Writing
Tabula Not Raza
I am not sure I exist, actually. I am all the writers I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.~Jorge Luis Borges As any engaged parent of multiple children can attest, being born with a Tabula Raza, a blank slate […]
Mental Masturbation
I want to run, I want to hide \ I wanna tear down the walls that hold me inside / I wanna reach out and touch the flame \ … \ I wanna feel sunlight on my face \ I see that dust cloud disappear without a trace \ I wanna take shelter from the […]
Conscious Dreaming
Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night.~Edgar Allen Poe I rarely dream at night. At least, I recall very few nights swathed in dreams which does not mean I did not dream only that the awake and sleeping mind failed to connect unconscious dreaming […]
Prospecting for Revelation
For myself, all my life a prospector, I was prospecting for revelation.~Edward Abbey I spend what most people would consider an inordinate amount of wasted time writing words that will only ever be read by me. I have dozens of notebooks filled to overflowing with my musings many of which have made their way into […]
Chasing Alternate Realities
I find myself slowly but surely divesting of human encumbrances, letting them fall away as leaves depart the ancient, broad leaf tree come autumn and the shortening days. I think it is my soul prepping my mind for the long rest, the perpetual sleep. Like many of my profound thoughts, this one manifested in my […]
Words Are Sacred
When words were first shaped into sacred bundles and placed on altars of earth and stone we made prayers of thanksgiving.~N. Scott Momaday There are few, if any, elementally sacred existences in this world than words with their ability to communicate complexities irrespective of the languages made audible by speach or visible with scratched marks. […]
A Daunting Emptiness
Is there anything more daunting to a writer as a blank page, to a painter as a virgin canvas? The sculptor works with a block of stone with the goal of releasing the being within. Whereas the blank page or virgin canvas are simply voids. The being released is the soul of the writer or […]
The Sea She is Raging
She is ragin’, she is ragin’And the storm blows up in her eyesShe will suffer the needle chillShe’s running to stand still.~U2 Polar opposite to the tranquil sea comprising my external demeanor, a demeanor frequently mistaken as stoic, disinterested, and even once lacking in enthusiasm which cost me a job in New Mexico, my soul […]
How Long Will I Wear A Mask?
In the beginning I wrote to conceal myself. I wanted to stay far from my writing, withdraw into the background. I preferred to hide between the lines, a disguised, oblique presence.~Jhumpa Lahiri My earliest writings were an attempt to make sense of a challenging life season with the goal of excising an internal torment slowly […]
Exile By Choice
Those who don’t belong to any specific place can’t, in fact, return anywhere. The concepts of exile and return imply a point of origin, a homeland.~Jhumpa Lahiri I used to proudly belong to a place. Belonging, for a long time, gave me a measure of comfort, a sense of safety, a bed worn precisely to […]
The Imposter
He who claims to be sure of something for which there is no evidence is a fool, and he who acts on the basis of what cannot be proved is an imposter. ~Han Fei I desperately want to be an artist, to be recognized by the public as a creator of art, to be inextricably […]
Cultivating Sacred Spaces
A sacred place is an absolute necessity for anybody today. You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to […]
I Write Therefore I Exist…I Think
My life is created as I narrate, and my memory grows stronger with writing; what I do not up in words on a page will be erased by time.~Isabel Allende I think I am therefore I am…I think. Doesn’t work for me. How about…I write therefore I exist…I think. One might argue existence must precede […]
To Not Create Is to Die
Destroy the idea you gotta be good at artistic things to enjoy them, that every hobby has to become something you’re so good at, you can monetize it. A capitalist lie. Sing offkey, draw badly. Life is meant to be enjoyed, not monetized. You’re NOT a product.~Jen is #redforkashmir For the first time in decades, […]
Bestowing and Receiving Compassion
My goal was never again to feel desire, or pain, or any other kind of vulnerability.~Amy Irvine Part of my reading (or other information intake) process is to record turns of phrase that capture my attention. A joy of Kindle reading is those phrases I would otherwise painstakingly record by hand in a digital or […]
Highest Honors
When people read his books they have an uncontrollable desire to hang the author in the town square. I can’t think of a higher honor for a writer.~Roberto Bolaño History is littered with the graves of writers involuntarily paying the ultimate price for exposing the corruptness of the powerful in exchange for immortality. If not […]
Reality Gaps
We interpret Life at moments of deepest desperation.~Roberto Bolaño I’ve been delving into life, my life, societal life regularly, consistently, persistently for more than a decade. This reality is captured in more than three thousand blog posts, hundreds more musings never escaping their original paper prison, and countless more stuck in dank, dark, mental catacombs […]
Train Without Passengers
Writing this musing without a quote at the top of the page to seed my brain with a destination of flowering. Where will this go? A straight path? A twisted path? A rabbit trail into the depths to visit Alice and shink ten sizes smaller? Without a shining star to set a direction, how will […]
House Painted with Words
He felt…the weight of the Sun on his head and hands.~N. Scott Momaday I wonder, on this April Fool’s Day 2021, if I am a fool for believing I could ever be a legit writer, someone paid for their work, even earning a paltry sum for the short book I self-published to Amazon, Kindle format, […]
Another Blog Book for the Annals
This is the end, beautiful friendThis is the end, my only friend ~The Doors It is with a mixture of joy and sorrow that I approach the final pages of each of my blog books. I freehand my blogs in multi-hued inks before migrating them to electronic media. I befriended the current blog book on […]
Musings of a Middle Aged Man 