Des Ashes

Réduire cendres à

To his closest friends, he was known as a man of faith. His readings from the pulpit were words that he believed to be true, and so did the congregation once they had listened and not simply heard. His delivery was convincing, aided by his evident piety exuded at having sat in the same seat in the front row on multiple iterations of assembly. Almost every gathering without fail. To the clergy then, he was considered to be a future man of the cloth. It was a different time then, when following one's faith to levels of leadership had no connotation of sexual preference. Now, his primary struggle was to locate a decent night between two sheets. Now, he is just a man.

There is no more room at the inn and this is the 21st century so there is no backyard stable one could utilise for occupancy. Indeed, that wouldn't be legal simply because it wasn't very hygienic, not that the inside was any more so, with smells of marijuana, alcohol and a festering general stink. Still, it would have been better than the crisp night air of the outdoors or his previous embarrassment. He had alighted upon another place which bore the word "Inn" in its title, having made a mental note some years ago that this was within a safe section of the neighbourhood. Upon his arrival, he saw to his great chagrin that the title was in fact a misnomer and this locale had been converted to a private establishment for quite some time. He could feel his age at having made such a folly, an honest mistake. With a heaving sigh, he lugged his bags, which contained everything he ever owned and decided was memorable enough to be kept, out of the inn which was real but would not have him that night, and in the direction of the nearest subway, thankful that this city had transportation services that were nonstop. It was unfortunate that unlike other cities the state of cleanliness was by far lackadaisical, a possible trade off for being operational at all hours.

Emerging at his destination, he looked up at the stars, the arbiters of true direction, for though our positions on earth change frequently, they nightly shared their coruscation from the same locations every night. The North Star. The brightest of them all. Symbolic of the ascension that North connotates? A society that aspires to be northerly in their fiscal trajectory is favourable. It reminded him of a song where the people were moving up, but to the eastside. Were they speaking of the Upper East Side? Theirs is a neighbourhood of true glamour and resplendence.

Where is the righteous salvation? "Jesus Christ rose from the dead today", someone remarked on the street. Fallacy. Historically speaking, he rose thousands of years ago, so it couldn't have happened also on this day. The churches are packed with people that believe that this is the only day in which they can affirm their salvation. Maybe they should try saving themselves sometime. "And what of Passover? Didn't a mighty spiritual entity smite multiple first born during this period? Was that concurrent to the event you're speaking of?"

"Oh sorry, I didn't know you were Jewish. Sorry. Rosaries for sale! Renew your faith!" He tried to explain that he was simply cognisant of the beliefs of multiple faiths, and found it difficult to subscribe to any one at the moment, but the wizened merchant had moved on to his next target of sale. He declined to consider why this man had decided to sell rosaries at the end of the holiday and when almost no one was around. Perhaps he could not secure a permit.

Who was he to speak of the people in churches seeking saving graces? Self salvation was a feat he had yet to achieve. The brilliance of Times Square, which still to him seemed like an artifical day so birghtly did the light singe his eyes, was juxtaposed with the stark absence of people. Closed shops, empty seats and pavillions, barely a bustling taxi in sight. Everyone's gone home. This is the city that never sleeps. Why was it sleeping now? "Am I the only person still awake?" There was nothing here for him. Even his favourite eatery had stopped serving food, in retrospect a good idea since it had probably been in the open for at least 14 hours, and he was forced to eat a granny smith apple and an enormous bag of popcorn. It wasn't as delectable without a movie in front of him, and there weren't many real-life moving images either upon which he could focus his attention.

It suddenly occurred to him that he was part of a car share program with access to cars around the world, in which one could rent any kind of vehicle at one's whim and fancy. He fancied one now and utilised free wireless from a closed place of business to set up the transaction. They could deny him their products temporarily, but not their internet access. The men working in the garage seemed genuinely upset at being woken up at such an obscure hour, and had much difficulty differentiating between a sedan and an SUV. Having finally secured the latter for him and rudely driving it out of the garage and quickly closing the door this freedom machine was now his own for 5 hours. He turned onto 48th Street from the garage and headed east, the sound of NPR issuing forth from what he considered to be a very complex radio. Technology was almost beyond his grasp, but there was no need to change from his favourite station. At least the delivery of news didn't change too radically. A city was burning in another part of the world.

