Scrutinized

I've always liked to observe people but somehow never really realized I am too an object of someone else's gazes.

The more I read D's journal, the more I feel that he kept watching me, with his cool blue eyes, constantly reassessing me and modifying his image of me.  (how unnerving!)

He knew my weaknesses and frailty like a railway track knows the old train whistles - he probably sensed that he couldn't trust me with his heavy load, or maybe he thought I would break. (I wouldn't have, would I?)

Now I'm haunted by his unuttered cries.

Here we go

OK.  I can't go on like this, keeping one side in shadow.  It'll be hard but I think D deserves recognition of his fear and isolation, what he was carrying along for so long.  I believe this also will help me putting things behind.
1994 and 95 were the hardest years for him, I think: just found out his illness and was away from home (we were in Japan).

Ready?  An entry in '95.
_________________________________________________
No one can pick me up, patch me up.  Boy. Boy,
funny boy, sad boy.  I spin me round, I look at the sky.
My disease is warm in my belly like a baby in the womb.
I want to work, work, make some mark before I die.
The tumbling innumerable births and deaths in me, in the spinning world.
_________________________________________________

Snow Again

Again, New Yorkers had to wade through knee-high snow to get to work this morning.  Many people were annoyed and complained about the difficulty commuting.

At one point today at work, I opened an email message from the building manager - it was one of those boring, routine notices to all the tenants.  At the end of the message, though, Tony, the manager, said,

"Enjoy the snow."

Damn straight, I thought. 

To his father

Excerpt from D's journal in 1995.

_________________________
The first person who taught me anything about looking at paintings was my father.  When we went to museums he would send me running through the galleries with specific missions; find "impasto".  What's that tree?  That's a "framing device".

To his mother

An excerpt from D's journal in 1995.
________________________________________________
Whenever I write I assume that what I write will be read.  The idea of a diary, a personal journal of innermost thoughts, to be read by no one, seems pointless to me.  As the child in toilet training must think, why take a crap if there's nobody there to appreciate it?

So I write with an audience in mind.  The standard I try to maintain is the standard that my mother, no nonsense literary critic that she is, has taught me.  Be succinct, be witty.  Maintain a style.  I can't say I've done that in this book.
________________________________________________

(I secretly hope this will justify my putting his private stuff in front of an audience, though small.)

Old Guilt

I just came back from a run.

Running does strange thing - after a while you forget that you are running, and that's the time buried thoughts float up to the surface like bubbles from a river bottom.  And pop! came an image, of Prospect Park, Autumn 2007.   D and I are sitting on a bench side by side eating apples and watching families strolling about.  Next to me is a pile of books from the library. 

That was a strange moment that I felt death around us, though at the time I couldn't name it.  It was more like a thin haze or dust collecting and separating us from the rest of the crowd in the park.  I wonder if that was a lingering note I sensed from what D had been touched by.  I wonder what he was seeing, sitting on the bench in the chilly Autumn afternoon. 

Be Truthful

I know yesterday's post was a bad one.  What was I doing, trying to be cute?
      Stop decorating.
      Be objective.
      Describe texture.
      Present images, not emotion.


After work I went to an art gallery in Chelsea, to see photographs by Todd Hido.  Those of empty dirt roads and motel rooms were just breathtaking.

Some shots were probably taken from inside a car, through the windshield wet with rain.  One of them:  a dead end of a dirt road, exposed by the head lights.  Tall, disturbed weeds stand thick in the center of the circular lights, and a road sign shines back with intense yellow, suggesting the driver's fright inside the car.

America's vast loneliness oozed out of those photographs and I was wrapped around by it.  I hope my words were able to show you a little hint of what his prints had given me.  I hope you and I can go see them together in February.

No Way!

"No Way!"
Suddenly a voice sounds in my head. It must be this angry little creature living inside me because I do know that he's DEAD and I'm here alone - over the past 1,000 days I never saw him.

This thing springs up out of nowhere when least expected, like I'm in a meeting at work or lying in a dentist's chair. Stomping its feet, it cries, "Impossible!"
"How could you accept it?"
The shriek pierces my chest and drains my breath, but I know it will quickly lose its power.

The next moment, with a little whine the creature shrinks and disappears.
The room is bright with the soft Winter sunlight again.

Where the dead exists

People say the dead will live within the loved ones or alongside them. I don't believe that as much as I want to believe, but the evidence of his existence is here and keeps living with me.

One of those things is a wash cloth, with which I helped him rub off bandage scum from his arm, when he came home from a few-day hospital stay in December 07. The cloth has a spot where gray dots of adhesive stuff stuck on the fiber. It's still sticky when I touch it today, and I wonder if that is permanent, as long as the cloth stays intact. (I don't know why I keep it - is it called obsession?)

Some of other places he still exists in are: my cell phone, Yahoo e-mail, database of some fundraisers, who occasionally send him an invitation to donate. Oh, Netflix too. I keep hiding behind his name when I rate movies.

A man and his car

This is an entry on D's journal in 1995, when we lived in Japan.
__________________________________________

There's a guy in our building who is very neurotic about his car. K and I sometimes see him in the parking lot at night, just sitting in the car. Other times he obsessively polishes it. This morning at 7:00 am, I was standing on the balcony looking at the sun rise when I saw him come out of the building and approach his car. Then he stopped dead.

On the hood of the car was a tremendous white blot of bird shit. He must have stood there a full thirty seconds, taking in the horror of it. Finally he opened the car door, took out a rag and cleaned it off, but not before first wiping the dew off of all windows and the side mirrors.

It's little moments like these that for some reason, really make my day.

Mini-illusion

This picture has been on our living room wall for years.
I love it from the day one to now; I never get tired of looking at it.
As I stare, very very slowly the clouds rise and the ledges give way, almost revealing something beyond them, like I'm driving a car heading to these hills. It's a mini-illusion I can get lost in, for a few seconds. It works every time.

I often wondered if D had gone over the ledges in this picture, and the thought gave me comfort.

HAPLESS

From D's notebook. (around 2001)


HAPLESS

3 guys break into the home of a single mother in Flushing with two kids, young kids.

2 of the guys force the woman outside into her mini-van. They want to take her to an ATM to get cash. They leave the one guy to guard the kids. A neighbor smells something fishy and calls 911. The police pursue the van into Manhattan. Meanwhile guy 3 is left there in Queens with kids.

GUY 3's DECISION:
"Fuck man they ain't comin' back."
He takes them to a bus stop. He leaves. His two friends are caught. He is still on the loose.

--- I think this was from a news -I vaguely remember him talking about it.

.

It's a New Year,

and the ground under my feet is firm again.

I will not cry on a subway,
I will not keep your tooth brush,
I will not search your name on internet,
I will not count the days,
any more.