Reza

Quarter of eight o’clock.

I went outdoors when it was only 23 degrees and nearly froze my fingers off. There’s a little residue of snow in places on the ground but it’s mostly dry and no ice. Lisa wore a knitted hat, white, in the shape of a Siberian tiger. She said she bought it at Albertsons on sale for five bucks. It looked cute… I also saw Danielle again at the store, though I don’t really know her. She seems pretty nice… There is concern in my city about Neo Nazi activity, particularly against Jewish people. If my track record with my church was better, I’d go to the vigil with Pastor on Saturday morning. As it is, I have no religious faith at all, so I’d look pretty strange to show up for it. I think faith is an either/or thing: you either believe or you don’t. It’s nobody’s fault if you do or don’t. But I certainly have no love for Nazism or any form of social injustice. I wish I could do something besides writing this post.

Everyone I know is lonely

God’s so far away

And my heart belongs to no one

So now sometimes I pray

Take the space between us

Fill it up some way…

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I Was Blue and Lonely

Aesop has been pouting all day because I tried to make a phone call this morning. Well anyway, I had to leave a message for Polly and I didn’t hear back from her at all today. Altogether it’s been a frustrating time for me. My book still hasn’t arrived either. It’s one of those days when the dog bites and the bee stings, and everything is going wrong. I was lonely and restless this afternoon, so I ate early and went to bed for two hours, though I didn’t sleep. I really don’t like the days when I feel abandoned by everyone. Sometimes it just works out that way, and I can be deserted for a couple of days consecutively. It sucks.

“It’s so hard to stay together, passing through revolving doors

We need someone to talk to and someone to sweep the floors

Incomplete, incomplete”

“In this desert that I call my soul

I always play the starring role

So lonely…”

“I see you’ve sent my letters back

And my LP records and they’re all scratched

I can’t see the point in another day

When nobody listens to a word I say”

“Eleanor Rigby died in a church and was buried along with her name

Nobody came

Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave

No one was saved

All the lonely people, where do they all come from

All the lonely people, where do they all belong?”

There’s a billion songs like these ones. I actually had to chuckle at the third one above. It’s from a song called “Can’t Stand Losing You,” written by Sting with The Police for their first album, Outlandos d’ Amour. I think my favorite album they did was Zenyatta Mondatta, in 1980. By then, they had lost all trace of their punk rock beginnings and sounded more refined and sophisticated. This was the sound that became their signature from then on. I love to hear Andy Summers on guitar, either a Telecaster or a Strat, starting when they made Regatta de Blanc. So tastefully done.

Dawn

Seven o’clock.

There’s no daylight yet. I have no plans for today; maybe a phone call to the veterinary hospital to schedule Aesop’s appointment. How strange if the light never came this morning. But I see it rising very gradually, a change of color in the east. Sometimes I feel like a stranger to myself. It’s hard to monitor what’s happening with my identity over time, and I feel quite invisible and inconspicuous to other people. “I could be replaced by any bright spark.” This may be a sign of maturity or it might be depression. Now I see cloud stripes behind the tree line, gray blue upon pale white. 

Dawn comes regardless of how I feel, and I feel damn lonely. 

Castaways

Eight ten.

This day is starting out better than the last few days. So far, so good. I solved Pastor’s Riddle of the Day. It was fairly easy because he’s repeating himself, or there’s a pattern to the sort of puzzles he puts out there. It’s foggy out but not awfully dense, yet still the atmosphere is pretty dark and gloomy. I think sometimes that something good has to happen sooner or later. It can’t all be darkness and despair. But it’s also up to me to stop the spiral to depression. Aesop is funny. Now, at the first sign of darkness outside, he goes down the hall on his own and jumps into bed, where he stays all night… I already miss the summertime. I don’t think I was prepared for autumn to come this year. Is it possible that nobody is really happy with life right now? If so then I don’t feel so alone in the world. “Seems I’m not alone in being alone / A hundred million castaways looking for a home.” I hear Roger my neighbor tapping away on something metal, keeping himself busy in his retirement. Where do we all belong? This is an even better riddle than the one I guessed an hour ago.

Face to Face

Eight o’clock.

I lowered the boom on my band mates regarding alcohol and weed use in an email just now. It may be a while before they get the message. Aesop didn’t sleep last night, and I had trouble sleeping too… It is still very early in the day. In my blank book I wrote something about D.H. Lawrence again, and the polarization of the sacred and the profane since the Victorian Age. During Shakespeare’s time, there wasn’t such a big divide between Church and State, or between religious and simply human. It’s unfortunate how this split occurred. Ideally, life should be more like Shakespeare.

Nine o’clock. I would say that the weather is beautiful, but it’s so redundantly sunny with hardly a cloud in sight this summer. I bought Aesop some original Milk-bones today. My sister told me some bad news yesterday about her family: her middle son has caught the coronavirus and is very sick. I see a lot of catastrophes happening around me since the weekend. And through it all, the sun keeps smiling indifferently every day. Last night my mind wandered into religious territory and I thought the predictions of Revelation were coming true; that this is the Great Tribulation. Things are falling apart at a rapider rate all the time. It really makes you wonder if behind the veil of the natural world there’s a spiritual dimension. Or maybe I’m merely deluded. Sometimes I have to stop and mutter to myself, “This is reality.” My experience is so surreal that I doubt my senses. Perhaps everything could tumble down like four walls and leave me faced with divine wrath. How can you tell the difference between reality and dream? “If we share this nightmare / We can dream Spiritus Mundi.”