I know where you go to my lovely…

You talk like Marlene Dietrich
And you dance like Zizi Jeanmaire
Your clothes are all made by Balmain
And there’s diamonds and pearls in your hair, yes there are.

Dear Orpheus,

I’ve been absent for awhile, there may be a lot of ground to cover. I went up to Athens a couple weekends ago to visit Amy, Beggs and Cho. The night before I went to go visit them I was in Atlanta getting some headshots taken by a friend of mine (they came out remarkably well; now I just need to figure out how I want to get my hair styled for the next round of pictures) I told Ryan that I would come by Augusta to visit him, but everything I needed to share with my friends ended up spilling over into the next day, and I had to break my word. I hate doing that.

I like to think I talk like Marlene Dietrich, and dance like Josephine Baker with her bananas. That there are diamonds on the soles of my shoes, as well as in my hair along with pearls. . Mm.

All of this pales in comparison to the recent emotional upheaval that has been the past week. My brother called my mom on Sunday to apologize for some things he had said to her the last time they spoke. For the past three weeks he’s been homeless and living on the street, so my mom went down and rented him a room in a hotel for a couple of days. You would think having one’s older brother living homeless on the street would be shocking, but this has been the state of affairs for the past three years. In the words of Tolstoy, “Happy families are all alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” I think the same can be said for groups of friends and any other social unit.

Yes, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Are there any solutions to fixing unhappy families? I don’t know. When my mom went down on Sunday to get him a room, I went to go spend some time with him. I haven’t seen my brother since he was kicked out of the house in 2006 for trying to fight my dad. I went to go spend time with him, to hopefully reconnect as brothers. We talked. And slept. And talked. And slept. I knitted a blue scarf. Knitting is one of the ways I’ve found to harness nervous energy into something productive. We talked. I knitted. We slept.

I want my older brother to be a part of my life. I want my family to heal, and grow and live up to our individual potential. I want to be a part of my older brother’s life. And I don’t want him in and out of the streets as he has been for the past three years. Remind me to tell you the story of when he called me on New Year’s threatening to commit suicide. That was a barrel of laughs. And tears.

At any rate, I spent two days in a hotel room with him, hoping to get inside his head and understand his perspective. After all, we’ve been estranged ever since I came back from Paris and found out he attacked my dad and was thrown out of the house. All of this happened in front of my little brother. The sheriff was called. Goodness, yes, there’s a novel waiting to be told in the relationship I have with my brother, but the focus is on this hotel room. Where we slept. I knitted. We talked. We went outside to smoke cigarettes. The entire time I had Darjeeling Limited going through my mind, hoping we’d come to this spiritual awakening and reconnect.

Whenever my brother makes contact, my family and I find ourselves in the midst of an emotional upheaval. He called on Sunday. I said I wanted to go down and spend time with him, hoping to understand his point of view and hopefully convince him going into counseling doesn’t mean he has to admit he needs help or that he has a problem, but that going into counseling provides relief and a validation of feelings. On Tuesday night, my brother, my mother, my father, my younger brother and I went to Outback Steakhouse to have a family dinner. I knew there would be a family discussion afterwards. As did my mother and father. I like to hope my older brother knew on some level this talk was coming. The dinner was surreal, and at first the tension could have been cut with a knife.

After dinner, but before the intervention I went outside to smoke a cigarette. My brother came down to join me shortly, and I knew what was coming. I asked him if he was ready, and he asked “ready for what?” I told him it was time to clear the air and address the fact he’d been on the streets for the past three years. Don’t mind the sense of time right now, because it’s surreal even to myself. He told me I seemed nervous but to do what I needed to do. And so the entire family convened in the small hotel room where my older brother and I had talked and slept. I had knitted. I turned off the television when we came back up and began the discussion. I won’t go into details, but I left in complete tears. Precisely, I left an emotional wreck. When he had called on Sunday, I drove my car down and parked it at my mom’s work, in case I needed an out during the time I spent with my brother. I left an emotional wreck, unable to drive and my mom told me we would pick up my car in the morning. I remember getting down to my mom’s Camry, and once I had shut the door the tears and sobbing came back, and she held me for awhile. “It’s ok,” she told me.

I remember in 2004 or 2005, I can’t remember but it was another point when my brother was living with us. Our house was being built and we were living in apartments. My parents had gotten a call from April, his wife, that he had flown off the handle, and had smacked her knocking out a couple of teeth. They had tried to get the hospital to commit him, but beyond the observation point of either 48 or 72 hours the state of Georgia no longer does involuntary commitments. The doctors told my parents he was most likely schizotypal, but without observation and counseling there would be no way to know. My mom was telling me all of this, about how my older brother heard voices in his head and thought my dad was plotting to kill him. There was more she told me, but in the midst of telling me all of this I started laughing, just to relieve some of the emotional tension. And then the laughing turned into sobs. She asked me “Are you laughing or crying?” and when I responded with sobs, she moved onto the couch to hug me.

