An American Cliche in Paris - Part Un

I find myself sitting at an outdoor cafe in Paris watching a host of people pass by. A general mix of tourist and Parisians glance by only to see if the spot I am occupying is taken. 

For a moment I am Parisian, or at least trying. A few things give away my trademark Americanness, least of which are the camera and computer sitting next to me on my small table. Other traits make me somewhat ambiguous. The mix of cafe du lait and Marlboro Lights mix pleasingly and I begin to understand why everyone in Europe smokes. The "I can not be bothered by you..." attitude that accompanies the early morning cafe and smoke helps to keep the true citizens of the city guessing, but I think the real telltale sign is that I am awake. 

It's 9:30, and most marketeers have not even set up shop yet and the ones who have distinctly patronize to the business and older generation that has found the value of the early morning light and lack of tourists. Most of which are either already on their way to a destination, or not yet up from the evenings revelry that begins somewhere around 9:30pm. A far cry from the North American experience of a last call at 1:00am. 

Whatever it is, there seems to be a stamp on my forehead giving me away constantly. At first it bothered me, but now... it almost seems helpful. Defiantly I state my case on my own head, convincing at least myself, that if all the preponderance of being citizens of the world and well traveled, than being somewhat American and making no excuses for it seems the appropriate thing to do. At least that keeps me from being so petrified of the famed Parisian rudeness that I lock myself in my room and refuse to leave for any other reason than to indulge in my longtime weakness for pastries and chocolate. 

Whatever it is, I sit and watch another world pass me by and take comfort in the fact that no matter where I am in the world, I am still me. All the foibles, all the strengths and all the stupidity included. Hey, why not subject it on another country for a while?

The fray

Lying awake in the heat of another dry California night, the ceiling fan doing its best to combat the oppressive airless evening, it takes everything in me to think of reasons not to be concerned with the future. 

In a spectacular display of fireworks and nostalgia, past has collided with the future and is wreaking havoc on my present. A wise woman once told me I have a high need to control. Ha! Tell me something I don't know...

Like the tug of war I feel between coasts, my heart feels the tug of war to decide the undecided out of fear that my fate has already been decided, and round and round the circle goes.

I try so hard to bring tomorrow into today hoping I can cushion the inevitable fall, the inevitable disappointment, the knowledge that eventually I will wake up and be 45, married with a minivan full of kids, another in the long line of cars driving off a cliff of monotony and meaningless existence. 

I want so badly to have someone read the next chapter in my life and tell me what to prepare for. So much for enjoying the journey, I want to read the last page. For the first time in my life I am beginning to understand how fearful I really am.  

An inflated sense of self leads me to the fun-house mirrors of my own power. Distorted, there is a decided exaggeration of either my unimportance, or my power to destroy and basically fuck up. The pressure breaks me too easily. 

Alone, alone in a place of isolation, its much easier to battle the voices. Its much safer for everyone. Others are not subject to the danger of my choices, and I... I am much safer from theirs. My baggage is my own somewhere else. Alone, I can carry it easily, hiding it when necessary, or bringing out for a purpose. When my space is invaded, when I am forced to interact, to speak, to make conversation... to love and be loved, things get complicated. 

How do you involve someone in the push and pull and of my tides? Tides that are less subject to the moon and more subject to the unknown, and thus, much less predictable. I fear taking chances myself so much less than allowing someone to taking a chance on me. I know how insane I am, do they? 

The past keeps pressing in, pulling me back into the fears, the emotions, the inertia of what I used to be, what I once was, what I was able to leave behind.  Like shadows trailing close behind, it continues to remind of the mistakes I barely survived, propelling me to chase the blurry image of the "what-ifs" around every corner. I fight the change I want so bad, fearing where it will take me, what it will require for full expression.

I guess at the end of the day, the hope, the secret hope, buried deep inside, reveals itself in the prayer that who choose to risk are not only aware, but strong enough, stable enough to handle the outcome of betting on the long shot. The grandiose, illusory vision of myself prays that they see the whole picture, and in sober consciousness join the fray.  

Jon Stewart

Today I was studying peacefully trying to wrap my mind around a semesters full of notes when the voice I hate most in the world came to life on my friends computer. "This is the Daily Report..."

