"Those were hard things for me to come by, and I offer them to you for what they may be worth." - Toby Wolff



Friday, February 24, 2012

The Fundraiser



Even a poem
is too loud.


What is happening to me? The past few years have certainly seen this movement towards a very quiet life. I seem to be incapable of handling the way people swarm like bees, the hum of their conversation, the screeching punctuation of those who seek attention above the din. I CRAVE silence like a junkie. I am angry tonight because my neighbors are once again out on their postage stamp of a patio laughing it up like cancer has left the planet, and joblessness was soooo yesterday, and my son has not been spending his first four hours in Los Angeles on his bike, waiting for someone to let him on the couch. That sounds so jaded! I am angry at myself for being jaded. But I have weight. There are incredible weights...held, released, thrown, purposed, unpurposed. I used to drown them out. I suppose now I am facing them head to head, and distraction is just another semester to a diploma long past due. Noise was a deluge to thought. (Drown those dirty rats!)


I remember cooking in my kitchen...Marc Broussard on full volume, the melody, the sway, the words overshadowing my own, pots and pans making racket like ghosts in the attic, bent on driving the living from the halls of entitlement. It was only a stage...a brilliant light before the filament breaks a bone and darkness comes unexpected. This silence holds no distraction. There are no more shades on the windows, and filters are a thing of the past. This is where the mortar and pestle meet...in the coveted silence. Rubber v. Road. Truth v. Wish. The full monty.


I watched the sunset in silence tonight, as if it could prepare me for frivolity, as if I could store it. There was a bright square in the midst of that glorious display. I thought, "How strange that this block of light should be suspended above all that sets...hung up, unable to pass on...another kitchen ghost with unsettled business". I tried to photograph it.  After one shot, my camera said Out Of Memory. Oh man. God is speaking Annie. Pay attention. We cannot capture and hold. Life is a succession of filaments. Be aware.


Of course I cannot live in such silence and still play human. And so I am wondering how to manage. People are hard. I am people. I am a shell misappropriated in the egg white. It's difficult to put your finger on such a thing, surrounded in moving viscosity.


Silence is keen on exhumation
the quiet Archeologist
catalogues.
.


(I had to go to a fundraiser tonight. I had a panic attack. I'd been having them all day. But these 200 people in a cramped space...yelling...shouting as a group whenever a raffle prize was won, jostling, swarming. Sh*t. I thought I was just about gonna die. I wanted silence. I didn't get it.)

27 comments:

  1. unplug iPod
    music stops abruptly
    cricket song instead ~Dr. SunWolf

    I walked outside a few nights ago. There was a sound of frogs singing...peep-peep...peep-peep. I wish I'd recorded it because it was a song I've never heard before. I'm sure it was a mating song. I sat in the dark and listened to them, marveling... We ALL need silence, Annie. Our very soul craves it to revive and renew. I love you, dearest friend. xoxo

    "In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth." ~Mahatma Gandhi


    "God's poet is silence! His song is unspoken,
    And yet so profound, so loud, and so far,
    It fills you, it thrills you with measures unbroken,
    And as soft, and as fair, and as far as a star."
    ~Joaquin Miller

    "There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub." ~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

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    1. Beautiful quotes Marion! Be still and know. I was somewhere the other day and a flock of birds was resting in the trees chattering loudly. I know it was gossip but I'll not perpetuate it :) Anyway, as if on cue, they all went silent. I looked up, thinking it was some kind of prank. The leader squawked. She just wanted to see if I had been listening.

      I think I'll try that bathtub quiet now!

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    2. Ha! I have those same gossiping birds here. I think they're carrying messages to California. :-) Yes to the bathtub. Nothing more relaxing than a tub of hot water and a book....or not a book. Love you! xo

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  2. 'We cannot capture and hold. Life is a succession of filaments.'

    digesting these glorious words...soso true. live in the moment. and hopefully more moments will involve bathtubs and candles instead of brain-wracking fundraisers. it's all in the balance, so i hear...

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    1. That's the truth sister! I have always had a hard time with the balance. Should have stayed in gymnastics longer :)

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  3. I read this in the morning before running off to draw “R”. I get lost in how well you write about moments in your life, the continuation of. The kitchen scene stayed with me all morning.
    It’s interesting how similar, where you are here, feels to my in between years, midlife, when just beginning to start the second half. It does get easier.

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    1. Ah yes. The continuation of. I love how you say "the kitchen scene" as if you watched my moving life. Thanks for the encouragement. It's nice to hear how people have made it through. Midlife. It's a four letter word.

