Carmex to car

As I walked that morning, I remembered,
during a moment of deep meditative thought,
that I needed to replace the Carmex in my glovebox.
So I took out the phone from my right front pants pocket
and typed into the 'notes' icon;
"Carmex to car".

I was amused how those three words had come from me
so easily
onto that phone application,
and tried to fathom other instances when words like them
could be obtained with such effortlessness.
They were just simple instructions,
but I was disappointed by my thinking too much about them.

Words and sentences

With my held tilted up, I see the sky, and think suddenly of the richness and depth of words, momentarily feeling that I can grasp the infinite.
Yet when considering both sky and words, only the latter seem even the least bit pliable.

I am ashamed that I find the ability to form things appealing
a person that professes to desire the infinite and the unnameable!

And even though I don't consider it possible to bend the world around me into squares or rectangles
(or maneuver it into a shape where if twists back onto itself),
this feat seems entirely manageable with sentences.
I need only imagine it doing so,
and find it unnecessary to do anything but describe it.

Fernanda Cooperstein

I find it hard to fathom, even strange,

that someone should choose to share a name

that I have been more or less forced to bear.

I remember the day,
(though a little hazily),

when I asked the former Ms. Casal if she would like to keep hers,

or take mine
when we married. And she chose mine!

This person, who decided all those years ago

to relinquish those five letters for my eleven, 

can on occasion seem so known to me

that she can appear unrecognizable.

So I wonder, as I press these keys,

if the repetition of seeing the same person
often intimately, for more than fifteen years,
justifies this idea:
that knowing so well might also embody the inverse,

where I comprehend that much less
in perfect proportion?

Labor day

Driving the short distance to where I took my morning walk on Labor Day

I recall thinking how beautiful and quiet this normally busy is.

I remembered times when Fernanda and I have vacationed

in some small northern California town

and I had gone somewhere to write in the early morning
while she sleeping in the hotel room bed.

There is often a stillness in those places and times
that I find remarkable
and lonely.

Probably due in some part to the lack of visible cars and people
I thought, on that holiday morning

that perhaps there had been a declaration of war

or news of a bomb or impending catastrophe.

I had the sense that I would be perfectly at peace if I were to die 

perhaps not at that very moment

but on that day
would be alright

and imagined that I could probably not ask for much more

in death

than to feel so ease at ease as my life ended.

A threat misread

Although it seems strange to me
writing it here, as I am
but sometimes I find it difficult to distinguish
between inquisition and threat.

I might feel someone looking at me, from the periphery
(and it's all periphery)
and I sense disapproval, aggression,
though that person may just be interested in
something in my general direction.
Looking near me, though not through me.

A short while ago, I saw some large ducks,
Muscovy ducks, more particularly,
approach a groups of Mallards, much smaller animals,
who had a couple of youngsters among them.

Slowly, one Muscovy approached a duckling
with what to me seemed like aggression.
Suddenly, the parents of the Mallard, apparently terrified, vocalized loudly, though they did nothing to physically stop the approach,
which surprised me.

As it seemed that there would be an imminent attack, the Muscovy, big and cumbersome on land, waddled away, apparently only having been interested in a closer look at the smaller beings.
I noticed at this point that it didn't seem to be bothered in the least that its' intentions had been so violently misread.

Miles Davis

Sometimes, perhaps mostly

I've found that a lack of knowledge 

improves my experience of things that interest me.

The allure that I can give 

to epochs that I was not present for,
or was, just barely,
for a variety of possible reasons

often imbue the things that I enjoy most from these times

with a special flavor.

This flavor seems to make them all the more delicious.

I started writing this thing

-whatever it is-

with the idea of noting why I like so much
two specific recordings of the jazz artist Miles Davis,

someone that I don't know too much about 

and a genre I know even less of.

After many starts,
and edits,
I found that too many ideas

and thoughts

and especially words

tangled me up

when writing in essay form.

So I thought to myself;

"self"

why not write in a form you know less of than even jazz

or Miles Davis?

And found this form perfect.

Spectator

The messages that I've received
so many times and in such varied ways
is that being a specator is always inferior
to being a player, yet
how does one begin playing?