Driving is a luxury in New York City that many who live there avoid at all costs. It certainly isn't a necessity given the accessibility of the underground network of steel and speed. Even taxiing isn't really required, though it is quite pleasant to travel above ground and see life move with you. Not he. He loved the feeling of being in control of at least one element of his life. He could start and stop as he pleased, barring traffic laws and parking of course. Driving in the wee hours of the morning was actually satisfying, as there was no traffic to be found anywhere, especially on a Sunday. The taxi drivers were making their way home and as there was noone to hail them from a street corner, they avoided cutting him off as per usual. He was his own express train and as all the lights on 2nd Avenue were green at the moment there was ample opportunity to build momentum within limits. He knew where he was headed - the 24 hour diner on 14th and 1st. They would never disappoint him. Strong tea with one packet of brown sugar and a chicken parmesan panini.

For the first time since being a part of the city, he decided to drive through the Park Avenue tunnel. His was the only vehicle moving through the dully lit brick arch, and he imagined himself being transporated to another world, even though it was only a pathway to the Upper East Side. When he emerged from the tunnel, he wound around and through the expansive buildings that were the Grand Central Terminal and the MetLife Building and descended onto the 46th Street intersection. How thrilling; it was his own personal amusement park ride, filled with elevations, depressions, twists and turns! He considered that there are people who live their entire lives in NYC and have never had the experience to which he had just been privy. That made him morose as there were people he thought of in his own life that had and had not. This became more apparent as he drove further north, on the eastside of course, and took in the almost magical state of the neighbourhood. It was almost not New York City, or the city with which he was familiar. The people who live here must experience this place so very differently than most. He had had a similar living experience too, he began to muse... but that was also a different time in a different place. Now no more.

The tunnel experience reminded him of an absurdist piece one of his friends had made in which this person spoke French as he walked through a tunnel. There was a lock on a door and someone had the key, but his friend did not. The haves and the have nots. We are all made of ash in various consistencies. When we tumble and fall, and we all fall, this fact is revealed to us. Within life's journeys there is purpose, but life itself is an odd concept. We discover purpose within our existence, but what is the purpose of existence? To discover that purpose? So then one who has not discovered or rejects one's purpose is simply not alive, although clearly existing. He wondered how the ashes of his existence, of his experience, would be spread.

He didn't believe in the truth of any particular set of words anymore. Rather, he believed in the truth of all words. Even if the stories were untrue, the words which comprised these stories were real, tangible and had some claim to existence. It was why Shakespeare could create his own words, or anyone else for that matter really, as they would become claimants of their own existence through application.

He returned the SUV. The sun rose. The day began. His time was up. The ashes of the city began to stir.

Retourner des ces cendres.

Sordid Verbiage

Would you like to see the size of my lexicon?
I tell you now my vocabulary is gargantuan
Backed by the force of an imagination
The size of the universe... [exclamation]

Or were you interested in the placement of my verse?
Prose is so pedestrian.
You can leave so much up to interpretation
Or purposefully make meanings obscure.

Perhaps I'm being pestiferous.
It's a word auto-correct couldn't pronounce
I tried it again and auto-correct my friends,
Updated its own cognisance!

My, isn't intelligence contagious?
In an ideal world of influence
The people you meet and with whom you speak
Simply add and enrich your experience.

I vote for ignorance to be illegal.
Where is the ballot for that?
Request of your Congressman, nay, do exclaim,
"I'd like to be expansively knowledgeable in various subjects too, although I'm a proletariat."

When was the last time we've conversed with our fellow (wo)man?
And I don't mean in electronic shorthand
To speak in person is an outdated adage
Replaced by the burgeoning instant message.