With my brother, it has been one emotional upheaval after another, but after this emotional intervention I feel I’ve put to rest many emotions and thoughts. I’ve been using this time back at home to reconnect with my family, and to deal with my own emotional problems so that I can finally move forward. After this emotional intervention, I’m able to move on from the trauma that was my brother calling me on New Year’s Day threatening suicide.

2003 was this cataclysmic year for me, between my brother calling on that day, starting college, my parents moving to Virginia right after graduating from high school, the cops coming to our house that summer with a warrant for his arrest, and the diagnosis from the doctor. Five years later, in a year marked by the fact that I’ve moved back home, I’ve dealt with my health, and I’ve confronted my brother I have closure on so many lingering issues. I’m not sure what the right word is either, but the days from 2003 align with this year, thanks to the fact of the leap day on Feb 29^th, each day aligns perfectly when one says five years ago an event happened on December 24^th , this upcoming January 1^st, November 10^th, July 20^th, or August 14^th then it actually occurred five years ago. Down to the day of the week. The date in the month. It’s uncanny, but it has taken five years to heal.

I know where you go to my lovely
When you’re alone in your bed
I know the thoughts that surround you
`Cause I can look inside your head.

When I say 2009 will be divine, these are not words uttered in hope. I know 2009 will be divine because 2008 has been a great year for releasing the past, and starting over. I have been shedding emotional pounds left and right, as though I were a 500 lb person who was inspired by Jared and ate Subway sandwiches of psychological healing, shedding the weight with unbelievable determination and speed. From a 150 inch waist, incredulous as to how I got to such a state of affairs, back down to my former fit self of size 29. Perhaps I know the Aga Khan (I don’t, but I’ve been chauffeured around the streets of Riyadh in a General’s armoured car with two inch thick Plexiglas for windows) There’s an aura surrounding each day in 2009 I know will be me reclaiming my development that has been arrested. And come January 4^th, the day of my first doctor visit almost five years ago, I will greet not with fear of the future, surrounded by dark and negative energy. It will be a reverse of polarity. Orpheus, I cannot wait to greet January 1st because for once, I too know where I go.

Thoughts on the Genii: Pt. II

“Cheer up sleepy Jean, oh what can it mean to a daydream believer and a homecoming queen”

Before I begin to rant and ruminate, I couldn’t decide between keeping order and titling this something applicable. Now:

The illusion of choice. Deciding what would … ? In other thoughts, I’ve been ruminating on the nature of my friendship with Maclean and other friendships. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I realize one of the similarities that exist is we’re constantly searching to craft our own, independent vision of reality. Perhaps nothing but mere vanity, but I think of us in terms of visionaries. Sometimes, I view myself as crazy just because not everyone sees the world as I do, this animated realm where every object and being have lives and intricacies of their own. No one else witnessing this? Perhaps it is why I label myself an artist, a more palatable form of madness. I’ve more to say on that subject, but that is what my paper is for.

As for Maclean, Ricky, and myself (I’ve mentioned this very topic before, and I bring up these two because of the interest in the humanities, by proxy philosophy), there are difficulties in being a visionary, a crafter of reality. We know it won’t be readily palatable to everyone, there’s a select few one can let into the private realm one’s created. Ideally, I’d like for everyone to exist cohesively involved in a pure positive manner. Perhaps this only accounts for those I consider positive, but even those that contribute negatively crafty my vision of reality by what I would not like it to be. I’d even dare to say anyone with a dream, so long as one hopes, crafts a reality.

“Everyone dreams,” you may say, but not this kind of dreaming. Not the sleep induced dreaming or even simple fantasizing, but the kind of dreaming in a sense the way a craftsman draws up blueprints for the object he needs to craft. It is in this manner of dreaming I speak of, in an active sense that isn’t easily cast aside unless the possibilities of translating that dream into reality don’t exist yet. It can involve dreaming of relationships, goals in life, what to make for dinner; the essence being whatever one dreams about should inspire passion, a desire for life. Part of that essence involves crafting a personal philosophy, code of ethics, morals or what have you. I view this necessary as a sort of outline, building the frame for which one constructs their reality. My philosophy involves art, the difference between perception and ideal reality, and my purpose in being here. Not my complete philosophy, but part of the framework in crafting reality.

It is hard work to bring dreams into reality, which is why I dwell in fantasy so often. Passions are easily mistaken for insanity or other mental defects these days. When I stare off into space, sometimes I wonder if I appear to have left this realm. Slightly joking, but not really. I’m reminded of the song “Daydream Believers.” The point being on the process of creating. I know, and I suspect others with a visionary inclination know, that in order to create, one must withdraw into a different world, at a different level of consciousness.

