Daddy... Moon... Airplane.

Everybody seems to want to talk and reassure me lately but the fact of the matter is? I don't want to talk so I walked around my neighborhood with my hands in my hooded sweatshirt and looked at the moon. When I was little. I do remember a few nights where I'd just sit out with my dad and we'd look at the moon. It dawned on me tonight, my first word was 'daddy'. My second word was 'moon' and my third word was 'airplane.' It's rather uncanny to me how these words have had such a significant impact on my life.

For one, if any of you know me at all... you'll know that my dad has always been my rock. He's my whole foundation and every ounce of goodness that I have in my life, has been a direct attribute of him. I guess moon would be symbolic of my imagination and how easily it is fo me to find those escapisms in my mind... and because I'm well traveled and my ability to just up and go, I'd say that airplane is a perfect third word.

I guess it's kind of leaked that my dad isn't doing too well and it makes me unstable and worries me more than anything that has ever worried me in my life. I remember after my dad had a heart attack, I called my best friend Alex and asked him if it was alright if I stayed with him for two weeks to clear my head. He welcomed the idea most enthusiastically and I had a wonderful time. Yet, regardless of where I am the terrifying thought lingers, How could I possibly function if my dad no longer existed? Every time that thought enters my brain I try to stifle it immediately because I can't breathe, my heart starts racing and everything gets really fuzzy. I remember once, my dad and I talked about the agony one would feel if they lost a child... but the thought of losing my dad has always sat in my belly like boulder. If you look at my post on June 2, let it be known that after I denounced God... after that conversation I had with my father about controlling one's destiny, he went home to Germany and had a heart attack... he told me God was trying to give him signs, that taking my mom back was going to kill him... coincidentally, that happened...

I'm trying to focus, like I'm trying my best to have the most amazing life I can but sometimes I feel like I'm in a dream and can't wake myself up... or I can't manipulate the monsters and make the best of a situation beyond my control. Then I lose myself in a psuedo world and think... I wish dragons were real, because then I'd be an emerald drake and I could make my papa all better. I always want to fix things... and I guess that's why I play a druid. I never really thought of why... I just like to make people better. I guess it makes sense too because my life long dream is to rehabilitate great apes.

I'm the happiest I ever have been in my life... I'm certainly not my healthiest but I've developed a more optimistic attitude about the world. I just can't help but succumb to insignificants every now and then because it's easier to focus on that and ignore the initial problem to begin with. I can let men enrage me and push people away. I can ignore the advice from my doctors and watch my health deplete because they're all perfectly distracting... and not permanent but when my dad is dead? Nothing can be done and I feel like if it were physically possible, I'm sure my heart would blackhole and I'd wander around aimlessly like a ghost.

As if it were any easier, I decided to fight with my dad... I know it doesn't make sense but I figured being angry with him would make me less fearful and morose. I told my dad he was going to die along the same path of Prufrock... hesitant, cowardly and without ever knowing what it is to love anybody because he never loved my mom. I know it made his heart hurt physically and emotionally... and while I said those things I felt myself ripping in half and I'd never cried quite as hard for anything ever. It didn't make things easier at all.

I forgot about father's day this year because I was distracted. Kristen had just left and I was packing for my long trip to Los Angeles. But I remember a few father's days ago. I got my dad a blank father's day car. It had a papa penguin and a little fuzzy baby penguin nestled between his legs. I wrote him a really long letter on how much he's impacted my life for the better and that I found the blank penguin card because it's a known fact that papa penguins are one of the most extreme and loving father's in the animal kingdom. I just recollected on my favorite memories of him, and how I remembered running towards his legs and swinging between them when I was little.