Technology is of course a great power.
It's offertory to the world is insurmountable.
But the overage of information if utterly ill used
Can make people's lives uninhabitable.

Would you remember my name without social networks?
Or my birthday without notification?
Our minds shrink with the growing access of globalisation,
Such that the world may soon be called Internet Nation.

Take my musings with a grain of salt,
Although you may just need the ocean.
But before you contest to put my noesis to test
Please dispel and disregard that notion.

Well, did you prefer what you've seen?
I think my ratiocination should be
That one must be privy to a multitude of words
Or how else will your lyric be free?

The Cinema Experience

 Lights up on a movie theatre whose show has just ended.
Cleaner - Have they...? Yes everyone's gone. Would you ever believe that I've never seen a movie? It's true. I've been working here for 32 years and I've not seen one movie, at least not in its entirety. I come in at the end and watch the credits and imagine what the movie must have been like. Ah, the credits. ...They and I have a special bond you know. We're both invisible. Nobody ever stays for all the credits. Most movie viewers have no particular interest in how movies are made. They come and they sit in their comfortable VIP seating chairs and they watch the movie and enjoy it and hold various opinions about characters, but as soon as the lights come down on the final scene and come up on reality, they rush as quickly as they can out of here. Somtimes they stay to see the sneak of the sequel to the movie they've just seen. That's a smart tactic on the movie-makers' part. They pretend I don't exist too, as they brush past me and spill their salty popcorn all over the floor and their seats. The credits are the cleaners of the movie. The movie experience that people have come to love is created by invisble workers who perfect the movie after it is made, not just the people who are in it. The real end of the movie, then, is the end of the credits which means that most people haven't seen a whole movie either. I am an invisble worker who makes this theatre an enjoyable place to come watch the movies by perfecting the cleanliess of the space. Maybe I should be in the credits too. No one would stay to see my name up there on the screen anyway. So I stay behind and I watch them all and say, "Thanks." Then I clean the theatre. Oh they've finished. Back to work. Until next time, credits. Cheers.

Lights down.

伦敦

這是你的第一次來這兒嗎？
對啊.
He looked up at the drizzle of drops as it dabbed the window pane in a sudden, direct and light manner aided of course by gravity. Shifting his inner participation of space, attention, he toggled his vision between the overcast sky whose clouds tumbled along to their final destination and the spider's web that clung to the window in desolation. What is the final destination of a cloud? The earth? The roots? No, the cycle of precipitous materials is eternal. The webbing captured only the water that it needed, letting the rest grace the pane with its presence. This simple spider's silk can trap many things, providing a source of nourishment for the inhabitant. But there was no spider there. He wondered if he was the only one who wondered where it had gone.

Nature is the first instuctor of the language of life. A leaf, one main vein and multiple venules, green at the base, yellow in the middle slowly changing hue to red and then brown at the apex.  It was alive and dying at the same time.  It was Nature's way of of describing what happens to everything that lives on the planet. Beauty in the detail. Nature answered the question, "How should one live?" One should never be concerned with the characteristics that make you who you are, but, much like the leaves who float from their fixed place to provide food to its rooted counterpart until Spring, one should retain the characteristics that help you achieve the most growth and consider which ones you can leave behind. Must a part of you die then for your other, supposedly better self, to live? Not necessarily, as not all trees shed their leaves - an evergreen strives just as well. Similarly, people are different and can retain all characteristics and allow them all to feed into their experience.  This is what Nature described to him that he made feeble in his attempt to put into words, to classify as is apparent of human nature. Nature showed him its own inner participation of flow, its progression of the cycle of all creatures so he could in turn understand his own; all things that could directly photosynthesize or indirectly assimilate would progress unto death. It is the great inevitability of life.


倫敦 給我第一個印象是...

A city without a grid isn't synonymous with a city without purpose. On the contrary, it becomes even more alive, more complex in its intricacies and lends credence to the winding paths of thought through which a deeply reflective mind would dare venture. This city was alive and he lived through and with it.  Simultaneously, paradoxically even, he was invisible and one of the crowd of London folk. He smiled as he waited for the queue of cyclists to tumble and scatter across the Strand; it was an unfamiliar muscular arrangement of the face for him. Traditionally, the men in the family took severe photos, a stern, piercing gaze as a reminder to be disciplined.

