Berkeley Review
Now I am looking back at my recent stay in Berkeley. Last night I woke up at some ungodly hour yelling and slamming a door at someone, but I cannnot remember if this really happened or if it was a dream. Never again can I stay at this home where I have lived for too long already.
The dense San Francisco fog is lifted from the Berkeley hills as if the day's hands pulled slowly, effortlessly at cords, raising the morning's thick, wooly, grey curtains. Now these curtains have disappeared and there is a stage. I do not know what will happen on it. I do not expect much--some people eating lunch. They are family. Talking to each other in words that evade all things important, their exchange will lead them to no new understanding of themselves or their relationship to each other. After that lunch will be over, they will all sigh with relief and go back to their reliable shadow, their huddled existence in an office, a room, or place where no one is. I will be back on an island thousands of miles away from here, and I will still be in this one life of mine. I cannot seem to lie to other people, nor can I tell them the truth. If there is such a thing as a truth that springs forth from a lie, than maybe my words are honest.
Being "confused" means to put together, or fuse, incoherent or resistant elements of experience. I am certainly confused now, though it is nothing new. I am used to it, and I am used by it. There are two worlds that I am equally in, though in completely different orientations. Before I claimed to have one life, but that could in fact easily multiply, or be divided, or be subtracted from. Whatever the equation, I am still only in this overwhelmingly intense situation, and I must change myself accordingly.
The coffee's caffeine has died off now. My brain goes back to idling as I gaze out the window. There is a reddish-brown squirrel hopping from the oak tree to the metal post. Another one is looking for food among the fallen leaves. There are already so many fallen leaves in Berkeley. Perhaps all year round there are leaves on the ground in this city. It is perpetually Fall. That doesn't mean much. The same smells come back to me every time I revisit Berkeley in late summer--hot dogs, eucalyptus, rotting food and fragrant gardens. Whenever I am back, I smell these and I forget about my future. Than I am back in myself, paying my parking ticket, shitting in the bathroom at Zachary's Pizza, having inane conversations with people I don't really know, and being somewhat unsettled by things that shouldn't matter. I shouldn't care so much, but I do.
Ok, now it's time to head across the Bay Bridge for "Lunch in the City." No sex. I will be back in Wakayama the day after tomorrow, losing a day in the process...Goodbye August 17, 2005! I wish I could have met you, but I trust that you were a lovely day...
Time to get back to Sakon Biru, my cozy homestead, and Eigo no Jugyo! Ingurishu Kurasu! I am getting a running start, Wakayama, get ready to catch me when I jump across the water!
I am losing a lot of things now, perfecting this one art.
The dense San Francisco fog is lifted from the Berkeley hills as if the day's hands pulled slowly, effortlessly at cords, raising the morning's thick, wooly, grey curtains. Now these curtains have disappeared and there is a stage. I do not know what will happen on it. I do not expect much--some people eating lunch. They are family. Talking to each other in words that evade all things important, their exchange will lead them to no new understanding of themselves or their relationship to each other. After that lunch will be over, they will all sigh with relief and go back to their reliable shadow, their huddled existence in an office, a room, or place where no one is. I will be back on an island thousands of miles away from here, and I will still be in this one life of mine. I cannot seem to lie to other people, nor can I tell them the truth. If there is such a thing as a truth that springs forth from a lie, than maybe my words are honest.
Being "confused" means to put together, or fuse, incoherent or resistant elements of experience. I am certainly confused now, though it is nothing new. I am used to it, and I am used by it. There are two worlds that I am equally in, though in completely different orientations. Before I claimed to have one life, but that could in fact easily multiply, or be divided, or be subtracted from. Whatever the equation, I am still only in this overwhelmingly intense situation, and I must change myself accordingly.
The coffee's caffeine has died off now. My brain goes back to idling as I gaze out the window. There is a reddish-brown squirrel hopping from the oak tree to the metal post. Another one is looking for food among the fallen leaves. There are already so many fallen leaves in Berkeley. Perhaps all year round there are leaves on the ground in this city. It is perpetually Fall. That doesn't mean much. The same smells come back to me every time I revisit Berkeley in late summer--hot dogs, eucalyptus, rotting food and fragrant gardens. Whenever I am back, I smell these and I forget about my future. Than I am back in myself, paying my parking ticket, shitting in the bathroom at Zachary's Pizza, having inane conversations with people I don't really know, and being somewhat unsettled by things that shouldn't matter. I shouldn't care so much, but I do.
Ok, now it's time to head across the Bay Bridge for "Lunch in the City." No sex. I will be back in Wakayama the day after tomorrow, losing a day in the process...Goodbye August 17, 2005! I wish I could have met you, but I trust that you were a lovely day...
Time to get back to Sakon Biru, my cozy homestead, and Eigo no Jugyo! Ingurishu Kurasu! I am getting a running start, Wakayama, get ready to catch me when I jump across the water!
I am losing a lot of things now, perfecting this one art.
posted by Jeffrey at 3:16 AM
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