The Flight of the Rocketman

For two days the internet has been fucking up so I haven't gone on-line. But it seems to be working now. I mean, this is my livelihood, for God's sake! If I can't e-mail my articles, if I can't browse through the net for research, how am I going to get any work done.

Technology is amazing, really. It saves me a lot of trouble and little inconveniences. But it has also made me very complacent. If something terribly wrong happens to the internet or to my cell phone, for that matter, I'll be crippled. I'm a child of this new century, I can't work long hand anymore (unless I'm writing poetry, or a recent obsession - song lyrics) and if computers stopped working, I'm afraid of having to start from scratch regarding writing short stories long hand.

But I've begun writing in my journal again - the one in an actual journal with pages and ink and everything. I've been hit by a sudden inspiration to take down my day-to-day. Unlike this journal, that is more mundane. Completely un-literary and meant only to record what has transpired and, in the most banal way, what I felt about it. No flights of fancy with words and feelings and ideas. Just your average day-to-day.

And so much has been happening with me. Something has come into my life and I could just breathe it in and be so happy about it. Right now, I'm obsessing about it, I want more of it again and again but I can't wait for that time where it just becomes something that is so familiar that I don't obsess about it, because I know it won't go away. It's there and it won't walk away.

I drink a case of you/ and I'll still be on my feet/ Yes, I'll still be on my feet -- Case of You, written and performed by Joni Mitchell

And it shocks me to listen to songs in this mood and all of a sudden they've changed their meanings. Sad songs become hopeful. Happy songs become ecstatic. Love songs become so moving. And then, at one point, I read all the works I've written before and I want to change all the dedications. It is as if I wish my past were different to accommodate this new thing in my life. Poems, songs, stories, written because of and for other people now all gravitate to a different name. Beautiful things that I've written, moving things... I wish that they were meant for someone else. And now, I mean them for someone else. Especially "Testimony," which I wrote for someone that I never got to know. Well, that person can fade away into the darkness. That person is barely on my mind anymore, anyway. But this thing that has gotten a deep hold into me. It deserves all the beauty I can create.

Has anyone ever written anything for you/ And on your darkest hours do you ever hear me sing?/ Well, listen to me now/ You know I'd rather be alone/ Than be without you/ Don't you know that?/ I want you to remember me -- Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for you, written and performed by Stevie Nicks

And I know I am not alone because there are all these songs and all these poems that echo and resonate with the way my pulse beats, the way my heart rises and then falls. All these songs, these sentiments, are one and the same. And in some sick, twisted sense of glee, I am just like Stevie Nicks, Joni Mitchell, Jewel, sarah McLachlan, Kate Bush, Tori Amos, Dido, Nelly Furtado, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Bono (of U2), Sting and whoever else out there who has written such beautiful things. Robert Bly, William Blake, William Shakespeare, Anne Carson, Rumi, Myra Shapiro, Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan and all the other poets, writers and whoever else who has lived a life that had love flowing through it.

More than anything, love is a fuel that allows us to continue on living and not just living, but living beautifully. How come it has happened so late in my life? It doesn't matter. As long as I embrace it tight enough to never ever forget how it felt... Then it would all be worth it.