Parterns
Excitement at your feet, gazing at you. Cold and in view.
I am cold and in view, here, downtown Ishpeming.
I feel the tingling of my extremities,my pinky and ring finger, with numbness, loss of sensation. It is so rare to be able to look at my body, my face, realistically, to see the form for what it is and what I’ve allowed it to become. Illness is one facet of this, for sure, but how many traits can be identified by their genetic determinants? Behavioral aspects of our phenotype raise controversial questions around race and society. The political correctness of scientific findings is a thorny issue, especially around genotypes and haplogroups. I am curious about this area of research and, I admit, it is, in many ways, like a morbid curiosity. To not be able to look away from some ugly but unavoidable truth; our death, for instance. But if I could suspend disbelief, stop it in its tracks, in order to avoid confrontation, to sound tolerant and beneficent, with phrases like, “I don’t see race.” This, can we all, in moments of rare candidness, agree that that claim is false and absurd? Perhaps they do not want to see it, that I could accept, but reciting the phrase, as if true, does not make it so. I hope to inspire some old aspect of my personality to return to me, to be in that “rare form,” a tour of one’s force, as an artist or as a man, the ability to draw from that well of virility once more, to impress a woman like you did so many decades ago. Charm rusts and degrades, like any once beautiful sports car, until that middle-aged man is slicking his receding hairline back, paunch and a beat up 1989 Corvette, Bondo sand spots, long unpainted, accidents and fuck ups it has become difficult to hide on the body. What else can I say, displeased and uncomfortable with my own skin, but “I’m sorry.”
I’m sorry for the state of this mess, the stretch marks across my stomach, the many deep fissures of broken skin extending up my back. She called them, “Tiger Stripes.” Haha. Ugh. What can we do to hide our disgust in another person? A significant other’s most difficult to accept traits, how do we learn to swallow them down, with a smile? I think of my many lovers, how each of them was unique in that regard (although, for so many of my earliest parterns, I was fit and energetic.
“Parterns” are patterns seen in partners, or tendencies that reiterate across many individual relationships. Just because I say it doesn’t make it so, but for me, myself, that is how I refer to them.
If I could never hide away from the world, if I had obligations to fill each day in society, would I ever have had the difficulties I have had with spirit? I think of the lost productive years lost to my own mind, to the paralysis of self-criticism I often feel no one can truly understand or relate to, the degree of self-restraint and shame this neurotic brother carries. Never quite an adult, never quite a child, precocious little awkward boy, difficult for my father to know what to do with, I understand and commend him for making the best of it, making the best of what he saw of his own sedentary lifestyle in mine. For those slugabed types, pursuing meditation is often a natural choice, a meaningful pastime given his or her baseline activity level. Dad was winded even when I was a young boy and he was a young man. Fitness was never our family’s style and we laughed and made derisive comments when passing uptight women speedwalking in their track suits (as one should!) I felt the resistance of that upbringing as I began to “speedwalk,” myself. I preferred to use an elliptical machine, but same diff! I felt foolish, but I did it anyway until, eventually, I accepted the changes I saw and felt when I became dedicated to that more active lifestyle. I felt the benefits of regular exercise on mood and mental clarity, energy level and the general vitality of my behavior. This, I believe, is the “runner’s high” that people describe as if addictive. It is another thing to try to find meaningful work that requires that same level of physical activity. The monotony of weight training, for instance, feels silly alongside someone using that or similar physical behavior to create or accomplish goals, or earn money in the world. I wish I was a woodworker or carpenter, I wish I knew how to build a log cabin. That kind of labor is seldom seen nowadays in America. Those who do intensive “back breaking” or skilled physical labor, nowadays, earn $50 to $60 an hour; much more than I could hope to earn in many places with a PhD. But to accomplish anything is impressive, honestly, be the work physical or not. Seeing anyone devote yourself fully to something is a rarity, honestly. It seems generational, yes, but each successive generation since the Television Age seems affected by the pattern. I’d say the screen, as it became smaller, digitalized, becoming more personalized and intimate, is responsible or the loss of attention span at the core of this apathetic pattern more commonly seen in first world countries since that Golden Age of television.
“Whatever we see, whatever we do…. Hospitality on Parade!”
Lemon Alien Breath is phenomenal, as a clear headed energetic inspirational strain of pot.. I should have bought more than an eighth, because it is a high I’d like to have access to for as long as possible. Flying back Wednesday, countdown of the final week of Summer in Michigan. Hospitality, turning my home into a hospital for others, where they will assuredly be cared for and pampered by their gracious host.
What part of me no longer cares to strain themselves in that way anymore? Is hospitality, in some way, an impediment to rapport, leading to some gradually mounting hidden resentment for the guest or partner being pleased? Isn’t it a relief to see that partner off to their own apartment? So that I can have this bed to myself again, in peace and quiet? Those are the indulgent and personal pleasures of the bachelor that the new father pines for, dreaming of some distant day, maybe after retirement, when they may finally return. I am thankful to still enjoy them, sure, but realize how shamefully little I truly utilize them fully. When stocking pharmacy shelves at Walmart, full time, I would dream of being able to dedicate that 8 hours of my day to some song or piece of writing, to create something people could appreciate more than orderly bottles of Tums. But, as so many of us know, when those 8 hours are returned to us, we rarely utilize them as we’d daydreamed we would.
I’m at the National Mine basketball courts, parked in the Cadillac in the dark, avoiding that last turn down the driveway to my mom’s, knowing what I will feel there, now so high, with that implied obligation to sit and talk, to update everyone on dad’s and dad. I will feel the pull to bunker up into mom’s bedroom, close the door and indulge in writing like this, I know that what is expected of me and am avoidant. 10:09 PM, I know that if I wait long enough, mom will go to bed and only Lisa and Lassandra will be left awake, offering food, on and on with their own obligations. I will likely be short if they are cranking on meth, babbling three days without sleep. The degradation from speech into tones, grunts, and sound effects comes near the end of the 2nd day without sleep, I think. Is it insulting to speak openly about that change in behavior? To try to study the individual differences in the speed’s effects? My own response to uppers is so wild and rare, I know better than to ever smoke meth again. One time is enough to know where that use would lead, given my predispositions.