unmooring

when we were little, my grandfather would wake us up in the morning by pretending that the bed was a boat and that he was the captain, and that we were headed out from a dock that was the bedroom or whatever fold-out sofa bed we might have spent the night. "goodbye!," he'd yell to no one who was there, "goodbye, now!" we'd wake up, one by one, listening to the sound of the engine that he made low in his throat. pretty soon my sisters and my cousins and I would be yelling our farewells, too: "goodbye, mom!" "goodbye, uncle jack!" "goodbye, aunt ro-ro!" i would picture everyone gathered on the dock, the water dappling in the sunlight, the sides of the boat as we moved out to sea, unmoored, having departed for an imaginary world that, after several minutes, gave me great pause -- where, exactly, were we going?

it occurs to me that this is a memory of an act of imagination about departure that was performed upon awakening and, in a way, a reversal. you might, for example, expect your grandfather to take you on an imaginary journey for parts unknown as a way to bridge the space between waking and dreaming. for us, it was the opposite. and, from what i can remember, we never arrived anywhere, we just left and we had no real destination in site. at first, it was really easy to get wrapped up in the fervor of yelling and waving, trying to one up each other by remembering who we still hadn't said goodbye to -- distant cousins, neighbors, schoolteachers. but, eventually, you'd get to puzzling over what you were supposed to imagine was happening once we got out of sight, once we were at sea and there was, ironically, nothing to see, and then it was simply over. now that we were fully awake -- well? well, now what?

i'm thinking about departures and endings because, of course, the summer's coming, which means i'll be saying goodbye to the all-too familiar routine of exhaustion and, by hook or by crook, i'll enter a new way of inhabiting the world, just for a little while -- on my own terms, more or less, while i intellectually and emotionally recuperate from the drain of way too many students who exert an unbelievable amount of resistance. the goal is to read deeply, develop more Big Ideas, and write about them. keep on with the yoga. go for walks. listen to abstract music. communicate with smart people. maybe return to this blog, which feels distant from me, now, especially since i suspect that, yes, students are reading it and i am not sure if that matters at all or maybe just a little bit.

i'm also thinking about departures and endings because, of course, the above memory demonstrates the bizarre temporality of such moments -- the imaginary boat ride begins as an ending, as a departure, but it never formally ends in its own right. it just kind of fizzles out in a vague non-memory of non-completion. you might say it fails to end. it is a strong memory, this awakening to the beginning of an ending, but it leaves me feeling a bit adrift in the waters of my own in-between moment.

sister

the surprising thing about ideas is that they find other homes besides yours

wind rattles new spring leaves outside the window from about three blocks away i can hear revving engines of westheimer's traffic men's voices from the bar call across the yards the sun has just set the dishes are washed and stacked on the draining board the apartment is tidy and a quiet glass of something to drink makes rings on the desk next to me why o why is starting something new so incredibly difficult?

six word memoir

your

plastic

eyes

gave

me

warmth.

I was tagged by the other mother.

I tag:

ma green

green daddy

bad texan

daily noise

outta my butt

The six word memoir rules are:

• write your own six word memoir.

• post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.

• link to the person that tagged you in your post.

• tag five more blogs with links.

• leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

keywords (notes for the future)

domestic disruption
new buildings and public works
rogue and failed
airport as border
detention and delay
anti-lynching film
textual orientalizing
studio-backed film with Black themes
new talkies
desire for cinephilia
mumblecore
hand-held verite
world without adults
lo-fi
millenials
indiewood
niche audience
art cinema-lite
cinema of provocation
structured absence
cross-over film
gonzo v. amateur
queer caucus
authetification of female pleasure
aesthetic of disappearance
impossible addressee
surrogate's point of view
rhetoric of authentic sex
inability to communicate
freak status
indie-quirk
personal excess of identification
radically un-ironic

roobois

have you noticed how, in the rearview mirror, the little wrinkles under your eyes have become just a little deeper, and did you wonder, today, if the guy in his twenties, who called you and your partner up looking for a little guidance, might have noticed, and maybe that's what, in the end, made you seem more like you knew what you were talking about when it came to matters of being alive in this world, having lived the struggle to this point, having already been shaken to your very core by the unexpected meanness of the world, and having survived it, and come out feeling like you are doing just fine?

fine -- a fine afternoon walk to the teahouse leads to the meeting of this new young friend, you can call him your friend even though you never met him, and you sit outside, together with the one you love, and go from one question to the next, thinking and trying to say, like, how do you account for the decisions you've made, and why do, all of a sudden, decisions seem less like decisions and more like some sort of roll of the dice, some kind of cosmic kaleidoscope that set you turning and falling into strange but colorful patterns, suddenly there and seemingly together, and just as suddenly gone and rearranged? if he asks how do you know, when did you know, how did you decide, what was it like, what's it like now, you will pour the red roobois tea and sip and think it's such a wide, wide past to return to. you recall, in exact ways not, at first, the times and places and people but, more accurately, the unbelievable crisis of not knowing, when nothing made sense, and it all seemed terribly new and unavoidable, and you reach for an answer but you cannot quite grasp it. you listen with care.

how the story of not knowing must begin with trying to put into words what you do not know how to say, how weird this feels, how it makes you so sensitive and shy. when was the last time you felt this? what to compare it to? what the street smells like when new rain falls on hot asphalt. what leaves sound like when breezes blow at night. like sweeping the dust out of a corner -- you're not touching it with your hand, but you know something's working because your holding the other end of the broom. how to not be alone in the world when you start everything over. finding your way around the apartment at night with no lights on.

the sun starts to set. you smile and hug your new friend. he is red like roobois. you walk home with your beloved and think about the new wrinkles. you don't mind -- you like it. so much more to go. it's not even half-over.

in fifty words or less

how the day has passed: overcast and balmy, hammers and the boom of construction, with holler and echo. before me, an empty cup of green tea. the keyboard's lettered black squares huddle safely together -- snug chiclets, in a row, magically making paragraphs of light under my fingers.