My head snapped up as fire burned from my eyes. Immediately my friend's face filled with pure guilt as I she refused to look me in the eye, turning away ever so slightly. 

"I know you hate him, but he is so funny." I continued to stare at her. "It's my guilty pleasure, okay?" I said nothing. "I don't know why I like him so much!" Guilt poured from her face as she looked shamefully down at her computer while Jon made a snide remark regarding what he calls "Baraknephobia." 

Haha... I know you are all laughing as you read this. I know. Cute right? Haha, let's all get in our little laughs. It's so clever and whitty... Oh that silly Jon Stewart....

WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!! This man is all that is WRONG with American media right now. I know, I know, I sound crazy. Let me try and spell this out for you in simple terms, playing it down for you, the same way little Jonny does... 

Jon Stewart is the bro ho that swaggers in wearing chinos and dock shoes with his frat buddies, talking about IPO's and start ups, while women swoon. Eventually he takes you home from the bar, after you pay his and his buddies tab, bangs you in his crappy apartment, telling you he has to be up early for a meeting and with a smile, sends you home in a cab that you end up paying for.  You wake up the next morning all smiles having met this great guy only to realize, after you piece the evening together, that the night cost you $150.00, your pride and conveniently, he forgot to ask you for your number. 

Are we getting the picture yet? 

He is the wolf in sheep's clothing your mother warns you about and your dad tries to spot for you. He's the cool kid that makes you want to be on his team only to convince you to tape the small guy to his locker and while you all laugh, you end up taking the fall when the gym teacher walks in.  

Smart. Very smart. He is making a fool of all of us and no one wants to see it. Who doesn't want to be the best friend of the cool guy? The smart funny guy that isn't the jock, but seems so out of your league. 

Whispering sweet nothings of the evils of anything not liberal, he laughingly convinces you to spread your political legs for the sake of humanity and being "educated" and suddenly you are the whore. 

Of course it's funny to laugh at civil liberties being stripped away! Hahaha, Baraknephobia, what a cute way to convince the world that every conservative out there is a red-necked, uneducated, bigoted fool that beats small children from Africa. Yay!! Let's all join in!!! All he needs now is a theme song that small children sing with an American flag in the background with words something to the effect of:

"The world is full of smart and loving peeeeeeeeoooople, 

and they are called deeeeeemmoocraaaaaaats, 

if you don't like them, you are full of haaaaaaaaaaate! 

La la la, la la la!"

A ditty of a little tune you can't help but sing in the shower.

Oh I admit, he is seductive. He is a sly one for sure. Even I, before I realized what was truly happening, laughed along with the crowd. Then I turned around and looked at the crowd only to realize no one was blinking and everyone laughed at the same time. I immediately stopped laughing.

He makes love to the American public with witticism and coy phrasings, all the while dumbing down information and truth just enough to not be either, convincing everyone they would be much smarter and cooler if they just joined in the laughter at things that really aren't funny. 

I think the amazing thing is how many conservatives I know that just love him. It shocks me. Is there no awareness here?

Ugh! My frustration is just mounting. Between the Jon Stewart's and the Sean Penn's of this world, conservatives don't stand a chance, unless we start paying attention and stop laughing when it isn't funny. 

If we don't, we are just going to continue to be the democrats whore house with Jon's as the pimp with a wink and a smile. 

A Shoulder

The weather mimics my emotions more than I would like to admit. The past few days, the air has been heavy with moisture, thick with impending rain. And as the tempest has built, as has my own.

Today it finally broke. Heavy drops fell unimpeded with no care for time place and schedule of others. Irreverent of who was interrupted and who it inconvenienced, all day, water pounded. A perfect picture of my own tears. When the weather should be nothing but sun and clear blue skies, friendly and inviting, mother nature has found grace with me and is not asking for a false sunny smile.

It's as if God Himself is breathing with me in grief through the shedding of heavy rain, paralleling my own gloom.

The last nine months have been good to me. I have had relative peace, and a soft place to grow. I have been shielded and comforted, a fortress built around me. Repairing has taken place and hope was starting to return in such fragile promising ways. A sweet, sweet time of wooing a heart so battered by the storms of life. No different than others, maybe just slightly less emotionally grounded.

