Lately

 

Today's writing

“The conference should be something,” my father said, then laughed. “But I can’t really tell you what.” 

It was a running joke between us, but it wasn’t really a joke. His security clearance was so high that he wasn’t allowed to tell us the majority of what he did – besides the umbrella theme of GPS – so we never knew exactly how he earned his money. We only knew that he did, and that we were subject to his whims and wills because of it. 

Still, I felt a dash of pride. “You’ve really built a career for yourself,” I said. “That’s awesome.” “Yes,” he said, and dark clouds passed over his eyes. “and you haven’t.”

Yesterday's writing

But I’m safe right now, in this singular second, and for the time being that’s sufficient. I haven’t yet started to play the long game in life, to see further than my own breath. I live in snippets and slices, rock-hopping from one harbor to the next.

Carly Simon, "You're So Vain"

But you gave away the things that you love
And one of them was me

Today's writing

My father was twenty-seven when I was born; my mother was twenty-four. They’d been trying to conceive for three years, so even my rotten math leads me to believe they were hellaciously young when they first started. Looking at pictures of them from that time makes me wonder what the fuck? Why did you bother? They had smiles set in concrete, eyebrows that confided worries. Nothing about this wooden couple spelled parental desire. 

“It was your father’s idea,” my mother once told me, mouth working around a lit cigarette. She thought she hid the habit from my father, as if he couldn’t smell the secondhand smoke, see the nicotine stains that dotted the walls. “I don’t want you to take that the wrong way. I don’t mind having kids. You can be useful. You can sometimes be fun. But I wanted to – I don’t know, go to India or something.” 

When I pointed out that she still could do it, she shook her head. 

“You know, you go from Point A to Point B, and it cuts off options.” 

“You’re saying because you had us, you now can’t travel?” 

“I lost my touch,” she said, and locked down her lips.

We watch the momentum. We watch the activity of mind from the stillness of being. ... The stillness emerges as a function of nonentanglement. - Will Kabat-Zinn

Unreal

I haven't commented much on the world situation because what the fuck can I say that hasn't already been said? I'm fucking scared. I was talking to Adam about it this morning and he kind of shrugged. "We're fine," he said.

Really? Are we?