In Praise Of The Parenthetical

I’m amazed every time I run down Seattle’s waterfront at how acrid, pungent, salty it smells. The water is green. We stop to open a tiny door in the warmth of our bodies and pull some reflections into the open air in the form of words. Because it’s 12:55 p.m. on a day in October & time is just plain silly. Later, we’ll call three plumbers and ask their opinion on intentionality and how it relates to the directional shape of experience. Welcome to the world of syntax. Here we’ll see words as they truly exist until they grow to commercially viable size and can float a big idea. The lore of the object or the lure of the obscure. I’m feeling quiet and marginal. It’s a nice feeling, like the brush of silk, or the initial tentacle of cool air October sends up our spine. Since the pandemic began everything has felt like a parenthesis. Enclosed, but not engaged. Embedded in a narrative, but not participating, not driving it forward. Life continues as normal in its more basic functions – cooking, eating, dressing, reading, etc. – but its larger pageantries and celebrations are slowly becoming nostalgic memories of a past that seems further removed in time than it actually is because there’s been an entire paradigm shift in the way people relate to one another. Our home planet has ceased being familiar and motherly. Earth has grown dour & prickly. The party’s over. I go to grab my hat and coat, but there’s nowhere to go. I look around and all I see is walls. A ceiling. A mirror at the end of the bed. A woman singing le vent nous portera. My life is a diorama for the perfume of the skeptic. My little village is a pretzel. The indentations are memoirs of unintended cunning. Here in the museum of dead feelings the dance of fear requires white feathers. It takes time to strangle a remorse. Noam Chomsky bows his head in sorrow. What a gallant bug. This shiny black piece of night. Moods are embellishments of meaning. I’m sure that I’m not alone when I say that I’m sick of this pandemic. The days of my life grow into throwing milk bottles at the boiler. This is what we do when we talk about the world. We detach it from reality and inflate it with the gas of delirium. I’m going to walk through a city of catfish now. Thank you for coming. I know how hard it is to find the time for a little footwork. What does it mean to believe in dirt & eyebrows? Is there a theme to this? Yes, & it’s pepperoni. Think of this as yeast. Texture is a literature for the hands. It involves sideshows & monsters & the hindquarters of a mighty abstraction. What if I told you I had a personality big as Saskatchewan? Would you think I was daft? Narcissistic? Canadian? What is a thought? Heidegger had his ideas. One involved 3.4 million chickens, & the other was a wolf who stopped for a moment in the woods to stare. Such is the grandeur of the void, & its confetti of stars.