Oh Captain, My Captain

I used to have utopian dreams of sitting in a dark café, air filled with thick white smoke whirling with the smell of coffee and cologne. Just a group of friends talking about life and what it means to be human. In our conversations we would discuss Voltaire, Jung, Nietzsche while reciting poetry by Longfellow. Our conversations would be filled with discussions on Thoreau and Bacon, a free exchange of ideas and passions, teaching and learning.

These discussions would be a foundation for a new wave of philosophy and we would be the builders. In our discussions we would weave the threads of a whole new way of thinking about life and the journals written from these conversations would be incorporated into conversations in generations to come. We would encourage and help each other in becoming the best that each of us could be. No one better, no one worse, all equal and valued as members of a chosen family. We would have a voice, united and individual.

Perhaps it is all the fault of DPS, one of my favorite films.

I have not found this utopian dream instead, I feel the loneliest I have felt in a very long time. In only a few day’s time I will celebrate the one year wedding anniversary with the man who has managed to do what no other human being has done, fulfilled my every want for a partner in life. Our love is stronger than it has ever been and grows stronger each day, yet even in our love of each other, I find myself not totally alone, but as close as one can get while still a part of a partnership.

There are no cafés, no Nietzsche or Bacon. There is life going on all around us, but for whatever reason, we are not invited. No calls or coffee, just us. But maybe that is just “what ol married folk do.”

They spread my grandmother’s ashes yesterday and no one in my family bothered to call me. This doesn’t really surprise me, they say it was accidental, but the total strangers who were to be there found out. I haven’t exactly been a member of that family for a very long time. There were only two people that I felt understood me, one is now dead, and the other, I guess never really got me at all.

This may all seem quite bleak and like the opening scene for a Bergman film, perhaps that is where I am in my life. Perhaps if I cannot find my café I can create it, here on the page. In a world full of ideas and hopes and dreams, the world that I have lived in most of my life, my world, where everybody knows my name.

Autumn Is On Its Way

I can feel it in the air.

McClure Pass Fall
Originally uploaded by Shayachern.

Art Bell

I can tell you precisely when I stopped sleeping to Art Bell, not the date but I don’t think that really matters. What matters is the topic of the show. Since childhood I have gone through periods of falling asleep listening to talk radio, something that has only ebbed when I am in a relationship, as most of the people I have become romantically involved with don’t share my love of talk radio. When I was in college, I was not able to get my favorite shows on AM radio in my dormitory so I got into the habit of sleeping with Nick at Night on softly in the background.

For those of you who have never been up at 2 AM listening to Art Bell, let me take a moment to describe his show. While he did from time to time touch on political issues, his main focus was on the bizarre. It was not uncommon for Art Bell to talk about UFO’s, alien abductions, tracer clouds, ghosts, or even the wildest of conspiracy theories. I loved his show, and in spite of knowing that he has left most of his show Coast to Coast with Art Bell on to George Noory, I still tune in from time to time hoping to hear his voice.

I am sure that my therapist would have a hay day with this information and use it to somehow describe my deep fascination with politics and Bewitched, but I digress. I had been dating a particular young man for a couple of years who loved to listen to music all night while we slept. Given my proclivity for background music to my sleeping, it never bothered me. After he moved out, I tried sleeping to silence but very quickly found myself back to talk radio.

I was sound asleep one night and everything was going on as usual. Then I began to have some of the most horrifying nightmares of my life. I am someone who has a lot of really bad dreams that are usually reoccurring and quite violent. I don’t remember exactly what the dreams were about but, I do remember them being quite vivid and real. I woke from my nightmare to find that it did not end. I was fully conscious sitting up in my bed in a dark bedroom and the fear from my dream had followed. It took me a moment to find my bearings and realize that in spite of the sense of fear that had consumed me that I was fine.

Then I found the cause of my nightmares. The guest on Art Bell’s show was someone, a priest I assume, with audio recordings of exorcisms. I had been listening to tapes of multiple demons being exorcised from various persons. The screams of unholy beings occupying human bodies had been the soundtrack of my dreams. It has been several years since this happened (about 5) and since then I have not slept all night to talk radio. I have fallen asleep a couple of times but I have never slept all night to the sounds of a radio voice.

Abstract 01

Abstract 01
Originally uploaded by Shayachern.

So, I am starting to have fun with the digital. Still a little scary but, so far, I think I like it. Let me know what you think!