Alabaster Friday, Jun 13 2008

By Rocky Votolato

on the outside looking in / i’ve never been able to crack the code / to break the secret spell / that would open up the door and let me in / to everything I’ve been looking for so hard I’ve never seen / but I feel my strength returning tonight / its flowing from the purest well to ever give water / It spills out into an ocean where the sharks are circling / a carnival of counterfeits has no room for something real

 

arrogance and ego wrapped around every word / shouted from the pulpit as a judgment to control / these were my roots my seed was thrown in shallow soil / I grew into the thorn bushes to be scorched by the sun / but I feel the gravel move beneath my feet / the smell of the gasoline mixed in with the trees / when my faith is strong I know my strength / the threats will be screamed when the vultures fell threatened

 

so I’ll open up the door and let you in / I want to break the alabaster smell the sweet perfume / and when the bottle is broken I’ll have nothing left to give / I’ll know I’ll already have everything worth having / but I feel my strength returning tonight / its flowing from the purest well to ever give water / it spills out into and ocean where the sharks are circling / a carnival of counterfeits want to crucify something real

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If only in the real world Monday, Jun 9 2008

A while ago I had a dream where I was in some kind of exercise hall up in the mountains. I had been coming there for quite a while, and had always been alone. For some reason, when I got done working out, I never had any clothes on. Normally, this would be a big problem, but being alone, I didn’t worry about getting to my car.

One day, as I was finishing up my workout, I heard voices coming from another part of the lodge. Now the odd thing about these voices was that I was almost completely sure that they were the voices of mothers with their children. I’m not sure why that makes a difference, but it seemed to me to make the situation much more serious.

I began to panic a little bit, not knowing what to do. I still hadn’t solved this problem of my clothes disappearing promptly after my exercise sessions. So, I did the only sensible thing I thought to do. I made a run for it. I had made it quite a ways towards my car, sneaking down the dark wooden hallways of the lodge, when I arrived at a side door, and made my way outside into the sunlight.

I was for the moment hidden by bushes, but still had to cross the parking lot to get to my car. The feeling working it’s way through my mind at this point wasn’t necessarily dread, but definitely a strong apprehension. My thoughts fell along the line of, “If I have to just run, I’ll do it. Who cares if they see me.” With that in mind, I streaked from the bushes towards a planter in the middle of the parking lot. Thinking I was home free, I got ready to jump the gap between two pine trees in the landscaping.

At this point, the dream turned strange. As I jumped off the ground I felt very little resistance. I jumped nearly eight or ten feet off the ground. And I kept going. I kept floating up into the air, I’m sure looking like some kind of all too realistic UFO. The fun didn’t stop there, though. At precisely the moment when I cleared the pine trees and made my way into open air space, the parking lot began filling with young mothers and their children.

At this point I woke up, I think. Either way, I don’t remember more. Lately I’ve been dreaming more, and it seems like every dream is revealing something about myself. Most of these have been things that I feel like I’ve processed reasonably well, but this dream seemed to strike something much deeper.

I don’t like opening up to people. I don’t like being exposed. I don’t like being honest with people…really honest. I like being superficial; nice. I like deflecting with humor (witty or not). I’m scared of getting really deep with people, but I really want to do it. Maybe I need a sequel dream where I come back down to earth and all the moms say something like, “Yeah, I hate it when that happens!”

This song made me remember that dream.

 

Nightswimming by R.E.M.

Nightswimming

Deserves a quiet night

The photograph on the dashboard

Taken years ago

Turned around backwards so the windshield shows

Every street light reveals a picture in reverse

Still its so much clearer

I forgot my shirt at the waters edge

The moon is low tonight

 

Nightswimming

Deserves a quiet night

I’m not sure all these people understand

It’s not like years ago

The fear of getting caught

The recklessness in water

They cannot see me naked

These things they go away

Replaced by every day

Nightswimming

Remembering that night

September’s coming soon

I’m pining for the moon

And what if there were two

Side by side in orbit

Around the fairest sun

The bright tide that ever drawn

Could not describe

Nightswimming

 

You I thought I knew you

You I can not judge

You I thought you knew me

This one laughing quietly

Underneath my breath

Nightswimming

The photograph reflects

Every street light a reminder

Nightswimming

Deserves a quiet night

Deserves a quiet night

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W.B. Yeats and Youth Sunday, Jun 8 2008

To a Child dancing in the wind

 

Dance there upon the shore;

What need have you to care

For wind or water’s roar?

And tumble out your hair

That the salt drops have wet;

Being young you have not known

The fool’s triumph, nor yet

Love las as soon as won,

Nor the best labourer dead

And all the sheaves to bind.

What heed have you to dread

The monstrous crying of wind?

 

II

Had no one said those daring

Kind eyes should be more learn’d?

Or warned you how despairing

The moths are when they are burned,

I could have warned you, but you are young,

So we speak a different tongue.

 

O you will take whatever’s offered

And dream that all the world’s a friend,

Suffer as your mother suffered,

Be as broken in the end.

But I am old and you are young,

And I speak a barbarous tongue.

 

I doubt that I have enough hair for it to tumble anywhere, and I’m nowhere near the ocean, but I connect with this image. It makes me sad that I’ve begun to speak the barbarous language of a “grown-up.” I talk about jobs, paying bills, and being responsible. The oil in my car needs to be changed, and I must consolidate my school loans. 

And while I do love growing up, making good decisions, and being a good son, brother, and friend, a part of me hopes for the simple wonder and freedom that we all had as kids. I dream of having those daring, kind eyes all over again. To be ready to be a friend to anyone, and open myself to honest experience all over again. 

 

 

 

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