An American in Europe

will still most certainly tune into CNN to check on what is happening in New Orleans. She — I — will try to cope with the choking feelings of the horror of post-Katrina when the levy broke and human beings suffered and died. The placid, soothing lake outside my window. Sunlight dappling. On holiday. If we are alive and not suffering, we must be both. We are obliged.

War dream

Here’s the dream I had:

I was a soldier in the Iraq war; there was no choice about it. So that I wouldn’t have to hurt anyone, I had a position of serving as target practice. I stood in the middle of a circle, with my right arm extended, surrounded by other soldiers who practiced shooting off my arm. It seems that my arm was not really like a flesh-and-blood arm in that when someone shot it, the arm came off like perhaps a cardboard or tin object in a carnival shooting gallery. It was removed entirely and then just as quickly “regenerated” itself so that it could be torn away again, and again. I was happy with the arrangement, experiencing only the mildest twinge of anxiety that someone else might decide that I was getting off too easily and my job would therefore be taken from me. Then, someone shot and this time the bullet did not remove my arm but instead entered my arm about six inches above my wrist, and I felt this (I did not feel or have sensation of the other shots). It was incredibly painful and I began to cry and beg someone to hurry up and shoot again and remove the entire arm.

I suppose that on the most obvious level the dream seems to say that I have a willingness to sacrifice myself in order to avoid hurting others, and I don’t really feel very pleased with that.

Responsible for being understood

While we’re packing up to move out of here, we’re getting visits from family members who we haven’t seen for a while, who figure, I suppose, that it will be even longer before they come out to CA. (The latter is not necessarily a bad thing, really.) These visits have prompted, as they will, self-reflection, and reflection, in general. (Note the previous post.)

So, self-reflection. Losing my personal religion. Those beliefs that I’m not entirely aware of or consciously operating from. Such as?

The latest: I seem to believe that it is on me to make myself understood. To the extent that I will articulate things in a variety of ways, often re-articulate, substituting synonyms, creating metaphors. This is all well and good, fine for a teacher, which I have been, useful for a writer, which I am. I have been praised for being such a good communicator, no surprise. Yet, is it necessary to bring professional skills into (casual) conversation?

It came to me during my mother-in-law’s visit at one point as I realized that, once again, she did not get me, just did not understand, that I had put the onus on me to do my damnedest to have her understand, and that I had always taken that responsibility. And not just with her. I see that I have in the past walked away from communication breakdowns knowing better but feeling as if they were failures on my part.

I think it’s time

I wish for a moratorium on bad feelings between family members. It’s not my family of origin but P’s, and more specifically, it’s among his siblings and him mainly… and me, also. I don’t know what it takes or how it can happen or that it can. It’s just a wish and a desire. (I guess my feeling is that it’s probably not possible, probably not desired by those who it’s most up to.)

Big Sur getaway

On shelter

Shelter — I’m laughing at the use of that word.

The house I just sold back in the Midwest I could not buy here, in Marin County, for oh, close to a million. Maybe more. That’s more money than I have for spending on a house.

Now I knew that before getting here but I am just now getting to know it. P says that it’s just a number, now, and it’s all relative (to what he’s earning, and so on, but I am not – yet – earning more), to forget the $$. Some days that’s easier than others. Some days it strikes me anew as downright ridiculous.

For example, we were looking at a house (to rent: we’re just going to rent first before jumping in) and our host indicated a place beside the fireplace in the kitchen where a large rock rested on the hardwood floor. The rock, she informed, marked the area where we should not walk as there is structural damage underneath the floorboards (moisture, termites — two reasons slated) and we could fall through. How many thousands of dollars per month should one pay to rent such a place, really? My answer: zero.

We have looked at some odd things. A “unique” house turned out to be part of a church, the other part of which functions as a Buddhist meditation center, which might not be so bad (it would be quiet, right?) if it weren’t that in one room exists a door with a large window leading to the center’s kitchen, covered by a flimsy curtain. Oh, and the yard — a beautiful yard, granted — often serves a role for the Buddhists’ activities, including weddings.

I’m not in a place in my life in which I want to plan out when I might be outside. I want to be out there, writing, sitting, dreaming when I want to.

If I want to sing, play rousing gypsy music and dance, if I want to shriek (at P?) I don’t want to have to be thinking about those souls trying to meditate. I want to set that thornbush afire, not add another inhibitor to my living.

So the search goes on for the right place, for the suitable place.

This is what I’ve been doing for about two weeks now, scooping Craig’s List ads, responding, driving by, sometimes viewing inside. It’s a kind of a trance. I feel unable to concentrate on much else.

And I wonder about what’s next after the shelter thing is settled.

I start to worry.

I worry that I can’t write right now: I think I should be able to write NO MATTER WHAT. If I’m a real writer. I should.

Oh, a should. That’s right: I want to lose my personal religion.