Fractals and More
Writing, falling in love. Kind of like digging at the dirt. What might we uncover?
Looked at from a distance, as though watching the hazy horizon from an airplane window, it all seems to meld together; becomes common ground. What does a kid whose heart gets broken in Managua have to do with Viet Nam?! Well, on one level, nothing. Yet, on another level, like that long-distance view, it is all comes together and forms as one landing field…
The attractions we feel for one another, almost more real than the air we breathe… Although they might seem to be such separate issues, the love we fellow humans share is inextricably entwined with life’s calamities and celebrations much as are the breath and our attractions. As if this arrangement is already present in its apparent messiness.
Yes, you could say it’s fear. Fears come in a long list of descriptions. This is simple fear of committing to something that hasn’t a snow cone’s chance in hell to pan out. This is a fear of stepping out from the safety of the chaparral in central Mexico, four in the morning, onto an exposed road, wind whistling, no trees, there were small cacti, rock-strewn hills hiding what’s beyond. Maybe a crouching and waiting mountain lion, or far worse. The danger and dread of starting out on an unfamiliar road.
Small hope being hung onto that possibility that in fact, this road takes me to that place I seek. What do I seek? That’s pretty easy, I should think. I seek happiness. Do I seek happiness in the company of others? Not necessarily. But certainly makes it richer.
Happiness likewise comes in a long list of descriptions. Does fear mix well with happiness? Are the smells the same? Is one necessary to get to the other? Some say that without the risk, oh you know, the risks we all hear and know about. That without that element, there’s no hope for finding peace.
Many of us have lived some horrendous experiences: cancer, assaults, busted dreams, this comes with getting into the later years. Many of us then will have some pretty solid points of view in reference to fear, happiness. All must be respected. Though I’ve yet to encounter a human who knows the answers. Some glimpses, perhaps, answers? No. Maybe that’s why it can be so much fun taking another stab at this question. I’m not so sure though about, say, wonderful old and graying dogs or older and wizened parrots. They just seem to know something.
Could this be and is this purely a human thing? Why is it that the human life trajectory comes so full of mis-turns, misconceptions and in the end, more often than not, (how often have we really witnessed the dying guy say ‘hey, I see it, I have it all figured out, go get a pen and paper now, and no, it’s not all bliss, neither was it designed to be…), of course, there be exceptions but for now for me, it’s more a slamming into the granite wall. Bang! ‘Oof! Whoa! What just happened there?’
We explore to what end? Might it be easier to avoid all this? This search. The search it seems can drag us down. So why do we do it? What’s the point? Isn’t this the question we’ve been asking since we were teenagers? Or even those happy days on the dusty roads in Nicaragua, looking for tooth-filling-sized diamonds, in fact, granite crystals, though no adult could`ve convinced me otherwise. Poking at the ancient yet still active volcanic ground, as a supremely innocent tween. Of course, it is.
Have I ever found answers? I keep trying.
How simpler, perhaps happier life might be if we avoid taking all these troublesome paths in our daily existence. You know, just eat a fucking ham and cheese sandwich, (lettuce if you prefer), on mayo, and revel in its wonder, sit back and watch something on Netflix, nap, get along with loved ones. Turn a blind eye to lawyers and the suffocating political blight. Wouldn’t this be easier? At day’s end, what would I feel? Or I should ask: what am I attempting to do all day long so that at well past sundown, in bed, I summarize that it was another good day?
One day closer to my end for sure, but nevertheless a good day has just gone by. Why not?
Simpler.
Is simpler what we want? What is gained, what is lost? What is potentially at hand though allowed to slip away? Aware only that there was something bright or attractive calling you. Then when you get around to seeing what it is, it’s too late. It’s gone. Gone back to wherever these things find cause to arise and express themselves. The original mush puddle…
California dreaming? Sort of. Knots Berry Farm as a child with my parents and older sibs. Late fifties. This place preceded Disney World by many years. That whole thing continues to play out in my head. I remember the trees and shade that sunny afternoon. Knots Berry Farm seemed so, so American! I was from Nicaragua. Knots Berry Farm seemed so improbable, like as though thinking: how can this place be for real?
Which of course it wasn’t! It was a place designed to experience as a dream come true! There it is again. The attempt to ride a train to an impossible land. Here it was cowboys and Indians and stagecoaches and even wandering peacocks! Improbable reality. Hordes of rampaging kids my age holding large, unstable plumes of sticky pink cotton candy and spilling refreshments. Music everywhere.
