As I Lay Dying

Recently I've thought of my presence in New Orleans as ill-fitting.  I watch myself interacting with locals as a visitor.  I see women at bars as unapproachable--somehow removed from whatever my plane is...  I look at all this dripping beauty through a temporary gaze; here, I am not a part of the land.  As I walk down the sidewalk on my way to my coffee shop, I see cracks in the pavement.  And whereas identical pavement cracks once stood out to me in Seattle and even in Walla Walla as some sort of natural spite against the world, here they merely exist.  I am growing here... learning from my inhibitions and my setbacks and my strengths and my triumphs, but there is a lingering in my mind of my fitting into this place as a circle might fit inside of a square; there is an unconquerable void around my edges.

Addie Bundren's passage in Faulkner's As I Lay Dying is one wrought with regret.  She presents her reasons for marrying her pathetic husband, for birthing her troubled children...  but far beyond that, she gives us a disposition that strikes me as fundamentally pertaining to my life right now.

She recalls:

"He had a word, too.  Love, he called it.  But I had been used to words for a long time.  I knew that that word was like the others: just a shape to fill a lack; that when the right time came, you wouldn't need a word for that anymore than for pride or fear."

And of course, throughout my education and until today, I've thought of words as little tools to be used for the sake of conveying those feelings we have but cannot explain, those moments we know but cannot understand.  Words have always, then, been the survivors; they've been the vehicles behind my shining moments of truly being able to acknowledge those deepest feelings I've felt.

But in this passage, Addie makes things simpler.  In her view, the triumph of words is always secondary to the triumph of feeling, the triumph of existing.  It is as though, for her, words like "love" and "fear" exist as consolation prizes, substitutes for the true experiences we face, the true emotions we feel, and the true existences we endure.  They are, then, ill-fitting...  because the truth is, for her, that if we have a word that perfectly describes our moment, then we are not truly feeling our moment at all.  Rather, we are filling some square void with a circular substitute...  we are filling a lack of reason with an excuse...  we are filling the void left by an emotion with some lifeless explanation...

for me, though, the image of the circle ill-fitting into a square of equal diameter is reductive.  For how often do we recognize that the deeper we look into our lives, the more complex our lives become.  If we narrow down, for instance, the root of a personal issue to a comprehension of "love," do we not, then, find many different facets that make up our "love"?  That is to say, once our circle has "ill-fitted" into our  emotional or sensual square, doesn't that square then morph into a pentagon?  A hexagon?  An octagon? etc.  And etc...  And the beauty of this is that as this exterior shape continues to grow in terms of angles, our "circle," our "understanding,"  touches more and more surfaces of this exterior shell.  And yet, with those increasing moments of contact between our verbal circle and out experiential shape, we also find an equally increasing number of gaps in between understanding and void, between sensation and description...  between being and the means by which we understand our being...


...does this leave us feeling weak or empowered?  This, I think, is the beauty of Faulkner.  He presents to us this question with such a natural ease that we must confront our growing understanding with our growing confusion, and vice versa.  He gives us a slap in the face while commemorating us...  He gives us the strength to find our own beauty as we writhe in our own despairing mirth...

and vice versa.


There are two different kinds of "good vs. bad" writer; there those who label individuals and "good" and "bad," and then there are those who present the conflict of "good vs. bad" internally within each individual.  This seems almost intuitive.  But even those dumbed down and dualistic presentations of good vs. bad that we see in, for example, comic book stories, provide the reader with an interpretation of good vs. bad that registers on an internal and personal level, one that can only be understood by someone with the understanding that, within them, both "good" and "bad" exist...  in a sense, then, the fight between good vs. evil exists within all of us.  And I think we all understand this pretty well.

But why, then, do we always want to convince ourselves that we are good?  Why do people have such an urge to take these artists' representations of good and bad (and our understandings of their works) and process them in a way that eventually makes each one of us "good"?  I know this seems like a simple question.  But the answer, too often, is too reductive and, frankly, naive.



Within all of us exists the understanding that with each growth and new contact between our verbal or comprehensive circles and our world's shapes, we are experiencing a simultaneous growth of gaps between our different points of knowledge...  the more we know, the less we know, and etc.  We've heard that before.


But if this is true, why do we fight so hard to convince others that our way is the correct way?  That our vision of the world is the clearest view?  Most importantly, why do we work so hard to convince ourselves that somehow, innately, we've ended up on "the good side"?


I think that we are all wrong just as often as we are all correct.

and vice versa.

Recently I've been losing a part of myself that once felt intrinsic.  I once saw serendipity as not just inevitable, but essential.  I once saw purpose or meaning in gaps and voids, in coincidence and chance; I believed myself connected with my surroundings in an inexplicable sense.  And it was a sense, for that's from where faith blossoms: the senses.  

