The Nature of Pain

I have been troubled by the fact that I have only been posting Self-Portrait challenges lately. I have a million things I want to write about, but I always feel that I don’t have the time to get it right, or that no one cares enough to read about my seemingly meaningless thoughts. So, I have made a conscious decision to simply post whatever I am thinking about and not concern myself too much with audience. The following post and those like it may not be as well crafted as I would like, but maybe a line or two may resonate with someone out there. If nothing else I hope this act of daily writing will get me back in the habit of writing more consistently. I suppose the blog really blurs the line between published and drafted work. Enough explanation here goes:

At school, I am knee deep into my poetry unit and listening to a lot of The Strokes. I am trying to convey the concept of sonic imagery vs sound effects in poetry to my students. They are only thirteen but they shake their heads affirmatively when I ask, “Does that makes sense?”

Last night, I watched a movie called Sherry Baby, about a drug addicted ex-con mom Maggie Gyllenhall trying to get right. It is a solid B-. The night before I saw Half Nelson. This film places somewhere in my top five movies of all time. I think at this moment it maybe number one. You can listen to most of the amazing soundtrack here. I am researching dialectics and writing my review/manifesto on the movie in my head. I am weighted down by the guilt that I have yet to begin this piece; maybe after this post I will actually start writing. See this film!

These two films have had me thinking about the nature of pain, addiction, healing and growth. I am now more than ever painfully aware of the fragility of the human creature. This terrifies me, because I am trying my best not to “break” my daughter with my own pain. See We Are All Broken for elucidation.

In other news, I am going to a concert tonight by myself featuring Laila's Lounge, a band I have already seen, a female song writer, a hip-hop band, and two guys who make music from old Nintendo songs. It is a Wednesday night; I am 32, married, have a kid, and I am living in a South East Asian country by the way. Throughout this young century, I have spent more time out of the US than in it, a pattern that will not change till maybe some time around 2020.

I am letting my hair grow long again, and I am combing it forward based on Ari’s advice. It looks sloppy, and I finally like it after months of not being able to look at myself in the mirror.

I can’t tell if everything is perfect or if I am lost again. I am excited to wake up everyday, and I feel content when I sleep. I love my job, my wife and my kid. That has to mean something. I am thinking a lot about what a friend called, in his drunken relapse, the education of caring and how it applies to everything we do. I am trying to generate more love and spread it around to as many people as I can. It is difficult because somehow the force that opposes love takes over. (See dialectics.)

This morning as I fed Kaia breakfast, we were listening to The Broken Melody soundtrack and Jack Johnson sang:

Why don't I just give you
Everything you'll take from me
'Cuz nobody owns anything
and everyone is free

I sang the words as Kaia laughed and waved her hands. It was still dark outside and the voice in my head was quiet and at peace.