He sat for a moment outside a patisserie and observed the movement of human beings in their particular Dynamo-sphere. Some dabbed, some thrusted, some slashed forward. All moved with some purpose. His own stillness was sustained - he was pressed in his chair and his inner participation of time, his decision-making self, shifted gears. I think I'd like hot chocolate with my sandwich.  The show starts in 21 minutes. I will walk over there in 15. I will cross my legs when I sit so my knees don't lock nor will my thighs cramp.

我有谁? There is a brashness to the questions he poses to himself. What was his inner participation of weight, his intention, of asking that question? The grammatical construct is rude and purposefully so; to ask it in English in a similar manner would pacify the statement and possibly make it less poignant. Maybe he thought it would scare him into blurting out an answer that he always knew existed but did not think possible. Were the characteristics that he chose for his opposite already some part of his natural self? Would he keep them?

Time Travel

He lay awake listening to his runners' heart thump against his thoracic cage.  Someone once told him the pillow was cooler, on the other side.  He usually couldn't sleep looking at the cieling because that was how he did his thinking.  That he could not sleep with his stomach snugly set below him on the bedding and his face buried in the pillow worried him.  Sleeping on the side was never to be tolerated under any circumstance.  He was either too exhausted to sleep or not tired at all, both undesirable conditions considering that it was 2:49 in the morning and the sleep for the last few days had been fitful, sparse at best.

He turned over onto his back and stared at the cieling. Thinking is what his mind wanted, yet he knew sleep was what his body wanted. He yielded to thought, mind overcoming the comfort of matress and duvet. His mind was usually the winner of these disputes anyway, since it posessed both somatic and autonomic control of bodily functions. A little action potential works marvellous wonders.  Somatic would reign for the present moment.

Earlier he had tried to change his social networking profile to indicate where he had come from.  But he couldn't commit to putting one location.  He was a wayfaring stranger whose journey home had many stops.  Each place he lived was one of them, or so it seemed because it was never a place in which he had stayed for a long period.  Each place also felt like home to him, and deciding upon one place out of all the others was painstaking.  Moving often and to completely unique settings each time surely wasn't helping. Why did he have to put in a hometown in the first place? He couldn't stake a claim to be a citizen of the world if he had a hometown in one locale. He would take solace in his daring to be different for now, until societal pressure to succumb to the norm would plague his psyche. For now, he would leave it alone, again, wondering if he would return to the debate and knew that he would.

He caught himself doing it again. Always the questions, never concretized answers. Perspectiveism - an answer would change based on how one percieved life in the moment of the experience. Living in the moment and reflecting upon it are two separate processes utilizing multiple parts of our brain. The brain of course is a material substance, with the capacity to be weighed, its matter analyzed with one being able to describe the elements that create the molecules that create cells that create the organelles that create the organ within the organ system of the body. The mind is not so.  Though arguably reliant upon a well-functioning brain, its capacity is incalculable, and so are its limits.  Its presence can fill a room or the eye of a needle. The most powerful force on the face of the earth cannot even be seen- it is a thought.

For a fleeting instant one of these thoughts occured to him - he had flown across 5 time zones and was now 5 hours ahead of his previous location. His mind, he intimated, was operating in both time zones at the same time, making his days 29 hours long, or so it seemed. Had he inadvertently found the way to both cheat and create more time for oneself simultaneously? It wouldn't be a very helpful skill if the increase in time yielded productivity.  Time of course has its own agenda. It runs faster than us all; not even the best sprinter or well-trained distance pace can catch Time. Eventually this momentary lag in the perception of Time would be erased as Time would catch and then surpass. Yet we try anyway. Is it our yearning for self-preservation that drives us?

