Stagnation

12/7/06

Stagnation                                                                 

 

I find myself staring at nothing at the ends of days like today.  I stare at the computer screen when there’s no task to complete, where there’s nothing left to accomplish.  I stare out the window of the school and look across the street at the fountain in the middle of the neighbor’s pond.  December has set in and I notice the outer edges of the water have begun to freeze while the water near the cascading droplets never hardens.  It seems that every effort against stagnation ends with the slightest taste of discontentment.  Even the power of the water constantly moving towards the very heart of the pond can not stop the entire mass from experiencing the cold and consequently freezing over.

 

And what is the discontentment in this lifetime?  What is it that no matter what pervades into the outer edges as we continually try to keep our hearts in motion?  There always seems to be something that stops us in our intentions.

 

I can’t stop from thinking about England.  Thinking, more so, about the idea of not making it.  Perhaps it’s my inability to appreciate the present when being tantalized by the prospect of a more exciting future.  Maybe it’s the way that people tend to end up not being who you had hoped they might be in one’s thoughts.  Perhaps it’s the misconception that people were created for our own pleasure and fulfillment while in reality they are so much more than that.

 

I have so many reasons to be happy, yet still there is the taste of discontentment, the thought that something better is just beyond the grasp of my current circumstances.  And the thought is haunting.  I try to take pride in my work but I think about a book or a poem that I’ve not written.  I wonder if I’ll ever write anything of significance at all.  I try to invest in students, but do I even make a difference?  I wonder if I do more harm than good.  I think about a beautiful woman whom feels for me as I try to reconcile why another stirs something deeply in my soul…how I wonder.

 

“What is this?”  I continually scream at the heavens from the confides of my own thoughts.  Is this some cruel hoax?  Some tragedy of love better suited for the wilderness beyond Athens crosses my mind as I’m reminded that love, its snare and its evasion, are nothing new in the world.

 

But why?  Why can I not be happy with the present?

 

Only images fill my head when a lack of answers comes.  These images run contrary to answers and to reason.

 

I try to think about what I have.  All that comes to mind is the thought of her.  The way she sits cross-legged on the counter in a friend’s apartment and smiles when I mentioned Red Dwarf on PBS public access while I was growing up.  How embarrassed she was when she said that she had a speech impediment.  There was the camo pants and the lip ring from he myspace page all underneath the emo kid hat almost over her eyes.   I guess it’s true the way the English street punk just comes out in her.

 

Then there is her accent.  I tell myself continually it’s the concept of

scarcity in a place jam packed with the middle-american drawl.  As I remind myself that she’s just a person like anyone else I’ve met in my life.  But all that comes to mind is the way she says “hello” or “garage.”  And not only the accent stands out, but the emphasis on words as well.  When you talk about a movie it’s not: “have you seen it,” but rather “have you seen it?”

 

I hear stories of how she blushes when American humor invades a British sense of decency. How she turns red when she admits that she wishes she had a boy to make out with.  Or even the sense of pride in being English as when she took 15 minutes to make tea and jokes about how important it was that she makes a good cup of tea.

 

The thought is frightening to indulge such contemplation…to allow oneself to daydream when reality has been so good on its own.  I fear already that I may have opened the flood gates simply by putting these words down.  Now I have been given merit to thoughts that have been hiding in corners of my brain where only secrets reside.  Not to worry, anyone with a bit of common sense knows that every effort against stagnation ends with the slightest taste of discontentment…the daydreaming that follows is inevitable.

Peace and Love

Mikey