These days we walk through are just systems of man. And when the systems don’t work, we get rid of them. I think Thomas Jefferson might have written something similar. It just takes longer now.
Commas are dumb
The difficulty in learning a language. A new way of saying things involve a new way of thinking. A new way of seeing. For me, perhaps, remembering. There are duolingos to guide you. Cuanto cuesta? How much do you want for that? They donʻt mean the same thing word for word. This is why it is so important to remember. There is a phrase in English that comes to mind as I feel sometimes, when I listen to manaleo. “I donʻt have a word for this.” Is it my lack of capacity for the moment or are there no words? I often feel that way translating my thoughts into Hawaiian. There must exist those words. I can not be the first Hawaiian feeling this way. And, so, I look for more words.
There is a word
This guy. He found a way to Hawaiians with baseball. He found me. We still talk. I still call him Coach and I was never on one of his teams (his brotherʻs once). This is how it comes. I donʻt want Argentinian horses. I want boys from ʻEwa Beach to know that pōpō, kini pōpō. Pōhili. There is a word for baseball.
Sports
I wake up every morning at 4:30 and the first thing I check is a newsletter, then the recap of the games of my favorite teams. I love baseball, and Iʻve loved it since before Field of Dreams. I took a class in baseball called Play Ball! when I was in Little League, coached by the high school coach/tv color man for University of Hawaii baseball (Pal Eldredge). I also took a class, upstairs in Bishop Hall, in creative writing. I was young. Those classes are as much resposible for who I am today as any middling choice I seemed to make about what to major in. I can send you pictures of me draped in Cowboys parapenelia from 52 years ago. My love for sports is legit. I knew I could write about sports when I watched a Phillies game in 1992 and didnʻt care about either team. I appreciated the pitcherʻs nuances. The shortstopʻs glide.
Kahoa
Brah, kahoa (ke hoa in songs) in Hawaiian. When I was that age, I knew EVERYTHING. No one could tell me shit. I read every book already. I knew you had the quote wrong. I snorted every line already. I took every shot already. I put my dick into every place they would take it. The realization comes more slowly. What feels good in the moment doesnʻt always feel good on Tuesday. Today is Tuesday. And although that wasnʻt on purpose, it makes a good point. Tuesday is always less than seven days away. You are an asshole. And you fucked up your only real job, evolutionarily speaking. Your kids should love you. It’s weird how patterns become patterns. I donʻt like my father. It feels like a burden to go beyond small talk. I look at posts here speaking about a father, what it means to be a man. My son does not like me. Shampoo. Rinse. Repeat,
Perfect?
What do you want? Perfect? Perfect shames and mocks you constantly. Perfect can’t happen more than infinity. Should I bother spending half my life learning how to spell words that no one ever uses? Would that be perfect? Would a perfect score on the SATs make me perfect? Dial down a little when you judge me. Full disclosure? I’m almost the opposite of perfect. My brain articulates well. Don’t confuse that with I know what the fuck anything means or what I’m talking about. I’m the same sapient primate that you are.
Irony
How can you understand me if I don’t understand me? You and I are strange animals. I like the way you look naked. I like the way look at me when you’re not wearing clothes. I like your breath and the way your hair smells. I like that I didn’t have to tell you to love Black Sabbath. I like less and less. But I like you. I forget how to use the word love without being ironic.
Nothing less
The thing about faith is that it requires so much more. On a good day, I trust what I’m told by most. On a bad day, I don’t believe myself. Good days are often bad and vice versa. Your eyes give you away, more than your I’s, which say even more. I close my eyes and trace the walk down from the apartment to the corner gas station, sweating in the near-summer heat of the Mississippi and holding the bleeding condensation of Busch in their plastic hearse as I wade back upstream to the patio where I’d wait for you. The first sips take away the heat of the late afternoon while you work, while your child naps, swims or bathes. The sweat congeals against my skin under one too many layers of clothing. The sips become slugs. The days pass. And I wonder if I have traded nothing less for nothing more.
Let there be light is a metaphor
All these mistakes I’ve made don’t exist, except in my memory. It’s past and just as fake as whatever I can imagine comes next. Only now exists. The rest is a mind-game-mind-fuck. I have tortured myself beyond any pedestrian waterboard (which, by the way, really doesn’t sound that bad, especially if you’ve bodysurfed the Wedge or Sandy’s). I’m tired of living in the shade. “Let there be light,” is a metaphor. It didn’t happen as the book says. It happens every second. Wait, this might be hard to wrap your head around, but seconds are too long. Every moment of comprehensible difference from the last. Nano-nanosecond. Every single one of these, whatever you want to call them, is a chance to let there be light. God exists, if she does, in minutiae. The smaller everything gets, the greater the change in our rules of understanding.
Eat butter
There’s a tribe. And I don’t have to taste your mouth to know if you’re in it. It’s not a cult.
I explained to my ex-wife once and I probably hurt her feelings but I wasn’t trying to. There is butter and there is margarine. They look the same. And that’s where it stops. This metaphor can be applied to most of pop culture. Hank Williams? Butter. Shania Twain? Margarine. Nirvana? Butter. Fall Out Boy? Margarine. Social Distortion, The Hold Steady, Drive-By Truckers, Seven Seconds, Bob Marley, Biggie, Loretta Lynn, Jack White, Gabby; the list is a long one. That’s all butter.
It’s okay to like margarine, especially if you grew up eating it. This is not a judgment even though it sounds like one. It’s an encouragement to eat butter.