FERNANDEZ
Intent, purpose, attentiveness; these are nice words to describe particular states of being.
I would be tempted to dwell on those things to begin the new year if it were not the case that what I really want to do is simply to rock my body this way and that, rocking it like a pendulum.
This way and that, to the tune of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.”
(Please YouTube the song to enjoy this piece completely.) My mind wants to go fitfully into the coming year. My body just wants to forget.
And why not?
Intent, purpose, attentiveness; these are nice words to describe particular states of being. But it is forgetfulness which often carries us through the days.
And even now, I wonder if I am fit to go into the coming year. Fit even to finish this essay after missing my last one.
We are glad to be done with 2017. But are we ready to do 2018? A good friend came home for Christmas and raised this question over coffee one Christmas afternoon: What three lessons did you learn from 2017? Earnest person that I am, I answered:
One: I learned I do not really know my kids as well as I thought I did. Although there were times I wanted to throttle them, they make actually for excellent company.
And I find myself quite happy and proud they speak their minds even if it means a fight. We do not agree all the time. They have different views and values. But we are better off this way.
Two: Things are going to get worse before they become better.
I am referring here to the politics, of course.
That lesson is obvious and self-evident. The established political mind-set is to make today’s profit by cashing the future, our children’s future.
That seems to be the game plan for how America will be great again. But who are we to criticize?
We have thrown away the rule of law in order to achieve certain things quicker.
But there is a cost. And the cost is not made any less, in fact it is made even more, just simply because it will be our children and their children who will be paying.
We have seen it before. We are paying even now for past-impatience.
But three: I do still have a future. And at no time ever do I feel this than now.
This year is when I “come out.” Oh, I know. That seems suspiciously like “coming out of the closet,” which is, if you are not aware, code for publicly admitting being gay.
But I would rather refer to a more general, even universal, sort of “closet.” And now, I must admit to hiding inside a closet of my own making. The closet is more like a cabinet really.
Cabinet with drawers that I fill with the regular things needing to be done in the regular course of life. The things I do to get by, rocking back and forth on my dada rocking horse.
I would like to remember 2017 as the time where I confessed to myself how tired I have become of all these; and especially this closet where I hide myself in inside a perpetual non-committal state of wanting nothing; somewhat in the relative comfort of having nothing to lose.
And if I have a wish for myself, if I have a gift I would like to gift myself with come Christmas of 2018; it will be that I will remember 2018 as the year I came out of the closet, my closet; And then finally to do the things I really want to do.
To write my story. To dance according to my music. To do my art. Finally, to begin.