the power of human emotion

I spent a good part of yesterday morning trying to remember the lyrics to some of Fred's songs to send off to a mutual friend. it's weird to have pieces of songs he used to sing in my head, knowing that i may never get to hear them again. And frustrating that every year the pieces that remain are smaller.


The silver sled song:

"well, its cold here in the morningtime
you might just want to go home
but in the desert you'd be too warm
and on an island you'd feel alone
so wait just a minute
and i'll make you feel at home"


That candy song:

"if the moon blew up
it'd be raining lollipops
try to tell this secret to the tiny bugs
they think it's a lie

chocolate favors seem to
taste like rotting fruit
way too sweet for my bitter tooth
must be a lie

but if we take our time
we could disregard discrepancies
absolve absolutions
and recognize your burning bush
as magic matches"


and I imagine that Fred thought of this as his theme song:

"there was a good king
but he never did good things
and his kingdom fell around him and everyone died
but i swear he was a good king

mudslide and darnits can't wash away
this tesament of horrified obvious retribution
by the second i'm a mess
and youre the best of the worst
i'm terrible at tellin what is true about this
anyway, i'm only in it halfway
and baby you aint in it at all

there was this worm
and he told the truth
but he did it in such a slimy way
that all the people
they put him down and put him away
for doing the right thing in a very wrong way"


I don't want these songs to be lost forever, but it seems like that is what is going to happen. What a horrible shame.

The following has been transcibed from a small notebook I took with me, out to the Mora River. Paul and Steve fished, while I sat about and daydreamed and neuroticized my life. I was not completely sober when this was written:

---

I just had the most realistic flashback to being 10 or so years old. Here I am sitting by a river, reading a novel. Always reading, off by myself somewhere, losing time. Time has continually slipped through my fingers. Nothing is accomplished.

I feel like a poet, but without the poems.

It is a bit cold here, by my river, so I am curled-up, hunched over, a bit ball-like, trying to keep some heat in the arc of my body. A bright yellow towel is wrapped around my waist and folded over, worn like a ridiculous terrycloth sarong. My need for warmth often overpowering any desire I might have to look good. The shorts beneath this getup are too short, like little girl shorts. Too short for my age.

i am not growing old gracefully. I am not my age. I haven't grown into this body, into this life. I still have not become comfortable with myself. I long for a day when I will just shrug and not be embarassed. Does this happen eventually for everyone, or just difficult old men? I am embarrassed even now, that someone will come along and see me writing this. This drivel that is meant for sixteen year olds (not almost thirty-two year olds). They will read it and their critique will be simple and correct, “No development.”

It is no lie, no attack on my character. I lack development, there is no movement, no problems are resolved. Is it possible that I am the same exact person that I was ten years ago? Is it possible that I have not learned anything from my past experiences? It is as if I have not digested these things, I have no stomach for the lessons I should have learned.

And so I sit here, lacking in development, lacking in digestion ... should we continue with the ‘d’s? How about desire? Is it possible I have none? No dreams? The truth is, if I do desire something, I make sure it is a secret desire, never to be revealed.

This is quite the little therapy session I am having with myself, yes?

I am here at this river. There is a physically reality. I am cold, the river seems so loud, the sun is getting dimmer. Occassionaly I hear a noise behind me and think of bear. Plan what I would do, would I even be able to scream, or would I be frozen stiff. How could I possibly run in this towel?

I lost track of the guys hours ago. There was no way I could follow them up river. I came dressed for a day at the beach, in my short shorts and my flimsy pink sandals and my yellow towel.

For a moment I picture myself, alone and vulnerable, fragile and lost. Growing up, I had a vision of myself as a fragile child, which I nourished with stories like The Princess and the Pea or The Secret Garden, in which children are extremly delicate and need to be painstakingly cared for by their parents. And of course, there was the Andrew Wyeth painting, “Christina’s World,” with whcih I identified without even knowing its context.

I have played the role of being incapable of helping myself. I am still oversensitive, emotional. I cry every time I do something wrong. Paul has reoccurringly made me weep by saying nice things. More often than not, when we are out somewhere, leisurely getting drunk, he will bring up the word “talent”.

Tell me you think I’m talented and the tears are sure to roll.

The interesting thing about these 10 self-portraits is that they were all drawn in the small little spiral notebook, using the same set of colored pencils. I know that none of them look particularly like me and it is kind of frustrating to see that my people drawing skills have not developed much, but I like them all the same. A few of them particularly depict the way that I was feeling about myself during that time in my life.