Why had he flown all this way, away from the life he had known? Of course the obvious answers flashed across the embellishment his mind created using the blank canvas of the cieling above. But why here? Why now? Why him? These were the real questions that he hoped his being here would answer. It was not the promise of the adventure but the adventure itself that was worth taking the first step forward, blindfolded almost. "Why do you want to study here?"  Asked of him by the Border Agent after a tedious 8-hour journey that took 15 hours.  His answer: "I wanted a new experience."  It is often a good idea to embrace what one does not know in order to shape what one already does.  That is the nature of growth.  Much like a tree one must bend to favorable light sources to sustain that growth or run the risk of botched photosynthesis.

His eyelids were becoming leaden, the cadence of his breathing slowed. The body's natural music, a melodic configuration leading to its own repose. Rest, sleep, silence. It was, after all, the end of the day, and the cyclical play of the ascension of the sun to its throne in the center of the sky, before falling from grace and wallowing in the depths of the West, would begin again. He remembered the dull, orange glow of the street lamp casting insufficient luminence. He turned over. Then nothing.

Storming Fury

This is a story of the fury that was caused by the storm that most recently devastated the East Coast.  The fury, however, belongs to the people who were devastated and not to the ominous, tumbling clouds that blanketed the sky in a salt and pepper haze.  These are the people who may have heard the call and it would have done them well to evacuate the dangerous areas, but had no particular place to evacuate from.  These are the men and women who brave all elements, so when the black clouds of the storm rolled in and stifled the light, it meant more to them than not being able to party at the local club later that night.  Their worries are more numerous than the pellets that pelted from the sky across the Eastern seaboard this weekend.  They are the homeless.

We look specifically at one individual, who asked to have his name witheld in order to retain an untainted professional relationship with future employers.  His was an unique tale.  Initially, he was gainfully employed, enjoying the luxury of a full time job- with benefits.  He had no real reason to leave because the money was steady and reliable.  He couldn't be counted as one of the 9.1% of the unemployed, some of whom turned to the federal government for help.  Yet, he no longer inhabited the address listed for his job.  He received his check via direct deposit, so that he would not run the risk of losing a much needed, self-earned economic stimulus.  Too proud, or ineligible because of his employment status, or even because there was just no room in an already overcrowded resting place, he was unable to spend nights at housing provided by the Doe Fund, a service that provides men and women with housing and opportunities for temporary blue collar jobs.

He was one of the 15% of people who were an anomoly among the homeless - working a full-time job but unable to consistently pay for accommodation.  He was a loyal taxpayer, with exorbitant sums being taken liberally from his paycheck and when purchasing miscellaneous goods and services.  He recently started a payment plan for the mountain of debt he incurred from taking out numerous loans and payment deliquence fees.  But one perticular service of interest he could not afford was rent.  Working at minimum wage as he was, it is estimated that he would have to work 85 hours a week to be able to afford rent and other necessary commodities in a major city such as New York.  Unforuntately, his place of employment was only open 5 days a week, for no more than 12 hours a day.  Even if he picked up every available shift from opening to closing as he was often wont to do, he would still be unable to tend to all of his needs.

"It's been a long time since I've been inside here," he remarked over coffee at a well-known coffee shop, well-clad in a clean but gently worn suit.  "I've been musing over my situation for the longest while.  It's understandable that I would have acquired a lot of debt in the time that I spent without a job.  You just never think that one day you'd be unable to pay for a roof over your head.  How do you prepare for that?"

He chose food, which he has to buy every day because he has no where to store or preserve it, inexpensive methods of telecommunications and clean clothing over accommodation.  He cuts his own hair, shaves and takes his showers in the bathroom at the Pennsylvania Train Station, only to emerge with a false sense of cleanliness and security.  Sometimes, an extremely rare occurence, there would be just enough saved to spend a night at a bed and breakfast, a fleeting splurge luxurious in nature.  But on a regular basis he would join the ranks of those whose numbers range from 445,000 to 800,000 across the country on any given night, as determined by a "point in time" count.  This particular approximation is based on volunteers and administrators physically combing the streets of cities across the nation on a particular night and making a note of the people who establish various encampments on street corners, park benches, temporary housing and multiple train seats.  This number is also indicative of 10% of the national population already living in poverty, except that the homeless are so far below the poverty line that they are typically often forgotten.

