Ode to Ocarina

Dear Katherine,

I broke it.

The string got stuck upon the corner of the table as i swiveled in excitement at finding a website that would slowly make a clay musician out of me. It took half a moment to smash upon my ceramic floor.



So sorry.

I still wander why i didn't just attend your graduation when you invited me too. It didn't matter that we were apart. Being there would have.

I remember you. Not always. Not even often. But i remember you. You were a bit crazy. Crazy enough to think that you could change for someone, craziness that made you believe that such a thing would be worth it. It isn't.

Hope you are well, married and happy. Not necessarily in that order.

Remember that leaf, with the ink on it?

I do.

Ordinary things.

Days are filled with moments collected for that conversation. A conversation that explodes from a dormant reservoir of an unshared biography. Moments that are characteristically silent and coloured with the narrowed aperture of eyelids as the spirit focuses it's energy to take an inner photograph in all the dimensions that only an imperfect memory can capture. Which is then stored away, and forgotten indefinitely until it reappears during 'that' conversation.

About filipino chicken feet.

Politics.

Definitions are important when they rest on something that resembles truth and have the quality of being unquestionably obvious. A doctor is defined by their inclination to care for patients. In absence of this simple impetus the role, however monolithically revered by society should erode and dissolve in a vacuous mess of pretense.

Hospital medical administration is defined in a similar manner. It breaks my heart to hear a good friend assert 'they don't care' as if it were an accepted given. We define them.

So i wrote a document with the desire to affect change. A document that was one part diagnosing the particulars of ineffective administration and 3 parts pragmatic suggestions for improvement. Diction was mindfully tempered by a consistent theme of diplomacy but inadequacies were presented adequately blunt to reflect a palpable dissatisfaction that was several generations deep. Said document found it's way up to the meta-administration that is the nebulous locus of administrative control, whom in turn forwarded a directive to not discuss the entire content in absence of appropriate 'executives' being in attendance.

I was summoned to meet with the Medical Director to discuss the 'Bigger than Ben-Hur' nature of my document. Meetings without a clear agenda are like a blood test for anaemia. Repeated tests only yield the same conclusion and quite fragrantly leaves the problem unfixed. I don't like meetings. Would sooner bake a cake.

Rhetoric based on an insidious employment of corporate jargon to confound and dissolve the gravity of a real problem that affects a multitude of doctor's lives and their families and ultimately patients, deserves rhetoric with more substance. Please don't knowingly use terms i don't (need to) understand to attain empty levity in argument and alleged authority on subject matter, because it's quite obvious, suffocatingly myopic and blatantly deceitful. Doctor's are aware of the dubious power that speaking a foreign language in 'English' yields, so let's not play that game.

Politics is vexing. But necessary to alter the status quo. Now is unfortunately not the time to make that change. I will wait until this wee fire burns big enough to not be put out by the wind outside but be fed by it.

I have spoken enough for now, so will return to listening for a while until my next eruption of consciousness.

Grapes.

Ceramic bowl sits stationary with an absence of grapes. Grapes that are no more, and probably busy reincarnating amidst the nocturnal contents of my bowel. Change is constant, but then - what is constant? Something that is fixed, unchanged? A strange paradoxical comment that. So often offered as an unquestioned morsel of profundity during 3am conversations. It's true of course, any statement with the audacity to capture the ambiguous duality of things lies closer to the asymptote of truth than the dirty progeny of reason. Speaking of which, i haven't had one of those for a long while... 3am conversations.

Gladys is dead.

I'm not.

A near death experience keeps one honest. A blessing. Life is (potentially) short. So a fraudulent existence bathed in delusions of longevity, security, predictability and plethora of should-be is the antithesis of the way it can be and will be.

Will sleep now. Pause it all biologically for a wee while, until the eruption of possibility that tomorrow brings wake me up. It's gonna be fucking awesome.

i will...

1. clean my room.

as this will lead to wonderful things...

2. do my taxes

so i can get the red wavemaster XXL for my clean room

3. study

to anchor my energy...

4. get batteries for my remote control spider

and impress caylie.

5. write more blog entries

...to get better at writing for writing sake.

SoFt BLack STArs...

Periods of muddle are sometimes decorated by moments of unexpected insight bathed within a sea of meaninglessness.

A (not-so) nice way to wake up to a feeling of nausea and general sickness is to recklessly consume four sizable thin oblongs of 70% Lindt Dark Chocolate immediately before sleep and refrain from sensible teeth brushing so as said chocolate may wreak its maximal oral havoc over night - a quiet mindless confection-fueled act of rebellion against god-knows-what... that in retrospect, achieved the perfect early-morning physiological unease required to resonate with the contents of a Friday yet to unfold.

