All day the Little Dog has been sick. He is listless and miserable, his little black nose hot and dry. I checked his gums but they seem ok. I get scared that he might die. The past few months would have been utterly unbearable without him.
At about 7.30 he perked up and has been right as rain ever since. Leaping all over Eric when he arrived for hastily put together dinner.
He is snuggling in my lap as I write.
I think about the darling big dog. My darling big dog, I miss her more than I ever did. I still have daily, violent memories of her broken, bloody body. Searing into my mind. Replaying the last few moments of her life before that evil truck scraped her across the road.
My fingers angrily bang the letters of those words onto the page.
I CAN’T HELP YOU.
I blame the man driving the truck. He did it on purpose. He didn’t stop. Bastard.
At moments like this I soothe myself with memories of home. I think a great deal of England-green and pleasant land. The Kent countryside, the buses to Canterbury, Georgina, The Goods Shed, etc. etc., I nightly drive through Clowes Wood in my semi conscious state..naked..shameless.
I remember a recurring nightmare: I am a young boy naked in the schoolyard. I have no idea where my clothes are or where I lost them. I hide behind the half door in the toilets as the other children are called to class. I stand naked in the schoolyard covering myself, the cold wind whipping grit into my eyes. The other children sitting warm inside at their desks.
Last night as he was with me in my bed I lay thinking of how I might get home safely. How can I get back home? For all that raucous, interminable thinking we slept soundly.
I’ve not written a word these past few days. Full moon blues I call it. I lost interest in my blog as things calmed down with my (ex?) and my new friend holidayed in Italy.
I had to deal with a moving traffic violation issue that meant going to the Superior Court twice this week. The judge was very fair and funny but going through a stop sign still cost me $550. I have opted for community service. The art auction last Sunday seemed to vindicate my ability to pick the winners. Things sold mostly at the upper end of the estimate. I bought a beautiful candle stick by a potter whose name I have forgotten.
Prevaricating. Stifled. Tongue-tied.
The point is: I can’t really write down any of my true feelings. I am in shut down mode. I can’t do anything, move anywhere, release myself..rant or rave. The malaise seems to affect every area of my life.
After the headiness of New York I’ve fallen into a sharp decline, my confidence at an all time low. Dinner with friends last weekend I simply couldn’t hold my head up, my libido, my enthusiasm, my recall deserting me. She was a very cool next generation producer. CAA agents greeting her at our table. Hugs and kisses. Fast track.
I say to myself, “I am on my own with no one to focus on, no one to say that I love.” It feels like a terrible waste. I had some real hope! Hope that I could travel the world with a man I was excited by. How those dreams crumble into dust. I am fractured by time and distance. I am in the wrong city, in the wrong country, on the wrong fucking planet. I am desperate for a change of circumstance.
The road that leads to the Malibu house is weeks from being repaired. It maybe the very metaphor I am looking for. The road to the house is being repaired so I can escape my verdant prison. Yet every day I do my best to make it more like paradise.
I want to write about The Great BP Catastrophe but I can’t. I want to write about anything other than me but each time I begin I am stopped by something inescapable. I just don’t care. I don’t care about anything. I am exhausted..spent.
Beaten by the sheer force of inequity:
BP, miserable pictures of delicate Pelican eggs smeared with crude oil. The watered down banking regulations that caused Wall Street a collective sigh of relief. Congress about to pass an additional $32 billion to pay for war in Afghanistan yet it struggling to justify a $23 billion bill to forestall the layoff of nearly 300,000 teachers next year.
What kind of country are we?
4 replies on “i Can’t Help You”
“The point is: I can’t really write down any of my true feelings. I am in shut down mode. I can’t do anything, move anywhere, release myself..rant or rave.”
That’s a special kind of hell, to be sure. I sympathize more than you know. Stay well, Duncan… hugs 🙂
Duncan, my dearest blog-friend. What a boring life, sad in fact, without your words. I love how you write, how your feelings are poured into every letter. When I read you, I feel; I enjoy knowing I am not alone. I ran from my family because they couldn’t accept me, I never share my personal life with anybody, I am an enigma a cold, lonely person who only wants love and laughter! I was in class the other day and someone said, “It is easier for women to hide being gay than a man.” I was disgusted by the remark then I remembered; your the most closeted person on earth. My secrets are keeping me sick, my secrets my sweet lesbian secrets.
Duncan,
I am so sorry that you seem so disconsolate. I think that you’re right about disrepair of the road to the Malibu house being the perfect metaphor for what’s going on with you. I am reminded of a line from “Centennial” when Robert Conrad, who plays a French-Canadian fur trapper, is trying to explain the Native American concept of time to his friend. He say’s that when asked how long it will take to accomplish something, they say “It takes as long as it takes”. Everything has it’s own natural trajectory. It’s own natural cycle. We get in trouble when we try and force things. Maybe the road isn’t built yet because it’s not time for you to travel it. Maybe you’re meant to hold onto the house a little longer because it’s part of the plan that your Higher Power has for you.
As for all of us and the US, in particular — we’re at a crossroads. We’re reaping the whirlwind of our arrogance and ignorance and seeing the rotten fruit that has grown from our mindlessness. We are being humbled and will have to deal with the harm that we’ve done but we have a chance to move forward and become aware and make changes. And some changes are being made. They should be more forceful but they can be strengthened. Bills can be amended. Criminal penalties can be meted out to chasten anyone who thinks to continue in the blundering, blind, thoughtless way of the past. We have a choice. We can make a hell out of heaven or a heaven out of hell as Milton said.
WE HAVE THE POWER. NO ONE IS POWERLESS. Especially, you. Open your soul’s eyes and soar. The perspective will hearten you.
A lot of metaphysical writers say that we are all feeling stuck and out of place because we are in between worlds. The old world is passing away, the new world is birthing and we have one foot in the old and one in the new. We need to turn our faces to the new world and HOLD IN OUR HEARTS OUR BEST HOPES AND BELIEFS about what’s possible. Just allow the POSSIBILITY.
They say that between times, like twilight and dawn, are the times when the veils between worlds are the thinnest. The times when magic happens. I know that it’s agonizing when you feel mired in muck like the oil spilling in the Gulf… but try and believe. Allow the possibility. Let go and let God. Allow GRACE to pour over you like fresh, cool rain. Let it wash all the psychic muck away and free up your energy and refresh your heart and soul. HAVE FAITH!
Blessings,
Amanda
Amanda, thank you for this post. Wonderful. It makes things clear for everyone as well as D.