Myth of Arrival

This will be my last entry for a week or so. I am bound on a hyperborean wind, off to Canada. Toronto waits somewhere near where the sun rises in the morning fog, if only the udder-heavy rain clouds did not obscure the sun so much. But what am I complaining about? At least it is not snowing!

When I return from my holiday I will quit my job as a nurse. Partly because after two years of drudgery I feel I have done enough and partly because my body cannot take the abuse any longer. Lack of sleep, depression, that constant chronic pain; the life of minimum wage servitude is not all it is cracked up to be (my boss was quick to point out I get paid more than minimum wage, but even so, a life slightly below living wage is no way to go week by week). Of course, the problem with changing "careers" once again is the constant happenstance, uncertainty, insubstantiality of what to do.¹ Perhaps the stress of never having had an adult career other than poet is what is constituting to my depression, lack of sleep, nervousness? Perhaps. I drink far too much coffee, too. Still, poverty sucks.

Because at thirty-six I still had not
a clue what to do with Life I checked out
a book, "Your Wastrel Life: Get A Clue What
To Do" for help. It had a big foldout
map of odd head lumps, which left little doubt
to what sort of drudge I'd be best suited
at. "Male Trollop in a Pirate Hideout,"
"Car Hop for Our Lady of the Sacred
Poisoners," "Stilton Cheese Monger." Rancid
jobs, all. But still, my classical "squishy"
head? my odd pitched brow? I've always needed
you to tell me what to do. Poverty
still sucks. There is no end for this but tears
and blood. My wastrel life, my stupid fears.

1. I am not exactly sure what I will do with myself when I return. I gave my last day as May 31, a Wednesday. When I was younger I thought I'd be dead at 27, maybe from some heroic demise fighting the Fascists in Spain. But I missed that by eighty years. The Japanese have a term for a person who "death overlooked." It was coined after World War II when many young men felt at loose ends simply by living, survivor's guilt. They were expected to have died in some grotesque manner for the Emperor like so many of their friends and simply by surviving left them paralyzed with indecision. After all, if you do not give yourself to a Great Cause, what is this life worth anyway?

   I identify with that very strongly. The cultural heroes I respect all had Great Causes to live and die for. Perhaps what I suffer from is not so much survivor's guilt as due to war, but a sense of indecision with my life; a sense I have wasted so much of it through procrastination, inactivity, waiting. In a way, there is a great irony to my adult life. I am surrounded by people, friends and family, who love me deeply and want me to be happy, but because I seem to be seen as a person who cannot make up his mind what to do I have thus been encouraged throughout my life to pursue anything I want, provided I stay close at hand and do nothing dangerous, risky or foolish. Ten years ago it would not occur to me to be dangerous but the paradox now is that is all I really want to do. That ugly voice in my head screaming, quit your whining and DO something, loser! countered by the calm voice that says, now, now, you've never has a career, remained sober, been in a successful long term relationship; these are noble ventures as well … And thus I do nothing as these forces pull me in one direction and then the other.

   It is sort of like the chicken and egg syndrome; I have no idea anymore which came first anymore; my desire for adventure or my willingness to attempt a "normal" life in not seeking that same adventure, which causes the desire to swell to paralyzing proportions inside me. Then there is the question as to whatever "normal" is? The more I try to head to it the farther it seems to flee away.

   So I drift through this adult life, working jobs barely above poverty level, writing my sonnets, translating, thinking, and much of the time wondering when this anxiety, joylessness, dread will end. [back]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 16th, 2006 at 9:53 am and is filed under Scantily Clad Info Dump, Original Poetry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.