It was an end to a beautiful week. A week populated by days punctuated by cycling to work besides a polluted urban creek, with the rude daily yielding to the almighty ferocity of a paternal magpie with a sharp beak underneath the same tree and over the same stretch of wobbly pavement. Anxious daily moments coloured by the same concoction of fear and frustration that gave way to a murderous anger noisily psychologically etched within the cowardly appearance of a grown man cycling speedily away from evil bird to the audience of a good-looking-female-passer-by. Said bird unknowingly triggered an ever-so-natural desire to plot its death for the obvious greater good of future generations of cyclists of wobbly pavement stretch. Alas, crazy bird lives, baby magpies remain blissfully unaware how close they came to being orphaned and those killing instincts willfully disbanded leaving the humbling residue of an awareness of my anthropocentric thoughts.

Beyond magpie mania lies Corella Lodge (Drug and Alcohol Detoxification Centre), a quaint unlocked establishment where hope percolates and less-damaged people attend to more-damaged people with not-infrequent success. Stories are shared, modern alchemy is prescribed and love and a patient audience works the occasional magic. The EEL had given me adequate insight to permit a relatively swift fit into my transient role at Corella. I can't and don't share details, 'cos it's right not to. My quiet diligence was tacitly noted and culminated in an generous invitation to attend a Narcotic Anonymous meeting, so as to see, feel and maybe learn some.

It was a wet Friday night. I was late as i'm of the recent habit of not using an alarm to wake myself up... i was inexplicably agitated. Maybe it was the weather, fatigue from a heavy week, damn bird, lack of sleep, nocturnal chocolate habit? Who knows. Arrived and sat next to Helen and fella with a mustache and good skin for a middle-aged bloke. Listened to the last two 'shares'... neither of which i will share here for obvious reasons. Suffice to say they attested to the eternal human theme that 'choice' coupled with 'responsibility' is what defines each human condition, an old idea that is often forgotten and remembered to epic effect. It was an honor to be privy to it. I looked for and found Mignon (colleague from the EEL) later and almost wept at her story of a client from the EEL, whom we both knew, that recently anticipated his impending death and later in the week died inconspicuously whilst sitting tucked away besides the supermarket i often buy fruit from opposite EEL. Life itself is not sacred. Having an audience is. Mignon has left EEL over the incident and hopes to pour her heart into art therapy. She is the only person I know with Luenig's tree as a tatoo.

Drove home in the rain. Might have thought some, but was exhausted mostly. It was late when i settled into my newish futon - the awesome sleep machine. I stayed awake a while and watched The Science of Sleep. A colourfully sad and beautiful tale of love and untempered neurosis. Neat way to end a day.

'Soft Black Stars' (Antony and the Johnsons) is the looped song that is was typed to and is a divinely ambiguous track i stumbled upon on the ride home on Friday.

So there it is Dale. As i thunk it. No more or less important than a rose or unsharpened pencil...

I hope next week is like the chocolate waterfall in Willy-Wonka's chocolate factory, so as to fluffen-up the chocolate I've ingested in the past week... all good chocolate needs bubbles.

changed my mind.

what of it!?

what of reasonable decisions based on good ideas?

what of sticking to your guns so that an idea gathers weight from it's audience?

what of being consistent?

and...

what of not being such.

=)

'cos i can...

have spent long enough contemplating the nothing between the something... will now have a closer look at the something. for the sake of it...

see you all around.

bub-bub-be-badoo-wop....

yes.

=)

and...

any who.

today.

today i will walk through sydney and seek out 'the science of sleep' then write vignettes on the people i've seen over the last 2 days besides the harbour...

today i spoke to somebody from yesterday whom is presently attending a banana massacre from the past.

today will be a fine day.

today will start with some sleep.

yawn...

Knackered.

Bell's palsy, CLL, Angina pectoris and Septic knee.

Back into it.

Mania at the 'Pool.

Frig.

japanese stapler

small boxes arranged into a meta-cube
as a recurrent audience to an absent view
to kill neurosis at its root
and forsake all unborn fruit
then laugh at smiles so grins arise
that will undo a self despised
floating empty with wings at sides
screaming white until grey divides
to unveil a solitary tree
in changing waters
free

Removing adjectives.

I used to collect these and decorate my sentences with them. I find myself today consciously deleting them and preferring the ambiguity that their absence offers. This purging extends somewhat into my everyday, where expression and presence of form seems to kidnap the infinite permutations a moment can represent, i prefer the strangely expansive effect of quiet and thoughts dying without an audience.

Pregnant void.

