But, the shirt has some stains now and the color has faded. The pants have worn through at the crotch.
All my favorite pants get worn through at the crotch. I think this is because I ride bikes a lot, but I haven't heard of other bicyclists having this problem.
I have things, and I know people. Also, I know things. I see things, they are a part of my world.
I'm 23 years old, I live in North East (but only a block away from North) Portland, in basically a large attic above the garage. We can see Mt. St. Helens from our yard. 3 Boys Market, my favorite dirt-cheap neighborhood grocery seems to have closed while I was away working.
I have a college degree hanging on the board behind my computer (I don't have walls on the long sides of my room, just the sloping ceiling, but this board is where a wall would be.)
This is a document, encased in glass that I will always be able to point to, to prove something about who I am. The people I knew while in college were and are so much more important to me than that document, but connections with people are so god damn fleeting. You move, or people move, they drop out of your life.
I can go back up to campus and see the same buildings, and the same trees, walk the same paths. I could read in the fluorescent glow of the library. But its not part of my world anymore, it's just memories. Remembering the person I used to be. There are excited eighteen-year olds thinking about their "college experience" which will begin in a few weeks. They will meet fabulous people, walk outside under gray clouds, eat together, share rooms with someone they've never known before. They will study late under the fluorescent glow in the library with coffee in their bellies and step outside around 11pm for a walk and possibly a cigarette in the gardens, and up around the manor house. They will study with intensity history and languages and politics and science. Beer will be drunk, purchased by means of a fake license or a magnanimous Junior, and smuggled into dorms under shirts or in gym bags.
When I was in Korea for two months I had a girlfriend and lived with her and her father in a one bedroom apartment. It was in building 3 I think, on the 7th (top) floor in the Tae-bong apartment complex. Our apartment was accessed by an open balcony walk with a view to the north of the volcano Halla-san. Brian and Calli and I would cook and watch movies together. We dried our clothes on a rack on the back balcony (on the south side) after untangling them from the knot produced inside the washing machine. I had English students from ages 7 to 15 that I saw every weekday. We had a few friends that were other English teachers. Calli and I spent almost all our time together.
The island was beautiful and we explored it by scooter and motorcycle. We saw, smelled, touched, tasted, and heard many strange and previously unknown things. Twice, I think, we got take out and ate it sitting on the high basalt cliffs over the ocean at Oedolgae park and watched the lights of the fishing fleet on the horizon come on one by one as the stars would appear, one by one, over our heads.
We were in love. There were problems of course, and we broke up just a few months later. But that was a real thing, at that time. I remember it. I know that me, the person that I am, was present at that time, and now three years later I am still me, but not in Korea and not in love.
Love is a madness built for two.
Does that sound good? I like the ring of it.
A madness because it is a special reality, influenced by this world, but hovering above it, and sometimes soaring off in unexpected directions.
My feet have been on the ground for too long.
So, I've got all these possessions, I know all these people.
I've got a sweet vintage leather jacket that I never wear. I've got a desk and a blue bookshelf. I've got maybe a hundred records. I "own" 12 and a half days of digital recordings in my iTunes.
I live with people I've known for about three and a half years. At one point we ate together in the cafeteria, stayed up all night reading, wandered in and out of the dorms together. Most of the friendships I rely upon were formed around that time. Most of my acquaintances also still carry over from that time. I see these people now. In many cases far more time has passed since the forming period of the relationship than the relationship actually took to form. These relationships are running too long on reserves.
Relationships are difficult to store. For some people that may be easier than for others. For me I feel it takes a great deal of relationship "forming" for the relationship to last very long. I think this is because I am distant with people. I am overly self-centered and I do not put others at ease. I am not naturally generous with people. I like to be generous, but it usually doesn't occur to me at first. I think I build myself up, because I feel insecure, and this appears as arrogance and egoism to others.
I wish I could just say "I value you, and your presence in my life". In most situations that would sound weird and not put people at ease. One must find more subtle ways of showing it.
"Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,- Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.
Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side; the country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready to squeeze case eternally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti."
from Chapter 94 - Moby Dick