3:30 christmas eve. i had just arrived at my parents house. my cell phone rings. i see the area code from ohio. my mind races to the only logical reason someone from ohio would call me on christmas eve as my hand reaches slowly begins to open the phone - they're calling to say my sister has died.

i am at once assailed by two conflicting thoughts - thankful that her pain is over and guilt that i am happy a sibling is dead. my family stares at me in silence as i listen to her friend lisa saying that she was holding her when she died, and that it was just like a clock slowly winding down.

"Play me Old King Cole
That I may join with you,
All your hearts now seem so far from me
It hardly seems to matter now.

And the nurse will tell you lies.
Of a kingdom beyond the skies.
But I am lost within this half-world,
It hardly seems to matter now.

two more thoughts conflict - of all days christmas eve, but then christmas eve is the only time my family is always in the together. the fire in the fireplace. my younger sister and my dad making the christmas fudge that everyone is always too full to eat much of. the ice cream and kalhua drink called tumbleweeds.

I've been waiting here for so long
And all this time has past me by
It doesn't seem to matter now
You stand there with your fixed expression
Casting doubt on all I have to say
Why don't you touch me, touch me,
Why don't you touch me, touch me, touch me

my parents are numb. we get several calls of condolences as the evening progresses. in a quiet moment my dad turns me, 'a father should not outlive his children.' the pain in his voice tears into me. it continues to rain outside - an overused cliche from movies that always gets me complaining that the producer couldn't think up anything more original than rain to convey sadness in a scene.

the cheerful christmas music seems out of place. then my mom hears a song that must have stirred up some memory and leaves the room to cry. i want to hear early genesis, a band that my sister helped bring to the states a long time ago and who she remained friends with over the years. I was always in awe of her famous contacts who recognized in her photographs of them onstage, someone very special.

Play me my song.
Here it comes again.
Play me my song.
Here it comes again. (the musical box, genesis)

posted by bluematrix at 12/25/05 15:54 | link | comments (4)

'hold an image of the life you want, and that image will become fact.'

posted by bluematrix at 12/20/05 11:57 | link | comments (4)

regardless of how much we feel compelled to linger along certain shores, the river of everyday life tugs at us, constantly pulling us towards future experiences. i have not resolved my sisters ongoing pain, nor my own at seeing hers.

but the river pulls.

last nite i went to jeffes in the city and we did some improv jamming, watched our old canyon adventures footage for the first time in years, and got hammered. the comfort and creativity of an old friend a welcome change from the heaviness of late. after i got i home i read this in Free Play about music and structure...

"In a piece of music, the opening chord, drone, or rhythm instantly generates expectations that generate questions that in turn feed the next bit of the music. Once the musician has played something, anything at all, the next thing fits with that, or fits against it; a pattern is there to be reinforced, or modulated, or broken.

Thus, without our imposing a preconditioned intention on it, a musical improvisation can dynamically structure itself. The first selections of tones are very free, but as we continue, the selections we have made affect the selections we will make. A blank canvas or piece of paper is "without form, and void," (Genesis 1:2) but a single mark on it sets up a definite world and poses an infinite series of creative problems. In creating fiction, all we have to do is think of a bag lady and a computer salesman, and immediately a thousand questions come up, which lead to answers, which then lead to more questions, and so on.

Creation is not the replacing of nothing with something or chaos with pattern. There is no chaos; there is a vast, living world in which the rules for specifying the pattern are so complicated that after you look at a few of them you become tired. The creative act pulls out some more inclusive shape or progression that gathers an immense amount of complexity into a simple, satisfying notion.

Jokes take us through this whole cycle in a matter of seconds. The first part of the joke causes us to set up a theory about what is happening then the punch line explosively deflates our theory and brings us to a new view. In the same way, art surprises us and shifts our frames of reference, but it also leaves us with inexorable, unresolved ambiguities. Artful composition makes surprises and shifts of direction seem inevitable to us, or makes the inevitable surprising.

