Posted on by Mike Firesmith · 1 Comment

Cross Pollination

“Like a memory in motion 

You were only passing through

That is all you’ve ever known of life, that’s all you’ll ever do” Caroline by Concrete Blonde

“I think she’s dead” was the entire message. I knew who my friend was talking about, even though the two of us haven’t spoken for any length of time in years. Nothing more needs to be said, and unless something changes, we’re not likely to get together and have some memorial for someone who we both loved, but a very long time ago. 

The late 1980’s was the last time I would really feel carefree and young. Friends came, and they went, we drank a lot, we spent many hours walking in the woods, and talking about things that were interesting, time stood still, then one day I woke up and that time of my life was gone, like I had fallen asleep on a plane, and landed in some unwanted destination where I didn’t understand the language and didn’t like the climate. 

Coincidence, I submit, has likely founded more religions than ethical conviction. After all, when I moved out here in the middle of nowhere, I landed within twenty miles of a woman who had dated the same woman as I had, back then. We were close, and she lost the same woman I did, in the same manner, and took the same hit as I did. Love is the same, living love, losing love, remembering love, really, it is the same. Death is a lot like love. Neither of us are going to do anything, there won’t be a quiet evening drinking and sharing memories, no. After this much time we’ll just acknowledge a person who spent some time in our timelines is truly gone. 

 All this started when, no wait, it was before that, actually. But the story twists and turns upon itself, involving one person meeting another, and in that circle of friends the cross pollination was strong. We went bowling one day, six of us, and I realized all three women in the group had been in my bed, I knew two of them had dated at least two of the three guys in the group. We never got anyone infected or pregnant, as far as I knew.

It’s not as tawdry as it sounds, really. In some sense we all knew no one would wind up with anyone there forever. The woman in question passed on from me to my roommate, and I made them raise their right hands and swear that anything that happened in the future was not my fault, and they did. It was funny, hysterical in fact, and now both them are gone. He had two consecutive relationships end with his female partner leaving him for a female partner. She left him for a woman, and left her for a married man. 

In the end, that was a fitting metaphor for that period of my life. Over thirty years have passed now. One by one, people disappear into the darkness of time, or they die. The songs we listened to together will never be heard as new music, even to those who have never heard it before. It is old music, even classic, perhaps, but the music is something that happened a long time ago, in another era, remembered, and poorly at that, by those who are still surviving. 

Take Care,

Mike

Posted on by Mike Firesmith · 1 Comment

Alcohol or the Desert

Alcohol is heaven, no, not heaven, maybe haven, somewhere the sound ceases, or at least is muted. The mesh in the sifter is larger, more permeable, so there’s less to appraise, less that has true depth. The vacation to the lizard brain means the lights are dimmed, no white hot glare of the bare desert full of demons and dreams.  There’s a reason for bars, and there’s a reason most of those places are dimly lit.

The reptilian brain seeks only feeding, fighting, fleeing, and fucking, the four F’s, and a bar will allow you any of the four, in any combination you choose, or is chosen for you. Ride the anesthesia of loud music, strangers, and the drug of choice in its various forms. Fun, funny, serious, or sexy names for whatever precent of the drug, or what’s mixed with it, and it will get you from Point A to wherever you decide to stop, or wherever is decided for you.

The morning after. There’s still fog, still haze, and maybe a stranger you regret, or a stranger with promise, and maybe you are the regretted stranger, or a promise of sorts. Time to flee, one or the other of you, numbers exchanged, and hopefully nothing else in the dark, that might need medical attention.

There’s absolutely no difference between this, and a Sunday church service, and your chances of finding someone looking for sex are about the same.

Sooner or later, you have to go back into the desert.

No, really, you don’t. Seriously, you can very easily spend your entire life anywhere else but. Unless, of course, you know you belong there. There’s a blank canvas, or a blank page, or a shapeless lump of clay, or a camera staring at you from inside its bag.

It’s a hard scrabble, cracked white gypsum desert. Flat and devoid of even so much as a tough weed, the sun is always directly overhead and perpetually oven hot, without the slightest trace of a breeze. Moisture is sucked out of your skin faster than you can think of water, and there’s no relief from the blast of radiation from the sun. An environment not meant for the weak, meek, or those who retreat.

There’s nothing here. Not a single sound or sight or smell or sensation that doesn’t drive you to leave. You can go into the kitchen and get a snack, or a glass of wine. There’s new social media on your phone. Stay and you have to create something, made of nothing and of sweat, pain, suffering, and time. It’s tedious and repetitive. Your vision blurs and boredom with the process can distract. Crafting with words in this climate is putting melting ice beads on a hot metal string without gloves. The wind in the desert is deafening. Nothing else can be heard, nothing else can be felt, and nothing else exists.

The work done here is parsimonious. It’s panning for pieces of metal whose worth cannot be gauged until the end. There is no surety in hard work except nothing else will produce worth. Second seem like hours, yet when a vein is struck the hours seems like moments that pass without time. It’s trying to mount an invisible steed made of sentences and discomfort.

Words become sentences, which have to be woven into paragraphs, and the thread is wane, weak, sticky, and ethereal. The fiber from which they are created comes from one thing, then another, memories, books, oh my dog, more books, and books, then moments with people long gone, in one way or another, or people who just appeared, and for some reason, there’s a push, a lift, some sort of peculiar catalyst that requires nothing but a thought, or a question, or a presence.  

Suddenly, you step away. What have you to show for this time in the desert? What is it, and what will you do with it, what can you do with it, and more importantly, will anyone else give a fuck?

It doesn’t matter, does it?

You save it, don’t save it, put it away to edit later, or not, none of this matter, because regardless of what it is, or how good it might be, you know you’ll go back, and do it again. It’s not the product, but the process. It’s being there, within, deep inside, feeling the heat, embracing the nothingness and daring to bring forth anything at all, and not hoping for the best, but working for it.

Take Care,

Mike