I'm back at the EEL for a graveyard shift. Washing linen, folding linen and re-arranging furniture for tomorrow's church service. I'm not christian, never will be but respect the single idea He represents. An idea that is the solitary antidote to all human suffering that sits perpetually dormant in counter-intuitive splendour.

Young William asked me 'will you be here with me next week?' whilst in the kickboxing ring today. 'Sure' i said. I'm not sure what i offer the child and kinda often times have no idea what it is exactly that i do. But the point for now is to travel with him and be there to see what unfolds.

Finally drinking tap water again. Purchased the one bottle of stuff over the weekend, will continue to mindfully not buy bottled stuff as much as possible. Another old project under construction.

She is a little crook but well. Here's hoping she gets well-well.

Okay. Enough for now - must check the laundry downstairs.

Honey Badger...

problems that can't be fixed (by me) surround me. i have a few superpowers but no licence to use them on those i care for most. my role for now is to observe, until things pass and hope that the changes that occur are yellow.

so i 'sigh' - repeatedly.

and offer ears and a grin upon request.

this is my lot.

Aside:

Renata told me about the honey badger - an animal with no fear centre.

Adrian got cardboard man some bricks and mortar for a home.

And a stunning girl on the coach let her hair down and exchanged glances for what it was worth between Canberra and Central station.

Will post photo of solitary tree tomorrow.

Goodbye.

Facebook.

=)

Will deposit myself here from now on...

Sibak

Sibak said many things tonight... i'll most likely remember them intermittently. I like the unsaid, the unspoken and unthought. I hope things turn out fine for him and a solution to his muddle finds it's way to him. There is much inertia in his words and ideas, but 'hope' seems a likely candidate to dissolve the inner monolith that plagues him.

A candle was unlit this evening with a swift punch honed by four decades of training. It takes a lot of effort to make things happen, things that would happen by itself anyway given time.

Dale seems to be doing research into Evil. I'd like to assert it does not exist. Like most things the audience defines the phenomena, it's hard to escape from this and further iterations of thought on the matter just creates a murky semantic soup that at once elaborates and confounds the subject. Dale writes well. I'd like to say her writing gives me hiccups, as this would make a nice sentence, but it ain't true yet serves as a sentence non-the-less.

Nothing beats a day spent doing nothing much so as to the learn the lesson of 'doing less'.

a day...

woke up in the corner of anna's living room besides the window adjacent to her djembe with it's zip incompletely closed. it appears that the djembe has outgrown it's surrounds, as i'm sure it fit well when i saw it last. japanese incense permeates the room, a room without a clock - typical of anna.

i log on facebook via my iphone and insert an inane narcisstic facebook status update. blah-blah is awake (no shit). iphone says it's 0800 - perfect. anna wakes up, trundles in and slowly yet swiftly gathers the little she needs for the morning ahead whilst being the perfect host and furnishing me with a drop of jasmine tea. rolo (anna's ride) and gladys (my ride) meander across the city in a tethered manner to a small patch of grass below a tree besides the ocean.

yoga. 3 collective oms. very pleasant.

excused myself from a coffee breakfast moment with the heterogenous yoga group. nice mob; a rare collection of gentle erudite spirits united by the desire to chase ephemeral moments of painful bliss that only yoga can offer - so far as first impressions go. but kung fu beckons...

rolled in late to the tail-end of an inaugural attendance of sunday kung fu lesson with sibak, they were all on the cusp of lunch. shared 6mins worth of kata five with mags and martin before tumbling off to the next gig...

sydney opera house was littered with chinese people. ostensible patriotism irks me, more so when its coupled with music that is so frenetic and untempered that an individual with epilepsy would be well advised to avoid it. such is the chinese anthem. strangely the archaic lyrics of the australian anthem chronologically juxtaposed to it - seemed palatable. that said, i like and feel i belong to both of these cultures, whatever that means...

i like '...', maybe 'cos it's ill-defined.

stood on top of a sturdy green garbage bin and assumed the role of jin wu koon lion dance photographer. took maybe two decent photos. enough.

rode gladys home. inserted an old futon sofa bed into a large vehicle, said goodbye to some beautiful friends, consumed a serving of thai fried rice and trained it back into circular quay for ben folds solo concert.

the dude it good. any bloke that can have his audience sing most of his songs back to him has substance.

sat on the floor at the train station. met my brother's friend with his lass, they got on train, i didn't, so sat back down on flor for another 11 mins. studied electrolyte and fluid physiology on the train. sms'd anna with synopsis of above mentioned day and arranged a study session with an A3 sketch pad for Tuesday, reminiscent of bygone study sessions with Lux.

MAN.

that's difficult. writing about yourself like as if it matters. bloody exhausting. will try again tomorrow and most likely adopt a different format guided by a different purpose.