It is uncommon for me, these days, to find the serendipitous where most might find coincidence.  I find myself corked, choked...  the very senses that are meant to guide us have faded into a secondary relevance, one that follows the guidance of my constant and thirsty desire for home, reminiscence, my past, and above all, safety.  I must force myself out of what shelters I've created in order to experience something new, in order to place importance (necessity) on the gorgeous opportunities facing me every day.  And I rarely gather strength enough to get myself there.  ...I'd rather find refuge, shelter, isolation.  

I moved to New Orleans.  And in itself, that was a kind of risk.  I wasn't sure what I'd feel and what I'd miss and for what I'd yearn.  

When people encounter anything, they are faced with a choice.  It is an option to either find importance or find the lack thereof.  Always.  We are always floating down a river.  And I don't want to call it time.  But whatever it is, you can struggle against the current or you can swim with the current or you can just sit in your raft and float with everything.  Lately I've felt like I'm just a guy standing on the riverbank, watching the river flow without him.  

I think of the image of a young boy stomping his boots into a puddle of water.  This is where I find myself against this New Orleans culture...  but I undoubtedly am the puddle.  ...Whereas I once (and over and over again) was taught to think that my actions were the puddle-makers, that I was the young boy, I now feel like I am the puddle, like I am the toy of some greater agency that decides for me how high I will travel, how far I will fly, for how long I might settle.  

And what can I do with this?  Not only am I lost, but I see the flow of those who are found passing right in front of my eyes.  Something beautiful: even as a bystander on the riverbank, I am still brought down with the flow of my own unique stream, of my own personal river...  

But the beauty lies in the fact that every time I am jumped upon, every time this still foreign culture jumps upon me, I have a choice of how far the droplets of my personality and my being will fly.  Even in the moments of absolute submission, there is still a choice to be made:  how will I react?  How will I act upon this act?  How will I prepare for the next puddle-stomp?  

My fingers have always been fat.  I am losing the hair on top of my head.  I attempt to write almost every day.  I am afraid of the greatness that I know I can (and still want to) achieve.  I look in the mirror every morning and see my face, looking back at me, questioning whether or not this loneliness is a part of the puddle or a part of the boots that disrupt it.  I am kinder now than I once was.  I am quieter.  I am less ambivalent to the active things, I am less action-oriented towards the quiet things...  There is a flow in me that I can't stop, and yet there is a seemingly immovable constant in me that I wish to kick-start; I am a man of unstoppable potential, and I am a boy of unvanquished innocence...  there will never be a precise meeting of these different people that I am, there will only be a time when I know how much force against or for I want to propel against the river of my life.  There will only be a time when the flow of things becomes my happiness, and vice versa.  There may be a time when I, myself, am a river, flowing through my culture and my life with an unstoppable force...  or there may just be submission.  

But I exist in this world.  

  

I Thought That I Do

One excellent thing about working as a server in a restaurant is that you get to spy on people.  All sorts of people eat out at restaurants, and you get to talk to them.  And keep an eye on them, and play a very voyeuristic role in the production of their meal.   You see them create their own atmosphere upon arrival, you see them make decisions, and you see them undertaking in an undeniably huge moment of pleasure: taking the first bite of a delicious looking meal.  Of course, people who work at restaurants where the food isn't good might not understand that last part.   

To do your job well, you've got to be paying very close attention to the people you're serving.  And this gives you a glimpse, whether your like it or not, into some intimate part of those people.  

The other evening I served a couple who revealed, at one point, their ages of 85 and 85.  And no, they didn't show me that love lasts or something.  What they showed me, I think, was much better...  They sat through most of their meal in silence, looking around at the decorations on my restaurant's wall.  They were very polite, and gave me (quite obviously) that look that older people sometimes give.  The best translation for this look is: "yeah, you're young.  And you're doing this.  And I get it."  This look manifests in one of two ways: it can either accompany a smirk or a smile...  and this smile is one of the most beautiful faces a person can make.  

They loved their food, and they made sure to tell me all about the different ways in which they loved it.  I occasionally witnessed them as they took bites and relished what they experienced and were about to experience.  

Each of these bites was a new moment, a new recognition, a new appreciation, and a new acquaintance with their food.  Everything was new.  And after they had finished their meal, and we'd all spoken cheerfully about how the restaurant used to be a bar which used to be a gas station (for they'd been in the same neighborhood their entire marriage, and had been to all these places,) I noticed an unmistakable look on both of their faces.  It showed through their smiles, It emanated past their full and reclining bodies.  It was youth, and I'm sure of it.  

