2005-02-28

If I am

a nerve synapse in the brain of the unhatched chick that is humanity, perhaps it is today that my spark will launch the next peck at the shell that seperates us from the unknown.




Or maybe I'll just give the other synapses a good laugh.

2005-02-25

High Cue

Tonight, the kitchen looked
Half clean, and not half dirty.
Dare I check the hall?

2005-02-20

Figments and alliterations

are all you ever get from me.

Theme and Variations

There are a few blogs I read regularly. They would be listed here as links if I could figure out how to do it. As it is, they aren't. I find it unlikely (and in one case impossible) that these bloggers have read each other's most recent work. And yet, almost all of them have something in common RIGHT NOW:

Children.

One blogger has realized she is at peace with the possibility of procreation, another mentions the perils of childbirth and its prolonged effect on a parent's life, another plans for his progeny's literary perusal, another posts an actual birth proclamation.

What mechanism of fate, or message of media, is to be held responsible for this?

Haiku I too

Trudging my way home,
I make prints in more new snow;
My morning tracks, gone.

2005-02-13

Mouse Tales

I wrote a letter to someone this evening who is having troubles with mice and is using the WRONG KIND OF TRAP. It became a story, in Swedish, which I rather liked, so I translated it into (slightly stilted) English. I could do better if I spent more time on it, but here it is, in both languages. It is entirely true.

En Sann Berättelse om en Mus

När mina föräldrar bodde i Sverige, hyrde de ett äldre hus med många fina äppelträd på tomten. De njöt, och samlade äpplena i förråd i ett ouppvärmt rum i huset. Kunskapen om dessa äpplen spred sig som en löpeld bland områdets möss, och mina föräldrar fick ofta besök under småtimmarna. Mina föräldrar känner, som jag, en stor generositet och medlidande för alla naturens barn, och hade mössen valt ut ett eller några äpplen att förtära hade alla kunnat dela skörden utan oro eller avund. Men möss har en stor aptit på livet och dess variation, och de nöjde sig inte utan att de måste smaka lite på alla äpplen. De gnagde på frukten lite här och var, och dessutom uträttade de sina behov till synes var och varannan minut medan och där de åt. Situationen blev ohållbar. Mina föräldrar, blödiga som de och jag är, kunde inte avrätta några möss om inte de var tvungna. De letade rätt på en ofarlig fälla som liknade en bur, och en efter en fångade de besökarna, som nog var ganska så trötta på äpplen, med hjälp av jordnötsmör och solrosfrön. De körde iväg med mössen till ett närliggande stall, där en mus mer eller mindre inte skulle ställa till några problem, och där det fanns ett garanterat matförråd att samla från urspillt havre och dylik. Det var frid och fröjd bland möss och människor.

Något eller några år senare befann sig min mor på Hötorget i Stockholm. Det var mitt på dagen. Det var, som alltid, mycket folk och liv och rörelse. På ett ställe, nära tunnelbaneingången, stod en klunga människor och tittade på något på marken. Min mor blev nyfiken, och tryckte sig in i mot klungans center. Hon tittade ner och såg, mitt i det öppna området framför sig, en liten och tydligen skrämd mus. Den satt och stirrade runt sig på alla dessa människor som stod i ring några meter bort och betraktade den. När musen fick syn på min mor, rusade den bort och ställde sig vid hennes fötter. Efter en mäktig stund av häpnad och under bland åskådarna kilade den vidare förbi henne och försvann genom ett galler.

Min mor, och jag, när jag fick höra detta, var övertygade om att hon bar på något för oss omärkbar sken eller doft som identiferade henne som Musvän par excellance. Hon hade tagit ställning, och det syntes. Om hon någon gång skulle finna sig bunden med rep och redlös, och synbart bortom hopp om befrielse, är jag personligen övertygad om att hon inte skulle ha något att frukta. Fanns det bara möss inom räckhåll, och det gör det ju alltid, vore hon snart den fria kvinnan hon har visat sig väl förtjäna att vara.

A True Story of a Mouse

When my parents were living in Sweden, they rented an old house with many wonderful apple trees in the yard. They greatly enjoyed the apples, and gathered and stored them in one of the house’s unheated rooms. The rumour of those apples spread like wildfire among the mice in the immediate area, and my parents’ home recieved frequent nocturnal visits. My parents feel, as I do myself, great generosity towards and compassion for all of nature’s children, and if the mice had chosen to confine their consumption to one apple, or even a few apples, they would have all been able to share the harvest with no element of envy or anxiety. But mice have a voracious apetite for life in all its variety, and they were not satisfied unless they tasted all the apples. They gnawed on the fruit here and there, and were, moreover, inclined to relieve themselves, every minute or so it seemed, just while and where they were eating. The situation became precarious. My parents, soft-hearted as they and I are, were unable to execute mice unless forced to. They managed to procure a cage-like trap, and one by one they captured their visitors, who were probably quite tired of apples, by means of peanut butter and sunflower seeds. They drove away with the mice to a nearby stable where a mouse more or less wouldn’t make any difference, and where there was a guaranteed supply of food that could be gathered from spilled oats and such. Peace reigned between mice and men.