I remember how he used to hang out with me when I was a little girl and we'd talk about the universe and infinity when I was four. My daddy used to make up stories just for me when it was bed time. My favorite was a story he made up about a giraffe named Williger. Williger was the meanest giraffe in Africa. When all the animals tried to drink from water holes, he'd charge at them and hit them with his long neck. So the animals plotted against him and filled the watering hole with jello. We used to go on these long road trips in Europe and I'd always sit behind my mom so we could hold hands. When my dad left the country, and he did this often, I'd stay awake at night by myself and wonder if people were supposed to feel so lonely at night... and I'd wonder where God was. I guess it's because I was always misunderstood as a child, kids didn't get me and before my brother could talk... I always lived in my head and my dad was my best friend.

I have a set plan now, and when I last talked to my dad he was pleased and told me he hopes I start writing again soon. He also says how at peace he is with his death... it never sits right with me.

I guess I just had to write this all down so I could bury it... everything I write I bury lately, it's like taking the weight of guilt and putting it away and sitting on it. It isn't meant to be good writing, it's just better than crying. I don't know what else to say...

so I'll just say... moon.

Excerpts from the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

For I have known them all already, known them all;
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?


And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say, "That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."

Kristen and I once spent a summer night on a porch, when we were in our new 20s. A man spat off Eliot while we just gazed at each other in disbelief. Not only was it impressive that he was old and hanging out with 21 year olds, but the fact that he could recite the entire poem... and when you really thought about it... he was Prufrock. I couldn't stop thinking about that man tonight. I haven't seen him since but for a brief moment in October. The guy looked like he had his chips ready to cash... and when he walked? He stared at the floor. It was like he was ashamed of something. Sometimes that's all you can see in the eyes of old men... and I always wonder what it's like, what do they think about with their faces scrunched up... what are their most favorite memories to visit?

I think about my dad a lot lately... and it makes me scared when I think that one day he might wear that same face. I know that's a terrible thing to say, it's awful... but I don't mean it terribly. I don't think it's possible for that to ever happen to my father anyway. I guess it's just the way I romanticize things in my head. I heard he was on a train the other day to the Alps with my brother and of course, the first thing I think is... 'Rilke'. I guess I think of my dad because tonight I realized that all of the great men and literary writers that I respect and look up to the most are solitary. My favorite books are about people who are alone. The last book that made me cry was Norwegian Wood... it could be the flux of everything, and the uncertainty of direction... but it's curious to me nonetheless. Why men? Why solitude? Why do these apparent themes even infiltrate my dreams? Maybe it's because Los Angeles is spawning up so suddenly... (tomorrow) and the last time I stayed in Los Angeles for a while, I read Women in coffee shops and wandered around the city aimlessly when Alex's apartment made me restless.

I've been dreaming about my friend from Brooklyn lately. It's always so Norwegian Wood too, from the two people in the fields... to the subway hopping and letter writing. Zee is always distressed in these dreams and everytime I try to help out, my feet sink into the ground and I can't move. I always wake up crying. So I write to him, right? I ask him if everything is ok.... when he responds... they aren't and he tells me we should embark on an adventure together. (But I can't.) But mostly Zee is the only one actually doing it, living it... and not conforming to the mold. And then there's dreams of my once best friend, the one things got heavy with and then faded. We never speak to each other in dreams, we just look at each other... in the last we were holding hands but still? He wouldn't say a word... and neither would I.

It's curious to me now too, that every man that I've ever become really close to are a bunch of Prufrocks. All my best friends are misunderstood men. I don't know if that says anything about me or not. But I've listened to all their stories... and I know how women misconstrue things... and maybe this is why I never trust most any woman, or man for that matter, especially when relationships are concerned. But they're all good men and their stories are sometimes trite and all the while fascinating. I've picked them up in drunken stupors and put them to bed and tiptoed out of their rooms... only to get coffee later that week and listen some more. I've never dated any of them... and the men that I have dated have had serious trust issues and bad relationships, whether it be with a parent... or some sort of fucked abandonment issues because they've been cheated on and this or that. I just hope that none of them end up like the Prufrock reciter.

I'm sure this had a point when I had originally started to write it... but I can't make sense of it now. I mostly just wanted to post an excerpt from that poem... and I guess now everybody knows that I sometimes sit in my room thinking about old men and get sad? Quirky, right? Not so much.

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.