I remember telling others in high school that I would "never grow up."  It seemed, at times, that I told this to others because I'd grown tired of telling the same thing to myself in the mirror.  Because it's easy to look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself in your head that you are always going to be something.  And most times I look in the mirror, I've prepared myself for the arrival of the image of my face, even if just milliseconds before.  And then, sometimes, I see myself in a reflection without having prepared myself, and I'm shocked.  I can see myself there, in that memory that we all have, finding my reflection  jumping as though it has been caught.

The only mirror in my apartment is in my bathroom.  Each trip to the bathroom involves a look in the mirror, and these are (for the most part--not to discount my trips to other bathrooms) my only moments of looking in the mirror.  And I cherish these small moments throughout the day.  And of course this sounds awfully narcissistic, but it isn't out of a vanity or hollow self-indulgence that I enjoy these moments.   I appreciate them for being those times I really retreat into myself...  perhaps nobody else does (not likely, I think) but I always say words to myself when I see myself in the mirror in the bathroom...  I always greet myself with something.  Sometimes it is as though I'm asking myself permission for something, important only because of my eye contact with myself, and yet seemingly unavoidable...  

That part of me that insists "you will never grow up" exists every time I look in the mirror.  It might not have the tangible benefits for me as, say, getting a tattoo of the cover of Where the Sidewalk Ends, but it is there.  And while I used to see only my youth, I now have a constant voice telling my face in and out of the mirror that "I have grown up."

And sometimes this is sad.  Sometimes it is wonderful.  But it is always in contrast to the other voice, the one that insists eternal youth.  

And that latter voice, it exists in me more presently and noticeably in my day to day life than the "I have grown up" voice.  Because I sense things...  because I learn to know things...  because I enjoy food, and Andre champagne, and playing my video games, and saying hello to strangers, and moves...  everything I enjoy is a part of my youth.  Furthermore, everything I feel reiterates my youth.  And as long as I am alive, I will have that youth.  And this gives me one reason to be satisfied.  With my choices, with my impulses, with my routines, with my faults, with my strengths...  

But then that other part of me...  it is so strong at times.  When I realize that I've left things and people, and that I've been left by things and people, this side of me is so strong...  it is the all encompassing of the past over the present...  the slowly degenerative state like that of a vegetable left too long on a kitchen counter.  

But.  If these are two sides competing or, hopefully, coexisting, I might side with the view of me who knows that as long as life is happening, youth is happening...  pleasure and happiness are existing.  And if I do, won't I see that even moments of dissatisfaction--those that promise nothing but an aging past--are always accompanied by a youthful movement towards an impulse of feeling, towards a decision, or (perhaps best of all) towards something about which I know nothing?  

A Pale View of Hills

My parents, Shari and Otto Klein, live life moment to moment.  Whether or not they notice it or feel it is irrelevant.  They exude a kind of joy over certain things that I rarely feel...  it is a combination of understanding a moment, feeling a moment, and loving a moment that, for me, comes only in the most extreme of times; my mother's exclamation that she's thrilled I found a job, my father's guiding my attention towards an almost impossible coincidence of seemingly different circumstances...  these things, for them,  demand not only an intense attention, but a kind of rejoicing moment, a moment of thankfulness and pride that we are alive, that I am alive because of them, and that, in some intangible way, they are alive because of me and my family.

I envy this.  For I feel so much adoration for them, so much pride in the fact that I love everyone in my family and that they all love me...  but I am always coated in a sort of confusion that constantly disables me...  it leads me to selfishness, to eternally deep questions about whether or not I'm worthy of them, whether or not I'm capable of making and staying with and cherishing my own family (someday), and whether or not I can find a peace with my life that they have both appeared to have found.  

The cherry on top of my confusion is the fact that my parents have such immense faith in me.  They seem to understand that I will do great things--great for myself, great for others, great in general--and yet I remain this lost soul, this confused son who treads deep swamp waters in New Orleans and knows almost nothing (after 23 years of experience) of himself.  

On my final night in Seattle we went out to a bar.  We drank and ate and my parents and one of my brothers (and his wonderful fiance, Jane) gave me advice about my life.  They told me such wonderful things, that I am capable of so much, and that I can achieve so much...  my father asked me what my dream job was, and there wasn't a glint in his eyes so much as there was a piece of his eyes that implied how confident he was that I could achieve this "life."   

At some point, I couldn't hold my tears any longer.  I was so overwhelmed by the prospects of my future that I began crying... and it wasn't because of my family: it was because I have no idea what my future might hold.  Acting, writing, teaching, hosting, talking, loving... these are all things I can do, and some of them quite well, I might add...  but I was feeling lost.  And I think this disorientation came from an idea that I just don't know... that I just can't think of my future because I'm so God Damned confused about my present.  

