The Gospel According to Peter


I spoke to myself of myself in the moments between moments that barely exist. Withered from time, like subtle decay, which one misrepresents as tarnish and flaw, these narrowly escaped moments draw out like fractions of pennies slowly accruing, but always forgotten! We speak the dribble as we walk our two step-day to day-rambling of foot before foot before foot! We quietly acquiesce to the passage of time as morbid fascination of a self euthanized death march. Why we don’t protest is less of a question than what would we protest against. And that we haven’t gotten that far in our thought process, or even begun to register what it is we are fighting against, is all the more reason why we bow down to the languid transgression of thoughts! There they go…and we breath, ahhhh, a long sigh of relief, at being able to get lost and finally numbed by our rapidly decaying minds. It’s not even that we have a rotting brain structure, but that our formed words, which create thoughts, and then sentences, paragraphs and so on…It’s that these then digress from their pages to paragraphs, to sentences, to words to letters, and then poof! It is a love affair, the neglected mind, growing further neglected; but we sample it, as a record is quickly sampled, each track tested traced by the fingers of our minds for a few lines, and then a quick switch to the next track! What of it, though, Matt, what of it! It is that I am slowly enlightening you, reader, to the mere fascination that is our thinking mind, and bring light to the misuse, the lack of use, and the fun we can have, sober fun, just thinking. (Segue)

I had a friend, still a friend, wrote a great line, and I will paraphrase, or simply plagiarize, or is it that when I quote I free myself from legal action, either way, “When you grow older you forget the way to live, how easy it is to function, get through a day of playing in the sandbox and eating a grilled cheese.” Oh, Peter, west coast Peter, always had the west coast mentality. I remember it would scare me when Peter got super serious. Because taking it light was my tag for Peter, loved him for that, for the ability around him, for me to take it light. Peter treads light! When he is drunk he acts a little heavy, and that Achilles heal of his makes him all the more beautiful a human being. Don’t worry Peter we will always have a doctor around if you cut yourself; even if it is a veterinarian! (finger gashed at my wedding) Back to the point though, Peter hits it on the head. Isn’t it so true, we get convoluted in our motions, so self analyzing of our motions, so aware of others around us, that we have to adjust our motions; whereas when we are kids, we simply do, and we do, most times out of instinct which, innately is possessed and kindled with love and compassion(or at least not out of disdain and fear). I think of the card I always buy for my wife at these moments: The Boy in black and white, sometime with a touch of color in a red bow tie, mini tux, kissing the black and white young girl on the head as she sits on stone steps, stone in the back ground, some forgotten Sunday. And this Sunday doesn’t end, this Sunday is the Plato’s Form for Sunday! à

(This is called inner (inner) thought, when the parenthesis come out. Within this Sunday, and I hope to make it to this Sunday some day, there is no tiredness, there is no true sense of time, it might be light or dark, it may start off light with shadow, soft idyllic shadows that bend around rolling shaped stone, circular and soft. This Sunday is not cold, nor is it hot, it is not hard, and never too quiet. Sometimes we get the two tone chirp of the birds in the near distance. Other times we get a rustle of tall grass in the breeze. These are the movie moment Sundays when voices seem to trail the actions, but I only hearken to that image momentarily because I don’t want to get bogged down in the images movies lock us into.***(stuck images with movies/books) I am free on this Sunday, and I am aware of an end and my responsibility on this Sunday, but I am never worried about what is next! It might be my death day even…)

à That simplistic image of the black and white boy, kissing the black and white girl on the head, a dash of color for effect is fueled by compassion, that that is what we strive for without ever having to try! So back to Peter…Peter says, within his quote, that we get derailed by age, by manipulation, by all the outside influences telling us what we need to wear, go, associate with, adore, emulate. Parent’s have the first say, but what they teach, impart, help their kids to imbibe is wiped almost completely from their memory on that first day of school, on that first day sleeping over a friends house, on that first night of hanging with a group of friends. At first we don’t know, as children what to make of this competition; how so many world views can exist at once and we slowly recede home each evening trying to cull our minds back into mommy’s train of thought. But each day we exit the front porch, first sign of foot hitting pavement, we embody new shoes, new views, and learn how to neatly cram our views in with each other. And these world views fight each other, mask themselves as other world views to infiltrate and rear their ugly heads at just the right time for them, at the wrong time for you!

Remember the first time something your next door neighbor, kid your age, different world view, remember when his words slipped out of your mouth in front of your mother! A racist slur, an insensitive comment towards woman, a talking down to your parents! My god, the look your mother had for you, followed by the wooden spoon in the top drawer to the left of the stove. My parents’ punishment for me was, in part, a deflection of their own pain; that they had failed! We hadn’t necessarily failed at anything, in fact we, as human sponges had simply taught them a lesson they had long since forgotten since the days of them being a child; that we are merely impressionable children. If we were to turn to face our parents, which we are taught in these times of their anger never to do, we might catch a glint of a tear forming, and watch as they sniffle it back behind an eyelid.

