Birthday

I've always had an image in my mind of a river running underneath and inside me, all the time, of time, and of me and mine. My brother is in my mind like this 24 hours a day underneath. He was born 16 months after I was here, died 18 years later, and is rarely spoken of or even acknowledged consciously - even by me. People love to say when someone dies "We'll never forget!" This is not true. We do forget and it's a balm. You can't go around in a high state of anxiety or blistering searing love pain - you'd die. So your mind forgets. But it's ok because inside you that person resides and is in that subconscious river and you can dip in. I do. It's ok.

We were all just little.

He used to drive my parents huge horrid red station wagon (Harriet Gronglebeiner) through our yard, weaving through the trees in our yard, jumping on the gas and the brakes in rhythm while screaming out the lyrics to "Once in a Lifetime" by Talking Heads. His favorite band.

"You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack 
You may find yourself in another part of the world 
You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile 
You may find yourself in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife 
You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here? 
Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down."

When I shower I find myself spitting. The water is so distasteful that I clench my lips together to keep out even a drop and when one of course gets in I spit like a wretched little boy - it's disgusting. That word again.

Some people shy away. You'll be here soon. I'm sorry, I really am. I'll be there for you and I forgive you now. You just don't know. Blissful.

I've been reading John Keats lately. I'm freaked by his "Ode On a Grecian Urn" - that

"Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, 

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,"

blows my mind. Bride of quietness - married to silence, the depth of space, the infinite. The foster child of time, as we all are. Yet unravished, because, as art / beauty it has no time or physical human reality. The rest of it is lovely and has been analyzed much by much better minds than mine - go study it if you want. 

Here are a few more of his words that I relate to now as a person of odd sleep:

From: Sonnet To Sleep

"O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close, In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes." YES please sleep knock me out at any time. Take me! And he says: "Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, And seal the hushed casket of my soul." My soul is kinda caskety today. Some cool art I've been looking at online from a book called Codex Seraphineanus:

Still feeling rotten and wretched and wondering if I'm normal or did they somehow give me way too large a dose or am I a weak little mousling. Equilibrium changes - I used to flip my body in the air backwards in twisting flips for hours a day on the tramp as we called it and even before chemo lately I'd feel green on a swing set or in a cartwheel - ha! Now it's putrid green 24/7 and I kinda give up.

Lots of lovely visitors lovingly visiting bestowing lovely gifts thank you.

More Once in a Lifetime:

"You may ask yourself, how do I work this? 
You may ask yourself, where is that large automobile? 
You may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house 
You may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife 
Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down 
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground 
Into the blue again, after the money's gone 
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground 
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was 
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was"