New Orleans is an astounding place...  it confuses me every day.  It thrills me every day.  It provokes me every day.  It inspires me every day.  And it depresses me every day.  

There is nothing I can do about the impulses I feel towards this city, and they are certainly many and sometimes seemingly crucial...  people here have a defeatism that dances with their optimism, a punishment that teams with their celebration...  and I find myself so utterly lost in the midst of it that I don't know about what I am hopeful, happy, alive, versus what makes me dread, despise, avoid... and perhaps this is a beautiful confusion.  

So why can't I just be?  Why can't I feel a sort of appreciation for my present as opposed to a dread or ecstasy towards my future?  Is it because I am too young?  Is it because I am too hopeful?  Is it because I am too defeatist?  

The final paragraph of "A Pale View of Hills" brought me so many memories and so many thoughts...  it is a woman saying goodbye to her child as she moves back to her home.  The child will travel back to London and the woman will remain in a small and simple house in Japan: 

"I would like to have seen her to the railway station -- it is only a few minutes walk -- but the idea seemed to embarrass her.  She left shortly after lunch with an oddly self-conscious air, as if she were leaving without my approval.  The afternoon had turned grey and windy, and I stood in the doorway as she walked down to the end of the drive.  She was dressed in the same tight-fitting clothes she had arrived in, and her suitcase made her drag her step a little.  When she reached the gate, Niki glanced back and seemed surprised to find me still standing at the door.  I smiled and waved to her." 

The main character, the mother, has (as other characters in the book have) seen such beauty in the youth, in her daughter, and has demonstrated a sort of deference towards the young...  but there is a tone throughout the book of a kind of missed opportunity...  it comes not from the passing of a distinguished prompt...  rather, it comes from a young person ignorant of the glory that is their present surroundings.  And I can't help but read it with the assumption that I have ignored my "present" surroundings.  

I remember those times waving goodbye to my parents as I drove away from home.  And I remember them standing, just as Etsuko does in "A Pale View of Hills," at the front of the house, waving goodbye to me.  Just the other week, as I entered SEA-TAC airport, both of my parents hugged me goodbye and waved as I entered whatever void it was I entered...

And I wonder to myself, am I appreciating these moments as my parents are?  We are always taught to live in the moment, to be aggressive (rather than passive) in the pursuit of our dreams, to make our lives happen rather than to live our lives... but how on Earth can I truly know that this is what I'm doing?  

There is a kind of understanding that comes with age that none of us can understand.  And our lack of understanding only aids in its beauty.  Of course I know that as I leave my parents at the airport something beautiful is happening; it is a reflection of love, a reflection of blood, a reflection of being.  But where am I as I step onto the plane?  Empty--longing--alone... 

When someone tells you to live "in the present" you assume a sort of responsibility on your part, and rightly so.  But we, for the most part, are wrong; we assume that to "live in the present" means to make things happen, to take risks, to bend our own boundaries...  and to an extent, these expectations are legitimate...  for often the most beautiful things in our lives are created through the most unexpected areas and times...

We have a tendency to turn our lives into a plethora of exchanges; we turn our actions and beliefs into currency that can be exchanged for something new or preserved for a future benefit.  I feel almost corrupted by this idea...  for why do we feel the need to excavate some meaning or beauty from every moment for the purpose of something to come?  When someone tells me to live my life to the fullest (as everyone is doing from pre-school on...) I feel a sort of requirement to meet an expectation, when perhaps the requirement doesn't exist.  

I'm not sure what compels me to do certain things here in New Orleans, and I'm not sure what compels everyone else to do what they do...  but I know that I tend to place too much importance on the future, on my own future, on my own future-life.  What if my "future-life" is my "present-life"?  What if I find just as much importance in my day to day encounters as my parents do in their encounters with me?  My parents have worked their entire lives to make my life something beautiful (and of course, the lives of my siblings, and their own lives).  But what if all of their children had become drug-addicted low-lives?  Would their lives have been failures?  Of course not.  

I'd love to change the saying "live life moment to moment" from an incentive to action to an incentive to just fucking relax...  to an incentive to appreciate the moment in which one lives rather than to waste time preparing for that eternally elusive moment in which one might live in the future.  

As we sometimes forget: we are all making decisions and making plans in a time in our lives where we all still feel, we all still hope, we all still regret...  when we die, is there some test we take to make sure we've made the right decisions, to ensure we've made all of ourselves that we could possibly have made?  Of course not.  

There is only the clear or tainted, neglected or appreciated understanding of what we have.