I recall an autobiographical moment in my child hood, one that sticks with me now because of the forgiveness asked of my mother by my mother later in life. That she had come full circle, or at least noticed in stepping away from the events that how she had acted was in total a reaction born of another soul; that she may have actually been possessed (and not in any religious sense of the word) in the moments that ensued from my actions à bike/key

(Possession here is very much a reality and I will borrow willingly from my fellow philosopher kings the ability to inject a term with yet another definition; much like we inject over stuffed turkeys with their savory juices until they are oozing with multiple meanings. We act many times because of others control over us; hence possession. But the intriguing part about this possession, the illusion, and it is seen many times in abuse cases, is that we have little knowledge of this possession. We walk around catatonic, questioning nothing, aware as one does who has the onset of the cold, that something is off, but not able to sum it up and express its function. It is not until we step outside of ourselves, away from the hazy laze that was once our clear sight, that we finally see the truth in the proper light. Again, a dream view ensnarls our sense! We think we see words and numbers and people, but our true view is distorted and we only see outlines, cloudy visions, and emptiness.

à This day was atypical, and much a dream, one I often dreamt, only-childness, just myself and my mother, very dream like (mom don’t cry)! I had the car keys to my uncle’s Alfa Romeo Milano, and my bike, that Black General BMX style (with pedals braking the bike when they were spun backwards) perched upside down. Treading the spokes with the key, creating a clanking sound, that was abruptly calming, as each spoke spun, and the key, oh that key, it’s flimsy metal’s molecules slowly being disrupted through every turn of the bike’s wheel, those infinitesimal cracks I was creating, conditioning the key for failure (my father always said that Italian cars were cheaply made) gave way to science. The brittle key began to split in my hands but did not succumb to the laws of gravity and physics and melancholy until it’s true test, living up to it’s purpose! As the key was being inserted into the lock outside that driver door, waiting for the large rectangular piece of plastic to rise up out of the door, issuing it’s orange red flag of warning (I am now open) behind the window glass, I heard it. The final clang the key would ring, having now been stripped of it’s ability to fulfill it’s duties, as it struck the always moist floor of that soggy wooded garage, was a death rattle and final toll. I fell silent, almost accustomed to these moments, where I, in the wrong, received the punishment. I would look down, conditioned to prepare for verbal onslaughts, those that hurt most, the non physical blows that slammed down upon ear drums! The rustling of little hairs in and around the ear canal, positioned on end, like tiiny soldiers awaiting the gust of sound waves to surf them straight to my inner ear. à

(Pushing past the present of this historic past moment, we celebrated Christmas, or Thanksgiving in the cramped dining room on Filbert Street! This would be my first confrontation with my uncle post cataclysmic event! I played rogue warrior, hidden among the patterned furniture, had picked my clothes careful to fit in and avoid conversation. I had killed, had performed murder, and was awaiting…something! I spent the day in terror, avoiding eye contact, which meant constantly eyeing to see if their was an attempt at silent attack. I centered that days world view on my failure of a former day, could swear I knew that this was the only thing those chewing lips preferred to spew forth other than gravy and cranberry sauce! I have since wasted many days acting in much the same way, rambling inertly, internally, of my pitfalls, and others minds exacting revenge; that their minds too could could only grasp the wronging I had done them.

à It came in many forms, but being banished to my room seemed most common. (room as poor punishment as I kept misbehaving) The room decision, always an awkward one, like I stated, was the most common, and therefore, as I became accustomed to my punishment, like any good puppy, I receded to my cell for moments of sobbing and solitude! My retreat sometimes gave way to my personal choice to lobby personal protest. I would spend hours in my room staring out windows and inciting morbid outcomes to seemingly dull events. The family car, the Subaru, yellow, dull, bleach stain in the trunk tearing eyes, would creak its way past the side of the house, and as it faded out of sight on Filbert St, the mind would unravel as gauze from a wound. Blood would spill into every scene; car accident, two of the four dead. I would day dream little to positive outcome and keep my darkest thoughts inward. Would imagine, down to minute detail, the remainder of my life if my brother and father happened to die, then my sister and mother, then mother and brother or father and sister! Would actually gauge the best of these worst case examples. Money seemed to be the current theme, and I always backed away from the free form though race of heavy imagination knowing that the worst case of the worst case would be the one, if one ever came true!

Scripture / Melody / Finale

Our actions become us, beguile us! We, trusting in their outcome, succumbing to their wisdom as age old sages, are constantly fooled but return for more nurturing. But their words are spoken of forked tongues and always slip away on the breeze with a lisp and fledgling spit. Action is our insider informant always speaking into our ear, tickling our thoughts with hopes of greater…As a child we may achieve action for action sake, but do not dwell so much in the outcome as the motions. The actual motion of things, and are interaction, keep us amused enough!

I need to center, to complete here, what was started out. Need to expel the treatise’s message written on a fortune tucked neatly behind two fused cookies. We need to embrace our simplicity and try to, just sometimes, act as the outcome means little and motions mean much. Don’t pump the swing to go higher pump the sing to swing. Don’t build the sand castle to completion, but always add another turret. Peter says play in the sand and eat the grilled cheese, bite through the grit of the sand in the bread, and swallow; Praise Be to Peter!

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