About a month ago I told Lord Byron the gist of Run, Rabbit. (+) "I think that Rabbit sucks man," she said reacting to my description of the story. I wondered why she would say that because it was a given I would play the devil's advocate. "He's looking for something babe," I told her. "You'd have to read the story. He knows his transgression and he knows how it can be seen but he is not accepting the awfulness of it. He is not accepting or expecting to settle." The description didn't matter really because we were both listening from our own desires. So, in my judgmental arrogance I thought I'd tell her how I really feel. "Byron," I balked, "now that we're on the subject of laying it on the line, you know that I think your trip to Africa is bullshit. That you went on a religious retreat which could be doing more harm than good there and that you are so either stupid, ignorant or arrogant that you look a fool." I felt so full of myself as to continue, "and it's not just me, it appears, for all the world that you did not go to help anyone, rather you went to fulfill your desire to see the world and it doesn't matter who you exploit. So I think you are full of shit and if you weren't you'd be working hard in Rochester now, right now, to do something similar." I felt like a monster and free - a free monster as I was. A dirty filthy monster among monsters. I saw her as a monster too. She was stunned but understood she had to answer. "Rose, I get it. I understand. I know you feel like this." "I'm glad because I will not pretend to protect your bullshit self-centered exploitation experience." And now I was really full of myself, 1000 percent Jersey - I'm gonna punch your throat and if you can't take it, better move to Kansas, boy, kind of attitude. It didn't matter because it devolved. Why argue? I knew the answer and felt weak. Sigh. But now I was in Kosovo, Kosovä, Pristina, Prishtina, Prishtinë. Yes. Teaching markup language and some form of design to cadets, well some cadets. I had something. I had distance. I have a whole culture of newness and a language I can barely grasp. I know next to nothing and know I know next to nothing. Relief. I thought about the state of my love and felt terrible. Longing for the newness and movement of the first glimpse of the Rockies (hearing now the smack of lightening passing overhead). I scan my notes in my little black book of everything and find this.
I confess at times I see the human form as ugly. Long, tall, bulging with fat. Even the toddlers, waddling along. Even there in comparison to the birds, sky rats, falling down, coming softly or noisily to the hard square divided surfaces of Belgrade. The human soft, round and hairy, little squeaks of hair, scattered and ugly across the body like dots of thick rocky sand. Lumbering tall forms waiting to fall like timber, eyes sunken, hands swollen from arthritis. All its marks primitive to the simple animals with whole and gorgeous forms. Their bungling mouths training for me, each day then each day wanting for more. Bilja says, "when I was young there was a man, he was beautiful and he chose to be a monk. I asked him why? Why do you love religion? Why don't you love me, I mean I have a soul and can speak back to you. But he left and I never understand." "Still now," I ask? "Yes, still now. But we grew up without religion and now I can see it but still not understanding." We left it quiet from there. Of the stories to share she chose this. I must have something religious in my approach (like I had to ask or even wonder). Yes, tall, sharp and distant humans. Closely moving forward. Going forward. Lumbering. Aging and passing on with earth, dirt and fences to separate.