My parents were there and yet weren’t. Somewhere in my head, I must have known that my parents were the agents of possibilities. That it was because of them that somehow I found myself in such a place. Was it a happy place? Better goddamn believe it! And yet the painting wasn’t completely clear. Hell, what did I know as a six-year-old kid who’d lived in the backcountry of Nicaragua? That there was economy to consider, schedules to respect and follow, and so on? Is it any wonder school never landed for me, never came close?
I was very much in my own place. Dumbstruck might best describe that afternoon somewhere in the middle of California. That such a place could exist was beyond me. But there I was walking around the many rides, late, slanting and golden afternoon sun striking the trees, hot dogs, my sibs talking excitedly.
The primordial ooze deep in the jungles. Why does it always have to be in the jungles? It’s more than likely right there in Knots Berry Farm, forming, shaping, scheming inside and around my little boy self. Already igniting those first pulls. First crush. As natural as the slow-moving ocean swells coming at the crab-filled rocks, just as natural as the resultant and unavoidable crashing on the same rocks. Huge splashes and small crabs, the ill-prepared ones tossed into the air like so many loosed cards.
The other day someone said fractals, as a description of the ebb and flow of life, this is very much the same. It grows, shapes, driven by secret energy. An energy, if we don’t attach too much human reasoning to it, is perfect. We were born from a pool of amniotic liquid, isn’t that the same as saying we emerged from the same previously mentioned primordial ooze. Of course, it is. The jungle. The perfect jungle.
How strange that in a few short years this land would find itself embroiled in a place called Viet Nam, that the counter culture would sweep through California, the hippies, some of the kids in the park that day no doubt would be directly impacted, directly involved. One or more would go to those dark, jungly shores and high lands to die.
Some of us would choose to leave behind our citizenship. Which in the end was for naught as children of the almost monied rarely, if ever, had to wear a uniform. Unless of course, one took it as their duty, I mean to go to war. Not far from this dream park, San Francisco would become the birthplace of so much of the energy that would shape so much on the planet! Haight Asbury. All those years later, all I could do was imagine what that must have been like as I lived too far away. Thank God for that.
It’s really about other things, not as direct, not as easily identified. It’s about a tie to the heart. Yet, there is a certain sweetness to the thinking. Strangely enough.
The blonde could’ve been a young Mom at that restaurant. Another place. I think near the Big Sur, it was on the water, a morning breakfast place. This would’ve been around ’59. The trees were radiant with Autumn color, and I swear I sensed change in the air as though huge things were gathering strength, going to happen. I mean here in the macro sense, planet-wise. Anyway, it was one of those open-air eateries, full of talkative English-speaking people. Her beauty captivated me, even to this day it lingers, and she saw and smiled. I could not, would not remove my eyes from her.
Again, the fractals in motion. It pleases me to think there was a reason that I found myself beholding the older woman as though written in some lost, dust-covered corner of a forgotten attic, I might even say Akashic, not sure I understand that, but a destiny sort of thing.
But in the end, a boyish crush, a boy's crush directed at something unobtainable. Unrequited sort of, depending on your definition.
She no doubt had seen this before. I am convinced to this day, over sixty years later, she had to be in the movies. Age has taught me that the movies don’t matter. My folks assured me Hollywood was not far away. So she just had to be a star. Yes, I was in love. I was in love as only a six-year-old boy can be who suddenly finds himself in the presence of his inexplicably predetermined definition of perfect beauty. As misguided as this very well may have been. How can this be?
Oh, there were many to come.
Yet again, another time and place. In Managua was another love. Around six still, there was the much older woman, fellow student, my guess now she was all of seventeen, at the horse jumping school I attended. One of those horse riding places where the saddles were English style, and you learned to jump over obstacles. Again my heart was stolen, I saw her and another guy stepping out of a stable, his arm about her, and the pain struck deep. How to explain this? Utterly completely lost. How does this happen?
Where does this lead, where’d it come from? Lovesick at an early age, I suppose. The mystery that binds us all. The magic of attraction and our never-ending human endeavor at labeling such a conundrum.
What impact, I’m sure there were many, did these and other early crushes have upon me in my later years?
And so the mystery continues on.