The key to either improvising or composing is to make each moment so tantalizing that it inexorably leads us on to the next. We love to be seduced by a delayed inevitability. We love to watch the player get out onto a dangerous limb and then live the high drama of getting back from it, giving sense and shape to the whole journey. We have a sense of Chinese boxes opening into one another, until inevitably the final box opens up and containsthe first. Likewise, polyphonic forms like the fugues and canons of a Bach or a Monteverdi are so satisfying because they involve us in a feeling of parallel universes that nevertheless merge or resolve into one.

Listen to endings in music, in prose, in film. Does the piece seem to simply stop, or does it bring about its own conclusion in its own terms? The last moment can become the ultimate flowering of the first, all the moments in between connected and interweaving. We experience a sense of satisfaction when the closure finally hitsan experience that is often accompanied by laughter, tears, or other bodily signs of being moved. When a piece ends well it is immediately obvious to the players and audience alike."

posted by bluematrix at 12/13/05 11:44 | link | comments

for some reason she won't let go.

i have no words of my own yet. but pieces from her favorite (and mine) cd scream out from my memories. i almost had to pull the car over because i couldn't see thru the tears listening to it as i drove away yesterday, the guilt almost overwhelming as my responsibilities to the living finally overtook my responsibilities to the dying. the nurses say she won't even know i'm not there and that she may continue this death dance for weeks yet, but still...listening to the cd, especially the last lines i've cut and pasted below about the brother being the little runaway. fuckfuckfuck.

" There's something solid forming in the air,
The wall of death is lowered in Times Square.
No-one seems to care,
They carry on as if nothing was there.
The wind is blowing harder now,
Blowing dust into my eyes.
The dust settles on my skin,
Making a crust I cannot move in
And I'm hovering like a fly, waiting for the windshield on the freeway.

The cheerleader waves her cyanide wand, there's a smell of Peach blossom and bitter almond.

I got sunshine in my stomach
Like I just rocked my baby to sleep.
I got sunshine in my stomach
But I can't keep me from creeping sleep,
Sleep, deep in the deep.

If I keep self-control,
I'll be safe in my soul.
And the childhood belief
Brings a moment's relief,
But my cynic soon returns
And the lifeboat burns.
My spirit just never learns.

Each person can't go very far;
All tied to their things
They are netted by their strings,
Free to flutter in memories of their wasted wings.

Outside this cage I see my brother John,
He turns his head so slowly round.
I cry out "Help!" before he can be gone,
And he looks at me without a sound.
And I shout out "John please help me!"
But he does not even want to try to speak.
I'm helpless in my violent rage
And a silent tear of blood dribbles down his cheek,
And I watch him turn again and leave the cage.
My little runaway."

posted by bluematrix at 12/08/05 14:34 | link | comments (5)

i write this from the road. unlike my last roadtrip this one sucks beyond imagination. i'm watching my older sister die this really slow really painful death. the jim beam is helping somewhat as i sit here in the hotel with my dad, but, shit, i don't know. i guess in some forms of MS all of your nerve endings just start crackling with pain near the end. she lays there in her hospice bed and just keeps calling the nurse for more morphine, though she's sucked down enough to get half the state of ohio high. and i just look on as she cries and lashes out in pain and anger and guilt. fuckfuckfuckfuck. i can't even imagine, well maybe i can a little, how my dad sleeping in the bed next to me must feel - a parent should never have to watch their offspring go thru this. i thought it was bad earlier in the summer when i thought she was dying then, but she rallied somewhat. but this, this is like some way over the top, fucked up bad movie, that just keeps going and going and going. she could pass tonite while i sleep and if there was any kind of mercy in this life, she would. she hasn't eaten or even drank anything since we got here on friday. but for some reason she won't let go. and each day we go thru this fucked up, end life dance of pain. soon, god, please take her soon. i think we've all learned about all we can from this and now its just real wrong.

posted by bluematrix at 12/03/05 21:45 | link | comments (3)