Now the radio stutters, snaps to life
Some sour song that sets it right.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to realize that the overriding emotional tone of my life over the past few years has been "apocalyptically joyful". I dream of the end of the world as we know it, best beloveds, and it only makes me smile. This is no goth bullshit here... this is a sense, shared by Brian, that what people like us really need in order to show our true worth and strength is a big motherfucking catastrophe that would destroy the structure of civilization. Zombies, meteors, ravening hordes of Scientologists... what have you, so long as we can pile into a pick-up truck, fight the beasts off with sledgehammers and trade gas for canned goods as our new form of exchange.

When London falls, he'd like to call
But the stars collide.
They're beautiful and much maligned
In a universe where you see the worst
And it's up to you to fix it.

I have the sense from time to time that I'm preparing for this to happen, even if it never does. I see myself going through life, reaching out to minds and hearts worth saving, gathering them close and girding them with weapons and tools, both mental and physical, for the struggle ahead. Something Procell said a long time ago is my guiding principle in this. "There is something here that I will not take away from the world just yet." I act to preserve and protect people because if I had to wake up in the morning to a world that did not contain them and the qualities they posses, I would not want to live in it. Sometimes this world is full of knives for people like those I love. How could I do other than offer a titanium umbrella?

It's easy to dismiss the "what's it all about" crowd
There is no doubt:
It's this, here, now.

Every day I try to convey to Aaron all the beauty I see in him and all the possibility there is for him. I am distressed to discover that his capacity even to imagine joy in his life is stunted, shrunken by circumstance like a plant in a pot too small for it to grow. There is so much more in the world than he can even begin to comprehend, but what I'm most grateful for is that somehow, by some insane faith or hope in him that perhaps he doesn't even quite know is there, he's willing to believe in my belief enough to change his life. I will prove his faith well-founded, by god, or I'm not half the person I think I am.

Now the universe left you for a runner's lap
It feels like home when it comes crashing back
And it makes you laugh, and it makes you cry
When London falls and you're still alive.

For the past two nights I've dreamed about Julia. In the first dream, yesterday morning, she was about five. Ladonda swam in a pool, got out bedraggled and wet, and turned into Julia who was also soaked. I took her hand and dried her and dressed her warm, and we talked about how you can love someone without liking all the things they do. This morning she came again, younger, about two, not out of diapers yet. The city was afire and filled with smoke and dust, and buildings were falling in a beautiful golden afternoon light, and someone brought my baby to me and she was laughing, talking about drawing a picture, completely unafraid. And I carried her through a tunnel with my boys at my side and we were alive and happy. She tangled her hands in my hair and I forgot that the world was ending.

The radio stutters, it makes you laugh
In the aftermath
Open up your eyes!
You're so alive!

Brendon's eyes are unbelievably beautiful, and sometimes it seems as if all of the peace and slowly-growing joy in my life flows out from that source, from his quiet adoration, from his excitement and his animated hands, from his laughter and his kiss. He fulfills every promise he ever made me, about exploration and discovery, about paradise and paradigm shifts, every time he whispers in my ear. He fills me with light.

All of us, together, laughing as the city comes down. We're so alive.

Labels: Aaron, Apocalypse, Brendon, Dreams, Hope, Julia

Fools rush in, so here I am
Awfully glad to be unhappy
I can't win, but here I am
More than glad to be unhappy.

Rain in the desert is just a trifle apocalyptic. Perhaps that's a personal hallucination of some kind provoked by the unusual atmospheric moisture or disturbing lack of crushing, soul-sucking heat, but there you go. Might have something to do with the clouds in Tucson, too. They get kind of menacing and world-ending when monsoon season starts.

I don't think I'm the only child of my generation to be obsessed with searching for magic in the world. In fact, if my conversations with my contemporaries are any indication, I think this may be the defining quality of our generation. I find myself looking always at the corners of things, peeking under leaves for fairies, idly arranging gravel in neat circles and sigils in the hope that light will leap up and, blazing, transport us to a world where the mystery and shine we try so hard to see isn't so damned elusive.

There was a time when I was able to convey that. Not even convey: to evoke it for a few people, even for one person. There was a time when I held her hand and jumped into a puddle and when we opened our eyes we were in a new world. We saw the difference - the raindrops were a slightly different shade, the earth a different consistency - and couldn't for hours be certain that we'd returned.

The problem is not that I've stopped seeing these things. As vivid as ever, our invisible companions from junior high linger in doorways and lean against walls. When I stare at one point I can see them on the periphery of my vision. What I've lost is the power to express what I see in words.

I have less and less confidence in my strength with language these days. It grieves me because for a great part of my life I believed there were only two things I could do flawlessly, without fail: talk or write a mean streak that would blow you away, and be a good friend to her. In the last three years I've failed at both.

Years ago I wrote here that the only way to redeem loving poorly is by loving well. I would hope that someday I'll discover enough sense, serenity and syntactic talent to not always be making up for something.

I'm sad, and worried... but I'm also very content. I suppose, in the same vein as my yearning to find magic in the world, I wouldn't be much upset if those incredible clouds fell like rocks and cracked the earth, releasing a plague of zombies. Apocalypse would suit me, I think. I would go get my jeans and my leather jacket, learn to drive by stealing the first truck I saw, and head to Home Depot to pick me up a sledgehammer to bash in some undead skulls.

I'll take the end of the world, if you've got it. I'll take a portal to a magical dimension if that's on offer. So I suppose in that spirit feeling ashamed of myself and as if everything's a little bit unstable is a state I relish.

In other news... I downloaded a shit-ton of the Mamas and the Papas. I haven't listened to these guys since I was thirteen. I could sit here and look out the open door at the rain and listen to "California Dreamin'" for, oh... six hours.

I think I will.

Labels: Apocalypse, Hope, Magic