But no child can stay in the womb forever, and my nine months are up. Out into the harsh cold realities of struggle again. Only this time, I am without the walls that had been so carefully constructed before. Gone are the patterns that kept me safe and comfortable in denial, and in place is a thin transparent layer of new flesh having grown over deep wounds. Risk looks so different now, and has much, much bigger losses.

And as the rain inconveniences those around me, so does my own storm throw the balance of relationships. No one says it out right, but lack of grace is hard to miss. For a while, so far and safe from those around me, my emotions ran free. Gone was the bearing of responsibility of my place in the patterns so easily constructed for control and prediction. Like the jarring pain of seeing light for the first time, I have forgotten how to be what others wanted, and the harsh reality hurts again, only this time, I don't have same emotional reserves I once did. Without knowing it, I had let those go in return for feeling something different... me.

I think I have spent my whole life waiting for someone to want to be for me what I have always tried to be for others... what is needed. I think I have always silently wondered if one day, one time, someone would let me cry on their shoulder, and require nothing in return, hoping that what I was in that moment was okay. That it did not need to be fixed, I did not need to be okay, that, whoever they were, they would be strong enough, if only for a moment, to burden bear with me. To stay present and say "It hurts, and it may always hurt, and you may never get better, but that's okay, because right where you are right now, and exactly who you are in this moment, is perfect and okay, and I am not going to leave you, and you don't need to change."

But as is all of life, what we want is not always what we receive, and thus, as the rain continues to pour, I do the only thing I can. Pray. It may be too much to ask that of someone, or maybe I just expect too much, but either way, anything less would just break what little I have left, so instead, I ignore my phone, turn off the TV, and write. At least the page has no expectations, even if it neither yields grace. In this moment, the absence of someone else's needs is my grace. If at least for the few moments I have alone.

Please don't stop raining heavy sky. Lament with me for just another hour or so. Mirror my heart so at least a small fraction of peace may be had. Cry for me while I sleep, and grieve in my place so I may be dreamless if only for one night. And maybe you, stormy night, can be my shoulder, your weeping my solace, your neutral grey my grace.

The Unexplainable

The beat to the song I am listening to is slightly faster than I would like, but I guess that fits more than I would like to admit. It's a two four sort of beat that leads one to dance moves that are usually only appropriate in dirty dancing films. 

I have spent most of the last few days pondering questions I am still not sure appropriate. Like the moves I envision dancing playing to this song and beat, I keep wondering if I am entering somewhat dangerous territory. 

Everyday I wake up thinking I have a picture of You that is not only accurate, but relatable. The problem is, the more I live my life and the more I experience that which is off the grid, the more I realize, You... You must be more than I bargained for. 

My daily readings from the application I downloaded in a whimsical moment of justifying myself, have been of Ecclesiastes. "Nothing new under the sun..." right? It's as though the author is constantly reminding us, and himself for sake of a better audience, that nothing is original, nothing is new, nothing is shocking and noteworthy. And while that brings a great amount of comfort (since I cannot shock You the way I shock myself), I realize that original thought is moot point. 

I have spent a great amount of time pondering You, wondering if I could somehow see something that someone else missed... guess not. 

Incontroversally (a word I just made up), I realize that must mean You are a concept that has been over and over again worked, mollified, broken, worked again, taken to the enth degree, envisioned, foregone, forsaken, created, discredited, and worked again. 

An Entity that created the human mind and body, yet exists outside of the imagination of even the most crazed frustratingly hindered minds. 

As I twist in a U-turn that creates a 45 degree angle plus a right angle and then a slight left on Fst... wait... what? I laugh as I realize, there is no map that will contain You. 

I have a picture, a vision I keep tucked away. I version of perfection I think You may be. Then I realize it is so, so, so, so short. A million books, poems, pictures can never contain You, yet we never stop trying. 

And not for the sake of a reason... how, how are we to relate? So far from the Eden we were meant for, we swim in a lake that is a poor exception to the endless ocean You are. Yet the Eden that still exists in me continues to ask... Who are You?

I beg for a greater picture, for a glimpse of Your backside that won't take the last breath I know. Until then... I will continue to snicker at the foolish and silently partake in the endless cycle of those that believe in the unbelievable... A world with the Unexplainable.

You.