For example:
I have assumed my entire life that if a person says "Adam Cooperstein"
they are talking about me.
People have used that name
in my presence (and when I have been nearby)
for as long as I can remember.

Although I may well be the person
weakly fitting into that moniker
I can't wholly convince myself that I am him
nor anyone else,

and while it is true,
that I have become more comfortable with the description, "Adam"
over time
I can't imagine an argument I could win
or facts that I could offer
to make me feel to be more of it.

The singing of birds

Although it is dark when I arrive
the birds are singing
as if the sun had already come up.
I follow, sensing too that it has.

It is truly other-worldly
being able to experience both darkness and daylight at the same time.
I imagine that it must be somewhat similar
to the sensation that people have
where the sun seldom or never rises or sets during certain times of the year.

I find it so welcoming of those birds
to provide such warming sounds for me
in a place which can be a little frightening so early in the morning

And it occurs to me
when hearing the chirping in that very dark blueness
that these beings must know better, or at least
have a different sense of what light is,
and what constitutes the beginning of the day.

The flat trees

It is nearly dark
and the sounds that give form
to this, my favorite part of day,
so far
are those of birds vocalizing.

I know from past experiences
-which I generally believe to be reliable-
that there are actually birds there,
to the right
in the trees.

But those same trees appear, in this light,
during this
my favorite part of the day,
so far
to be so flat,
that I find it difficult to imagine that there could be anything
anything, even remotely close to
the depth I imagine would be needed
to house all of those sounds.

Emptiness and plenty

For as long as I can remember

I've accepted the idea
that people mostly want
what they believe they do not have enough of.

For me though,
the long-held
and aching
wish to be recognized
by others
as being here,
existing
would seem to contradict this.

I am well aware of the intensity
and painful persistence of this desire of mine
yet find myself looking for more
and more.

It is at these times
that I am sure that I have entirely too much.

Pain and breath

One morning, as I deeply exhaled,

I felt a profound sadness, suddenly.
Apparently manifested from nowhere,
it was so strong

that I wondered why it didn't seem
like it was pouring out.

At that moment it occurred to me that perhaps

my breathing tends to be as shallow as it often is

as a response
and product
of a powerful machine that can only be known through the things it produces.

I imagine that many of these exhales hold back
a potential torrent,
and that if I allowed them to be emitted,
unabated and with regularity,
that so much might come out
that my insides might end up outside

like they were one continuous membrane.

The hawk

I had a thought.

It was recent enough,

and held sufficient importance
to me 

that I remember it clearly,

like it was yesterday.

which it was.

Still, 

it seems like it could have also been in a different lifetime.

The thought that I had,

as I watched a hawk flying overhead

was this;
I wonder if that hawk realizes that it has not always been able to fly?

In my own life, it is also not so easy to recall 

well 

if I have perhaps changed,

because my consciousness is so inexorably rooted to my own body

at the time of thinking
and always.

I thought more about flying

as I watched other birds,
on what I believe was a different day.

Those animals seemed so free, but then I imagined

that there might be traffic up there, or other birds
which could be annoying.

Still, from my vantage point,

which felt more like a disadvantage,

it looked beautiful.

I would think that having multiple angles would be better.

in my experience, it has certainly proven so.

Detachment

I've often thought of detachment as not caring.

My understanding of it
however,
in this dark and quiet place
is different.

Instead of feeling satisfied with how I am
and you are,
I see no differences there.
This is greater than both of us being 'okay'.

Instead, this positioning,
of you and me
this and that,
seems arbitrary;
as constructed as my defenses
which placed them there
and keep them available.

On stillness

Sitting in the living room,

in front of a television with no sound on,

or more correctly,

muted,

I am aware of how quiet it is.

There is also a stillness in me.

I had planned on this small period of time

to be this way,

to allow me the greatest possible chance to access what was inside,

underneath all of the chattering.

I had planned on it,

but didn't foresee the peace that I would feel

in me,

and in the world 

this minute.

Though I had foreseen thinking about visual art,

words,

typed as they are here,

were obviously what I needed to capture

this feeling, 

and moment,

right now

or forever.