"I was one of the unlucky ones to lose my job at the economic downturn.  But I never thought I'd lose everything.  I was optimistic - too much so I suppose.  What started as an all-nighter in a chair on Times Square spiralled quickly downward into numerous nights out here.  A year now probably?  I've lost count."

Psychologically, the stressor of finding a new abode every night for the past year had taken its toll.  Even before the storm rolled in, he was constantly worried, depressed and anxious and this manifested itself as an increased form of aggression.  His coworkers were no longer able to tolerate his unexpected mood swings.  His manager appreciated his work ethic in general and didn't want to let him go, but considered that he would benefit by working less hours.  Part-time now.  No more benefits.  Irene came and went and grocery stores were late in restocking, meaning he had to go without food.   Hostility and unpleasantness exacerbated and at the end of this work week he was eventually asked to leave.

"I felt so uneasy around my boss, everyone in the workplace.  I felt so enclosed, trapped.  But I couldn't understand why.  I've never had an affinity for violence.  The blood just sort of rushed to my head and I just stormed out of there."  He broke a smile at his own pun, a momentary flash of a sense of humor that seemed to show his former self.  "I know I need help, but I spend all of my time looking for a place to comfortably rest my head at night, not looking up counsellors."

What can we do to help provide for these men, women and children who are most in need?  They lack one of the most basic of human necessities - shelter.  For some, taking refuge from the coming storm only heightened their sense of urgency and their sentiments of despair.  Scaffolding with flimsy zinc roofing was a perilous alternative, but for many it was the only alternative.  His situation is a rare one, as for the moment he is not one of the many who must depend on the whim, fancy and generosity of others to get their next meal, but like a majority of other homeless wayfarers, his prospects and hope are quickly receding much like the flood waters of the recent tropical storm.


Sources:
-Greenberg, J. Comprehensive Stress Management.  11th Ed, Mc-Graw Hill.
-National Coalition for the Homeless
http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/How_Many.html
-U.S. Conference of Mayors. 2008 Status Report on Hunger & Homelessness. Available from http://usmayors.org/pressreleases/documents/hungerhomelessnessreport_121208.pdf
-U.S. Conference of Mayors. A Hunger and Homelessness Survey, 2007. Available from http://usmayors.org/uscm/home.asp

Panegyric to Exercise

Pumping iron in the gym, like a monster.
Boil an egg, put some bread in the toaster.
Training right, eating well for a big kick,
So come race time I'll be "Fly Like A G6".

Give me my water wet,
Give me clean towels dry.
My workout today will definitely make quitters cry.
You want to workout with me?
Perseverance must come naturally
Because I don't stop once I pick the weights up and do my reps you see.

Oh yes!  Girl, I'm type extreme, power cleaning in the gym.
I have to keep my form in check to keep chance of injury slim.
Once I gain momentum I don't want to be sidelined.
Now I've the chance to put in the work; the present is my time.
Running Van Cortlandt's hills, inclines without mercy.
They try their hardest to grind away resolve but the trick is consistency.
You just have to pump arms and legs,
And keep that head down,
And once you burst into the clearing
And race the straightaway,
You'll be a challenger for that crown.

Tempo run in Central Park, training to race
Solidifying my technique known to me as pace and chase.
Gym now! Environed jocks are grunting like they're truly bulked.
Bench press time!  And the mix on my media player makes me step my workout up.

I can't forget to stretch!
Have to be limber, balanced and loose.
And knowing when to take rest days
Is the best thing I can do.
My goal is longevity not a merely fleeting journey.
So the number one goal of any workout is to take care of... well, me.

Endorphins abound! Pleasant rush that can only be found
In a layer of sweat that you'll surely get
When you put on some sneakers and try not to fret.
Your body will thank you...  Hey, why aren't you outside yet?