extrovert, conservative and liberal, traditionalist and avant garde. That is not to say that he is complicated, at least not in any conventional way. He is rather like a watercolor painting that has gotten a bit damp. The images are all there, easy to discern, they are just leaking into each other. Sad really...
He struggles, always has. Struggles against the feeling of dread, of impending doom. He struggles to create, creates and then is faced by the audacious, monumental lack of any inspiration in most of what he creates (there are fleeting bits of genius you should know.)
The talent, you will find, is not really in what he makes or does, but rather in what he finds (this is the trinket part.) It is in the odd sterling spoon, the chipped plate, the broken table, the out-modded lamp, the tatty chair, and most especially the "bad" art.
These are the things, they come to him, he ministers to them as Christ would to the blind man. He soothes their souls, he connects to them. They are the embodiment of what he can't find in others. The chipped plate is the caring of an unpleasant relative. The spoon, a long-dead aunt. Furniture, the father long absent. The art, well that is obvious, the sister betrayed.
A missionary, but not to the damned of the earth, but rather the damned of its occupants! He is good at it, silly fool.
So, what of the people you ask? They are there... He loves them, but in doing so holds the greater (or perhaps the lesser?)of himself back. It is not that he is uncaring, he is able to show the rudimentary symbols of human emotion with feeling. The real issue is deeper.
In daily life it is a game of cause and effect, common, unnoticed even, emotional slights to others. A sheltering of self from real connection. A distancing from family, friends, and self.
Faith you ask? That is funny! It is there, in spades. He believes!
"Christ is risen! Alleluia!" echoes form his numb lips not with fervor, no, rather with the sick sort of desperation of one who cannot forget that God is real. Watching, loving (from afar), judging, waiting, omnipotent but unwilling to share (for whatever reason.)
Faith, he links it to the trinkets as well. Surrounded by Icons, lighting candles, praying, working, singing. Things, not imbued with human traits as so common with iconography, but rather as a reminder of what it would be like to feel real emotion, to be a part.
The glowing Virgin, the Pascal Lamb, golden salver, tangible links to emotions long since squelched. The womb like darkness of tenabre, of the confessional. The shear drama of faith in and of itself, a weekly reminder of reality.
Family, well, there are several... The people of his childhood, mostly gone (or at least abandoned.) The people left who have moved through life with him, and those who he choose (and choose him) and those that he helped create.
The experiences he had with the missing ones shape what has continued after them. The echo of their demise is not summed in the common sentiments. No, they "are not just sleeping." They very well may "be with the Lord", but he fails to see the goodness in that for him. Most importantly, it "has not gotten easier" just different really.
They are gone, it caused a wound in him, but, unlike wounds of the flesh, these don't heal, they change, expand even.
The observation? None yet... Like his uninspired creations, his experiences are not unusual. All life is imbued with loss, coping, struggles of faith, even self-loathing. Why should he be so less able to cope?
In hindsight, perhaps it is not a question of coping...
There is (of course) the music, that is a given. Also, there are the "things", the trinkets, they play some role.
His personality is a mash of introvert and extrovert, conservative and liberal, traditionalist and avant garde. That is not to say that he is complicated, at least not in any conventional way. He is rather like a watercolor painting that has gotten a bit damp. The images are all there, easy to discern, they are just leaking into each other. Sad really...
He struggles, always has. Struggles against the feeling of dread, of impending doom. He struggles to create, creates and then is faced by the audacious, monumental lack of any inspiration in most of what he creates (there are fleeting bits of genius you should know.)
The talent, you will find, is not really in what he makes or does, but rather in what he finds (this is the trinket part.) It is in the odd sterling spoon, the chipped plate, the broken table, the out-modded lamp, the tatty chair, and most especially the "bad" art.
These are the things, they come to him, he ministers to them as Christ would to the blind man. He soothes their souls, he connects to them. They are the embodiment of what he can't find in others. The chipped plate is the caring of an unpleasant relative. The spoon, a long-dead aunt. Furniture, the father long absent. The art, well that is obvious, the sister betrayed.
A missionary, but not to the damned of the earth, but rather the damned of its occupants! He is good at it, silly fool.
So, what of the people you ask? They are there... He loves them, but in doing so holds the greater (or perhaps the lesser?)of himself back. It is not that he is uncaring, he is able to show the rudimentary symbols of human emotion with feeling. The real issue is deeper.
In daily life it is a game of cause and effect, common, unnoticed even, emotional slights to others. A sheltering of self from real connection. A distancing from family, friends, and self.
Faith you ask? That is funny! It is there, in spades. He believes!
"Christ is risen! Alleluia!" echoes form his numb lips not with fervor, no, rather with the sick sort of desperation of one who cannot forget that God is real. Watching, loving (from afar), judging, waiting, omnipotent but unwilling to share (for whatever reason.)
Faith, he links it to the trinkets as well. Surrounded by Icons, lighting candles, praying, working, singing. Things, not imbued with human traits as so common with iconography, but rather as a reminder of what it would be like to feel real emotion, to be a part.
The glowing Virgin, the Pascal Lamb, golden salver, tangible links to emotions long since squelched. The womb like darkness of tenabre, of the confessional. The shear drama of faith in and of itself, a weekly reminder of reality.
Family, well, there are several... The people of his childhood, mostly gone (or at least abandoned.) The people left who have moved through life with him, and those who he choose (and choose him) and those that he helped create.
The experiences he had with the missing ones shape what has continued after them. The echo of their demise is not summed in the common sentiments. No, they "are not just sleeping." They very well may "be with the Lord", but he fails to see the goodness in that for him. Most importantly, it "has not gotten easier" just different really.
They are gone, it caused a wound in him, but, unlike wounds of the flesh, these don't heal, they change, expand even.
The elegant shear of a knife's blade and it is 22 years since father spoke, the rough cut of stupid fate and 3 without sister, they tear at the flesh. Tear in quiet ways that limit emotion. The ones that come after sit upon the tight, deadened scar tissue left behind.
The observation? None yet... Like his uninspired creations, his experiences are not unusual. All life is imbued with loss, coping, struggles of faith, even self-loathing. Why should he be so less able to cope?
In hindsight, perhaps it is not a question of coping...
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
The Prussian Plate
Herbert Howells, Mvmt III, Requiem:
Giuseppi Verdi, Messa da Requiem, Offeratorio:
Giuseppi Verdi, Messa da Requiem, Offeratorio:
Saturday, August 2, 2008
I have drank the better half of a bottle of red wine, probably not the time to be blogging. Just a bit down... Have taken to printing out family pictures, framing them and keeping about. I know this sounds like a perfectly normal thing to do, but every once in a while one of them catches me completely off guard.
Charlotte is three this Monday, the resemblance to Emillie is scary. I found some pictures that are just amazing.
That is all, more to come when sober. XO, Zakk
Charlotte is three this Monday, the resemblance to Emillie is scary. I found some pictures that are just amazing.
That is all, more to come when sober. XO, Zakk
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