A year or two later, my mother was in Hötorget, the Hay Square, in Stockholm. It was the middle of the day. There was, as usual, a crowd there, and a considerable amount of movement and activity. In a spot near the subway entrance, a group of people were standing and looking at something on the ground. My mother became curious, and pushed her way towards the center of the group. She looked down and saw, in the middle of the open space in front of her, a small and clearly frightened mouse. There it sat, staring at all those people who stood a few yards away in a ring, watching it. When the mouse caught sight of my mother, it rushed over and sat down at her feet. After a short but powerful period during which wonder and amazement spread through the crowd, the mouse scurried on past her and disappeared behind a grate.

My mother, and I when I heard about it, were convinced that she, completely unawares, exuded some sort of glow, or odor, that identified her as a Friend of Mice of the Highest Order. She had taken a stand, and it showed. If at any point she should happen to find herself bound by ropes, helpless, and seemingly beyond the hope of rescue, I am quite certain that she has nothing to fear. As long as there are mice at hand, and there always are, she will soon be once again the free woman she has proven that she deserves to be.

2005-02-09

Changes

I've always hated, with few exceptions, songs about music. I hate it when people in books say, "this is just like in a book". Yet here I am, talking about my blog on my blog. I will keep it short.

I've changed the name. I think the Interesting name, though interesting, was stoopid. Also, the word blog was in there. I would never say blue jean pants, or table furniture. I have allowed, even encouraged, this black and square space to metamorphisize into a wilder spirit with an ever so much more evocative name. The black of my pages now spreads out towards infinity. It is not confined. It slices rather than pounds.

I am no longer kept captive by the need to be of interest. I am merely perching here, and at any moment I may swoop off the page and alight elsewhere.

I am free.

2005-02-06

Making Demands

I could swear I'm walking around with my head stuck up my own ass. Sometime between writing the title of my last post and arriving at the end I completely lost track of what I was going to say. Intoxicated by my own fumes, perhaps? What I really meant was that I want people to say something about what they read here, and give me something to chew on that isn't my own cud. Comments. Comments are welcomed, comments are sought, comments are deeply appreciated.

Interactivity

Some blogs have maps. Colourful maps of the world, with bright red dots on them to represent visits. At a glance, any one of us can see how many people have meandered across a particular little spot on the internet, and from whence they came.

Do you see one here? No? Not even a very small one?

No. On my blog, you must divulge your presence if I'm to know of it.

This is on purpose. I do know where to get those little maps. I could probably even figure out how to fasten one on here. I don't want to. One of the wonderful things about internet is its anonymity.

But....

I am inordinately curious to know how many people there are who do end up here. I can't find out on my own. It is all up to you.

Make a little passing mark.
Do it, if you like, anonymously.

I will be inordinately grateful.

2005-02-05

More specifically

No, just not lying is not good enough. Saying something true and saying the true thing that should be said are two entirely different things. I believe that there is something that should be said (or seen) in each particular situation. There are a good number of people I can't talk to at all because I'm not willing to say the thing that I need to say to them. It's always there on the tip of my tongue, making all other conversation impossible. Maybe that's like dragging my heels, and slowing down a process that I should be a part of but am too cautious (or cowardly) to initiate. Each thing that needs to happen is waiting where it left off. If this is true (and to me it seems so), then it's very encouraging. It is never too late. Alright, never is a pretty strong word. There may be points on the way to destruction that cannot be crossed without permanent damage, but I hope not.

2005-02-02

On the other hand...

As Johan has pointed out (with different words), some people's lies are like music, and their words don't hide the "true" melody. But I cannot lie comfortably, and don't intend to.

The Subject of Today's Sermon is.......

Why I don't lie.
Actually, I mainly don't lie because, generally, I can't. It's not that I'm a bad liar. I did a lot of very successful lying in my youth. It just feels entirely wrong now. But, cerebral as I am, I have thought about what it might be that feels so wrong.

"The truth shall set you free". This quote is, I think, widely misunderstood. It is not the truth about "God" that sets us free, it is the truth about anything at all. Awareness of any particular moment's truth, or identity, allows us to resolve that moment as it happens, instead of brooding, and justifying or ignoring it, and building up entire world views that are (to reach into my ready supply of biblical quotes) built on the sand. Actually, we don't need world views at all. They are unnecessary luggage. The world is right here. All we have to do is look at it. The lightness of being that is the result of this immediate recognition and resolution leads to a search for truth in all moments. We are set free from our false constructions.

Each moment is like a seed with a pod on it, and we have the ability to remove the pod and see the seed. The purpose of the seed is to be seen, and let go of, so it can fall into the soil and grow. Instead, we generally look at the pod, and put it in our suitcases with all the other pods. We have a lot of compartments in our suitcases, and we spend a good deal of time and energy deciding which pods should be grouped together where. We tend to carry around an enormous weight with us across nearly barren ground, entirely unnecessarily, when we could be walking through a garden in which each plant is there to be examined at will. As far as all those old, accumulated pods go, there is no need to sit down and go through the contents of that suitcase before ditching it. Any necessary seed will surely turn up again in its own time. It would be a practicle impossibility to relive all those moments anyway.

And why wouldn't I lie, even if I could more easily? It would seem that every lie I tell someone is the equivilant of handing them an empty pod. It is a source of confusion, causing them to create a false image of reality that incorporates my lie. It becomes less likely that they will realize that the seeds are what is important. It becomes less likely that they will throw away their suitcases. I have no right to do that to anyone, even an enemy. I might be (probably would be) weak and lie to save myself or someone else, but I don't believe it would be the right thing to do. Well, maybe I could lie, as long as I told the truth afterwards. I'll have to wait untill I'm in that moment and see.