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  4. "Give away the stone, turn these leaden grudges into gold."

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    1. I looked for the silver lining. There was free wine....but even the crowds and noise weren't worth that. But the sunset, surely would have been missed if I hadn't of been waiting in the parking lot!

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  5. That's a stunning picture ...

    If I see a crowd forming, I go in the opposite direction. I sense danger.

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    1. So I am not the only one? Ha. Anything that swarms.

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  6. Been there sista! Those events make me nuts. Here's to peace!

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    1. From now on I'll just donate my money and not attend. Blech.

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  7. Annie,
    it is being the wolf in the middle of the pack...you have outrun many...and you have been outrun by many...what remains is the slow moving structure of a life that will not let you fall behind yet not gain..."keep you alive" maybe....as the ones at the back and front are the ones that die first....but yeaahh...that is a death worth running for....

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    1. I see your point. I should be surrounded. In the crowds and swarms there is safety in the middle. But I flee to the edges as quickly as possible. If it be death, then at least it will be quiet and I can say goodbye in peace. Yes, worth running for.

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    2. Exactly,
      there is safety in the middle...but we dnt need that..a few days back someone asked me...why was it that i could not conjure anything happy from my imagination...happy is not to be chased around...it will come ..if it has to...

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  8. But see? You survived. And those times of chaos and noise help us to better appreciate our times of calm and peace.

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  9. I love my solitude, but there's something about yours that make me sad. I wonder what is at the base of your sadness.

    ...and then I wonder if I'm off-base and wrong.

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    1. Right on target. Sadness has no boundaries today. Did it ever? Will it ever? When self cannot be reconciled with belief???? What have you then?

      I appreciate you Kass. You have good seeing eyes and listening ears.

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  10. I need my silence. I'm with you on that point. I don't get it most days.

    Sometimes I think a desert island would be a fine place to be. At least for a while.


    - Eric

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    1. Only time will tell how long is long enough!

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  11. I once took one of those personality tests that determines whether I'm an introvert or extrovert - turns out I'm about 50/50. Half the time I need silence and to be alone to recharge my batteries, and swear to God if I have to share the bathroom with my beloved while he's flossing one more time.... and the other half of the time I want to be in the middle of a 2,000 person crowded club dancing with everyone. So I get it.

    I also get that you and I had, how shall I say, similar childhoods. And silence has a soothing relief to it that just doesn't mean the same to others. My downstairs neighbor likes to scream at his two children until they are crying. This kind of noise wracks my nerves and gets me jittery, jumpy. I do not like it one bit. So I understand, Annie. I get it. Let yourself physically go to places where you feel at peace. It's incredibly important.

    As for living in the moment - I once dated a professional photographer - and they are the worst at living in the moment, may I say - and as we were driving one early evening the most gorgeous sunset I have ever seen in my entire life laid itself out before us in the sky above, and my boyfriend nearly panicked that he didn't have his camera, that he was missing it, that he couldn't capture this moment forever, why had he forgotten his camera, where was it, did I have a camera he could use...

    Me? I enjoyed the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen. I doubt he enjoyed very much of anything. (and probably doesn't even remember.)

    Take the moments one by one. They have a way of sorting themselves out.

    And - and I mean this - if your son needs anything, I am in LA and am willing to be a resource. My email is tracyclifton(at)gmail(dot)com. Don't be afraid to use it.

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    1. I ain't afraid to use e-mail :) My kids is floundering and I'll take whatever help I can get.

      Such a great contrast...you and Bennie (did I spell that right?). I wrote about that once...how I was constantly writing in my head through an important moment, instead of living the moment. Very important point. I am working on it. My camera is cooperating with the work :)

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  12. it seems to be a natural evolution, annie. it's uncanny - you and i through our own transformations over the years and showing up at the same doorstep of silence.

    big hugs, annie. i see you struggling and i can only say, i give you big hugs. find the silence in you and let this pour out.

    xo
    erin

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  13. shuushhh,,,i am listening,,,hear it...the embers cracking and the rain falling...

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  14. oh, i feel this one, too. and while i don't have much in the way of space to offer...i also am in la (that's the reason phoenix and i know each other. we were in acting class together back in the day.)
    i can perhaps put word out that he needs a place to stay? where is he staying now (as in, what part of la?) and what is he looking to do? where does he need to be?
    email me at my other email.
    or i'll just email you right now.
    sigh.
    i should have just done that in the first place.
    :-)

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  15. I 'hear', silence is not found when searched or desired but it is there when one chooses.

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Thank you for listening.