Snapshots

— Trying to re-enter into my life here after a relaxing week away. Not easy. I miss the commune. (Alex? In answer to your question: HEDGEHOG)

— I woke up this morning to hear the call of the geese, leaving town. It was a cold grey dawn, rain in the biting air, the trees all brown and grey, with that wild sound of the geese, calling, right above my house. Welcome, winter.

— Curt Schilling. I just don’t know what to say. Everyone else seems to be relatively speechless as well, even columnists in the mainstream media.

— I’m feeling a bit sick about tonight’s game. I still don’t know where I’m going to go to watch the game – I feel the need to be with others. Others who feel like I do. But I feel sick. Like I almost want it to be tomorrow already. Almost like I can’t wait for it to be November 3. I wish I was up in Boston.

— In other news – I’ve been thinking about love. I have to believe that God wouldn’t have given me such an intense ability to love without someday providing me with an outlet for it. This is what I must believe. Otherwise – what the fuck have I been doing?? I’ve got love-outlets with my family, with Cashel, with my friends, my work … I’m talking about the one-on-one mate kind of love. I remember a conversation I had about 4 years ago on this score with 2 friends. I was in a bad way at the time. The 3 of us sat in my kitchen, with the red walls, and candles flickering, drinking wine … I was in a lot of pain. I ended up sharing with my friends my feelings. “I love him so much … I just love this man so much … It hurts … I want to cut that feeling out of my heart …” I was trying to let someone go, and I was finding it almost impossible to do so. Anyway, one of my friends (who I didn’t really know that well at the time – she was more of a friend of a friend) said something to me I will never forget. She said, “What would it be like if you decided to love the whole world as much as you love this one man? What would it be like for you to share that love? To not just put it on one person, but give it out to everyone?” I still haven’t answered her questions. I don’t love people like that. I want to give it to one person. But perhaps the answer to my dilemma is somewhere there in her comment. Love the whole world, to the fullness of my ability … Maybe then I won’t miss so much what it is that I don’t have. That I have never had, actually. I won’t be on hold, waiting, in stasis … because my life is already full. I am already fully expressed. There is nothing missing. But I certainly have dark moments. Moments of ingratitude and confusion, when all I am aware of is what is missing. I ask God why. What is His plan for me … I have got to trust that there IS a plan. Or anyway, that’s what I try to believe. I try to have faith in that. I’m struggling right now.

So that’s where I’m at with all of THAT shite.

— I’m going through a pretty intense Metallica phase. I seem unable, at the moment, to listen to anything else. I’ve tried – really, I have. But … nothing else is doing the trick right now. I’ve got them playing right now.

— Watched Sergeant York last night. (Where the hell do I find the time for everything? Red Sox, Brothers K, etc.? I don’t know – but I do.) Howard Hawks. What a director he was. There’s some sappy stuff in the movie, sure – but there’s a couple of moments of honest emotion, stuff not colored by sentimentality, or sugar-coated. A gorgeous shot too of Sgt. Alvin York (played by Gary Cooper) – the pacifist Quaker (reformed from being a wild boy), who is a conscientious objector to WWI, sitting on a hillside with his dog, thinking over his options, praying … The dog and York are in stark silhouette – both of them looking off to the horizon – like black paper cut-outs, against the dramatically lit sunset (or sunrise) sky. I’ll write more about the movie later. Gary Cooper. Howard Hawks. Great stuff.

— My thoughts back on Game 7. A deja vu from last October. I guess I still haven’t really recovered from that. I can feel that somewhere I am protecting myself, steeling myself … but I need to find the proper venue. Must make some phone calls.

— I look forward to getting my life back. Just like last October – spending too much time in bars, night after night after night … I start to think: Home? What’s that? My ENTIRE LIFE WILL ALWAYS LOOK THIS WAY: rowdy crowds, baseball, alcohol, late nights … my entire life will ALWAYS be MOSTLY about baseball. I do not know how to live any other way.

— Anyway. Hoo-yah, Game 7, bring it on.