In crafting the reality of a relationship, the idea of the honeymoon is necessary; not the actual honeymoon but that phase. Free from the input of the outside world, two can join to form a one even while existing as two. I like to think of the idea similar to atoms and molecules. Using hydrogen as an example, missing an electron in orbit, the atom isn’t stable until the two form H² . As people, we are not complete until we find our other, part of the implicit social contract of entering humanity. The easiest bond to form once out of the family unit is a pairing, and from there change can be effected.

I think positive and negative forces (seen and unseen, physical and metaphysical, et al) also exist, that in turn mold people. We are but a reaction to the environment around us, yet we have choice in deciding how to react, whether positively or negatively, (neutral not being an option of the living.) Free will without psycho-actives – depressant or stimulant one will depress and one will elevate basic instincts, and one will simply explore within the realms of hallucinogens.

Psychedelics deal with this by providing a choice in how to react to the realities presented; one can have a negative experience, believing it will never end and will continue indefinitely in the case of positive feedback, or ironically and conversely, have a positive experience in knowing this is but one form of reality, knowing it will end due to the nature of negative feedback. The feedback ideas haven’t been hammered out just yet, but if I give my subconscious enough time it can work through many things. Then again, I’m simply trying to make sense of the crazy world around me through any means necessary.

In the case of my group of friends from Waterford, we have the interest of bettering people, or at least I’d like to hope. Perhaps this is only my goal, to mold potential into applied realities, and why I support people’s dreams as fiercely as I do. To not dream is a scary reality, on some level a complete declaration of mortality and no desire to leave some impression. My principle is everyone has some vision; everyone has some dream one wants to achieve. My vision is to be a positive force in the world, a catalyst for change. Sometimes I like to view myself as a muse and genie given free will, not bound by obligation but a conscious decision to serve. Then again, perhaps I’m merely delusional.

Thoughts on the Genii: Pt. I

Arriving like dawn’s red shifting light,
fading blue hue of midwinter’s night.
I’ve accepted my fate,
nothing more than the son of Georgia.My blood runs like crimson petaled passion, colored by the clay of this state.
No more, no less, only and simply this.

While I have dreamt of escaping, some call it leaving
The roots I’ve here will always bind me
sometimes against my will.
More than dreamt between the stones of Piedmont
and sweeping, hypnotic flat coastal plains.
No less, no more, Chattahoochee and Atlantic shores.

From every part of the state, I’ve known, seen and tasted
the noxious but tolerant air of Atlanta, and her suburbanites,
To her doppleganger Athena less than sixty miles
Due east! An eclectic and eccentric blend of the cosmos.
Where society girls interplay with psychonauts on Broad and Lumpkin.
No more, not less, craving only and simply this

Made from the clay of this state,
Crafted into the person, of I-85, living now way down I-75.
A product cognizant, origins known,
journeying just as the stars unfold.
Indigo of the creeping night,
or as red as dawn’s shifting light.
No more, no less, not only but simply this.

On the idea of Genius, in turn genii, I can’t remember the Arabic but combine the idea of genius, genial and genie. Genius is about creating, about being independent, about knowing how multiple systems work and working around and within those systems to expand the possibilities of man. Genius and the modern term self actualization go together, I reason, because genii are known for creating. Genius communicates through what they create, and often the ideas and possibilities aren’t mere dreams but something that one could possibly craft into reality. Hence the term craftsman. At times it seems quite obvious, but to a “wordsmith,” it’s hard to appreciate the material. Was it Buffalmacco who commented the artists appreciates the pig not for its qualities of a pig but because bristles were made from pig hair.

With all of this said, genii are a resource to the community they’re in. “We must protect our best and our brightest.’ In earlier times it was easy to identify a genius, the world was smaller. Now, with more interdependency and globalization, we’ve only begun to measure and assess the needs of the global community, in the hopes of working in unison.

At times, with the ideas I’ve contemplated and written down, I can only ascertain if I didn’t explore the ideas in a logical manner I’d be quickly committed, or just homeless.

 

Signed,

Patrique

 

Tackling the eternal question

 

Dear Minerva

Tricky bitch, you are! You present me with a difficult decision here: life with love or life without it. I’ve tried the latter, and those around me said I lost the fire in my eyes. So, I opened myself up again. The only thing is I can’t decide which hurts more. Opening myself up for the possibility of love comes with the potential pay out of finding someone. However, that’s a very long, long road. And I’ve miles to go before I sleep. Miles to go. Oh, Minerva, some days I do declare.

 

Signed,

Patrique