Tilting the Void

"Write what you know" is the old mantra, and of course I suppose it's ridiculous to write about things you don't know, unless you're prepared to do the research necessary. It is not dissimilar to the adage "Paint what you see", except I never do, unless drawing what I see in my head counts as such. Nor do I necessarily write what I know; meaning, I don't write from my life all that often. I don't want to write about the things I know in my own life, to put it plainly; I suppose that's what blogs are for. Or, perhaps, I simply need some time and distance put between myself and the things I know in my own life.

It's been difficult lately merely putting events into a meaningful light so I can even understand them myself. Maybe understanding isn't important. Maybe we put too much emphasis on meaning. The older I get, the more I investigate nature, the more random life seems--and yet, that isn't true, either.

Take honeybees, for instance. They evolved over millions of years in tandem with flowering plants. They have a specially developed and elegantly beautiful proboscis evolved precisely for sucking up nectar out of flowers. If living things can be said to be 'made', bees and flowers do seem 'made' for one another in a way that is anything but random--though of course, I'm making this observation from millions of years later, after the long fact of evolution. In one way, it's almost like looking at some sleek, fuel efficient car and thinking it appeared complete and finished overnight, without the century of failed designs that came before. Is nature random? Yes, and no, but that is a discussion for another post.

I have a mildly complicated personal history. By this, I mean it certainly isn't as terrible or convoluted as some have known, nor nearly as interesting. I doubt it would make good reading, unless I took from my experience and drafted something entirely fictional--which, I know also, most authors do. Reality is in itself complicated, confusing, and often tedious. Expectation and imagination are often so far removed from actual experience, which then causes disappointment, disaffection and disillusionment. We are hurt, not necessarily by the inability or transgression of others, but by their failure to behave the way we imagine they should, as if they could read our minds or intuit instinctively our desires.

My half brother called me the other night in a rage. Our mother, whose husband recently died, has decided to give up her rented house and move in with her sister. The sister owns a large house and some property, but lives anything but a quiet life; she has multiple pets and various nieces and nephews living there at various times in various stages of poverty and addiction. For some reason, for me, the word 'niece' conjures a demure little girl in ruffles and pig tails, like Alice from Disney's animated Wonderland movie, though one niece in particular is a 200 lb rottweiler of a woman with over-plucked eyebrows and a raccoon-like affection for eyeliner, not to mention a volatile temper. This niece got into a fist fight with my mother's sister out on their front lawn, with my aunt coming out the decided loser. My brother said she was badly bruised and had lost 'fistfuls of hair'. He said he didn't want our mother moving into this riot and confusion. He didn't understand it and didn't want any part of it. He'd had enough of it a few months ago when he'd briefly moved in with the aunt during economic troubles of his own, only to leave quickly when he had a chance to experience the turmoil first-hand. What should he do? He exhorted our mother to come live with him--and he's not in a financial position to offer, really, and has family concerns of his own.

"You've made the offer," I said, reminding myself why I'd kept this wing of the family at arm's length for so long. More than arm's length, actually--more like a state's length. Distance does offer some comfort, after all. "But just remember, she knows this family better than you do. She's aware of what she's getting into, and if she can't handle it, she'll leave--believe me, it won't be the first time. Go carefully, is all I can say--you're all adults, and you'll do what you want to do."

My half brother is, I suspect, of the mind that blood calls to blood--words he's used before, actually--and that family should do whatever it can to support family, regardless of the situation. I, on the other hand, believe there are few things more precious in this random life than peace and quiet in one's own home. I could not contemplate living with my aunt and her menagerie; I'd honestly rather go live under a bridge. The aunt wouldn't call the police and charge the violent niece with assault and battery because, along with everything else, the aunt's house is stuffed with marijuana, which the police would find most interesting, I'm sure. It's all very tedious, sad, and depressing, and my brother and I left our conversation at that--to let our mother do what she's going to do (she'll do it anyway) and wait for the fallout.

The whole occasion has made me want to be as different from them as I can be. I woke up in the middle of the night last week with a panic attack and the firm resolve to quit drinking. Alcohol has crept into my life in a gradually increasing role; last weekend, I saw firsthand the results of long abuse. I don't want that. I'm ashamed that it's come to it, that I must do something now or never. What in my thirties seems fun and slightly debauched will, in my fifties, be the death of me, or at least death in life: long slow hours of doing nothing but stare at a television and drink, slumped in my filthy house, surrounded by a lifetime's accretion of tchotchkes and refrigerator magnets and souvenirs of happier times. Meaninglessness.

I don't want that. I don't want violence and tempestuous relationships. I will not stand it in my house, for certain, not for an instant. Life is random and meaningless enough; we bring our own meaning. It exists in our heads and hearts, if nowhere else, and that is perhaps the most courageous thing of all; that, in spite of everything--the degradation, the hopelessness, the smallness of life, we can make it otherwise.

And that is what I don't want to write about, or contemplate, or dwell too long upon. I'd rather invent lives and fortunes and places otherwhere than here, stupid and melodramatic as it sounds. Cheap, even. I just want something else, something entertaining and adventurous. The self-examined life, they say, is not worth living, but I examine it enough on a daily basis that I'd like my writing to be something of an escape, even if that's useful only to myself and no one else.