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Paul E. Burns IV's Journal  Like a slow Night on Bald Mountain, the dead flowed in streams each moving to their own rhythm. Intertwining with each other they moved along following the Urn. I stood alone letting the images flow past me thinking about my grandfather, father and cats long gone by. Hundreds of anonymous faces and skulls pass by. I think to myself: "Noone knows me here, not even the dead"; a bride whose white face seem to glow against the sharp black lines looks up at me and smiles. "Paul Burns!" she cries and disappears again into the river of dead. I GOT THE JOB! moving to Tucson tomorrow! This house inspires dreams I long left laying fallow. Life is like a dream. Not the fanciful play that the phrase inspires, but in a more practical sense. Random bits of experience strung together with no intrinsic meaning and mysterious connections. Like some schrodinger game, the meaning arrives with the observer in the morning trying to make sense of it all. This is the part we play a role in, the point where we have a choice. Well, yesterday I caught a plane to Austin. I found a good deal (less then a bus trip) but I had to use it yesterday. So, a little earlier than I planned I suddenly found myself on a plane to Austin! I was sitting in a layover in Dallas before I had a chance to really get my feet under me.  Tine picked me up from the airport and I had a wonderful late night dinner at Chuey's with friends. I am staying at Mom's house out in far south austin, but hoping to spend lots of time in town. I am here in Austin until November or the guy from Tucson calls. So far the plans include: Dinner at a couple of friends houses Perhaps dancing tonight! (I can't believe I forgot my velvet pants!) Pub this thursday Friday, I go to the coast to celebrate my Mom's birthday weekend of the 16th, high school reunion weekend of Halloween go to New Orleans talking, cooking, walking and any other adventures that I can talk people into or get talked into myself 
I have been thinking this morning about my accomplishments in the last year. I have done very well. I have developed an enjoyment of shopping in supermarkets I can cook at least 4 different dishes I got and quit a job in a challenging economy I have explored several different lifestyles, and even tried out a couple. I moved to a new city in a new state and learned some of it's mysteries I made several decisions for my own emotional happiness and then acted on them. I have developed the skill of using a bank Naturally there are more, but that is what comes to mind this morning. I have also been tossing around the idea of some goals... I would like to have a home I would like to do more art I would like to be in the physical company of friends I would like to have a male friend or two. I would like to get more exercise. I would like to volunteer I would like to buy an outfit I would like to dress as Captain Hammer for Halloween. Did a Cartoon.... Not going back to Denmark I am procrastinating on finishing up packing and cleaning here. Not much work to do, and I will probably do it with the evening watering. Not sure when the Avalons will be returning exactly. I know they started their trip this morning...so it could be as early as this afternoon and as late as tomorrow night.... Last night I had dinner with the neighbours. All I can say is...wow....their garden is incredible. Their cooking wonderful. Their view magical. Lucky, hard working people. Not sure what I was expecting coming out here into the desert. I have just been, well, I have been me;for the first time in a long while. I can feel the urges to climb back into my old patterns and paths, hide away from myself. I don't know what I am going to do. I miss my cat though. And I would like to go to life drawing on tuesday night. I suppose I could have some better plans then that, but really that is what I have right now. I think I had intended to have a better plan then that by now.... I see me very clearly right now, and I am afraid and embarrassed. I am also hopeful and encouraged. I think I like me. In highschool I was taught that work was force times mass over distance. That never seemed satisfactory to me, anyone who ever clocked in and out knew that time had to be a component. So I scrapped that and made up my own. Doing something someone else doesn't want to do over time. I have been using this terrible definition of work for 20 years now and I begining to think it isn't a good model. I mean, it was kind of built into my definition of of work that whatever I did I was going to be unhappy with. If what I was doing was not sufficiently unpleasant, I didn't feel like I was accomplishing anything. For one thing, I think this is why I have had such a hard time with thinking of art as work. I enjoy doing it. Every teacher I had kept saying "This is hard work, and you should give yourself credit for that" but I would just look at them with that confused look on my face I get. I got to thinking about this while watering the garden today. I was thinking about how much I was enjoying it, and how J said he really enjoyed it. How could it be work if I was enjoying it, and someone else wanted to do it too. It defiantly wasn't play, and I could see that I was accomplishing things. Perhaps Joe Avalos was right...perhaps it is mass time force over distance....it works on a canvas...paint applies at specific forces to cover a space....hmmmmmm....your done when your done, no clock involved....hmmmmmm I swear, this little retreat has become Paul's Ontological Adventure. BTW, the word I was looking for was ontology. The award goes to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} bastard_kingThank you everyone for playing, your words were wonderful I shall be using them as well! I have finished with the watering and feeding and I have sat down to some just picked cucumber and canned peaches in the shade. Picking my own food off the vine is very odd. There is a whole section of life I have never been involved in up until now. I mean I have cared for plants and I have also eaten them my whole life. It is difficult to describe the internal process involved in transforming this plant into food. This isn't a physical process, but instead an epistemological one. I mean, you go into the supermarket and everything there as already been labeled "food". Someone, somewhere has already done the work of deciding "this is food" for me. It is weak and and undeveloped, that part of my brain that does the work of transforming what was yesterday a weed into something that I can take into myself and sustain myself. I have always been fond of the mythological commandment of man to name things, but only in fun. It is such a wonderful game to create stories. To transform the game into survival; to name something out of necessity, that is new to me. I got a melon that I am going to go for tomorrow. I think I am going to decide is food, and I can't wait! On a separate note, I need a better word then epistemology....that is too broad a category. What is the word for the process by which we name things? Alpacas, zukinis, chickens, rabbits...oh my! Beautiful stars last night...... |
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