Daily drive and motivation. I lost it. In the war. Against myself.
I haven't written a lick. Haven't strummed a guitar. Haven't even written a full sentence with my hands and ink, let alone given my John Handcock. Haven't touched dirt with gardening intentions, or even swam for more than 5 minutes in the torquoise sea.
I've collected some money to my name and the last however many weeks have passed. That's all they've done. Commuted from some date in July to today. A one-way non-refundable train ride without windows. The seat wasn't paticularly comfortable either, but at least there was some good literature to accompany the indeterminable passage of time.
So is it fair for me to write Persistance as a worthwhile pursuit? Hence the question mark.
A challenge, to myself, to persist. But I struggle writing this. I'd much prefer picking up my Murakami novel and flying through it like I did the last one. Getting lost in his digressions and metaphors, slipping with his characters into the dark and mystical undercurrents hiding below the surface of an ordinary existence. Or watching another Paul Newman movie, where he was young and honorably stubborn, often making a fool of himself, until the end, where he becomes both the hero and the butt of the joke, usually dying.
This post isn't for you, it's for me. And I don't understand why I should publish it. Maybe that is my mode of choosing to persist. If I left it with my countless other word documents, it would remain there, occasionally finding it's way out of the cyber cave when I reopen it months or years later in a reflective mood.
I've been living pretty fully in the present, but not doing much. Zen like? Maybe. Productive? Hell no. With purpose? Doubtful.
What have I discovered? Only what I've known. But a hypothesis remain just that until tested. I've quit my day job, which has turned into a night job. Slaving in front of a 800+ degree oven 6 nights a week, with a few doubles tossed here and there, I'm getting a little burnt out on it, har har.
One Dance
The kiave wood burns to coals,
smoke escapes into the caverns
of our all-to visceral lives
The straw hut compacts the flame
twisting it naturally
into its formless shape
Like our minds,
one door to enter and exit
we balance passion, warmth, exhaustion
And with sweaty hands
we blur comprehension
while gaining clarity
in the red glowing center
One birth, one dance, one death
it is time we stoked the fire once more
This is the end, my only friend, the end. Thank you for your wisdom Jim. 5 more nights left in front of that oven. But I'll perservere and await the end only to start over again.
Then a proper week of vacation since... last September? Oh yeah, the family is visiting too. And afterwards I'm going back to the farm and moving to Hana! Hana farms! Hopefully will be doing some work in Kipahulu back at my old job here and there, helping run the wood-fire pizza oven on Friday and Saturday nights, baking banana bread and doing some gardening and landscaping on the property too. If this isn't the answer to me feeling more like my previously happier self, then maybe a jewish boy from new york wasn't meant to spend the rest of his 22nd year on Maui.
Well, Time will tell. And Time will conceal.
Off to watch some Westerns and read some more Murakami,
Matthew
