Living Ghosts, Part 1 (Christmas Past)

(The past couple of years has been an intense time of delving into, analyzing, and (hopefully) better understanding myself. Now, when I look back at images of my past, I see them differently. Perhaps, more clearly. This series will share some of those musings.)



Santa was friends with my neighbors.

Each year, this family would host a Christmas party of sorts for the neighborhood kids and parents. Here I am six years old. We would get Santa lap time, mumble what we want for Christmas, then get a small gift from Santa right there.

It's weird being that boy in my mind, feeling what he's feeling, and seeing him objectively at the same time as a 38 (soon to be 39) year old. As I'm mulling it over right now, I think that the most notable things I see today are the things I was completely unaware of when I was younger.

That boy feels: very self-conscious, uneasy with the attention of the room turned on him, and not sure how the interaction with Santa will go. Excited, but cautious. An underlying nudge of anxiety.

The adult me sees: an odd confidence for my age, even though the boy's posture is defensive and closed. I'm maintaining a personal power vis-à-vis Santa. I'm not sitting. I'm facing him. And by standing, I'll taller than he is. I'm forcing him to deal with me person-to-person. Yet, I don't look brazen. I look friendly and sincere.

Overall, I think I appear quite differently than how I felt. It might be easy to misinterpret my unease and caution. I realize now that I didn't feel some of my strengths back then. I probably never learned as a child to give myself that credit.



Of course, once the goods were in hand (love ya Santa!), here I am contemplating all of the dazzling skyscrapers I could build with my new Girders and Panels set.

I kind of wish I still had that.

I'm in the mood to build.

Oooh, and air hockey!! Anyone up for a game??

Thaw

If you were lost
and gnawed to a carcass of cold
Warmth would be your nectar
and even the blessed hellfires
Would welcome your hearth to hold

Contest Preview - "Ascension"

For all of you celebrating Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Winter Solstice, I hope you had a wonderful time! We're still recovering....

I promised a new Clarity of Night contest to kick off 2009. Since my last contest was in the summer, I'm pumping this one up! More and bigger prizes!! First place will earn you $50 in booty. Also, we'll have a guest writer joining us after the entry period closes. She has joined the ranks of former contest winners nailing her first book deal!

The contest will be open for the normal period of one week (give or take a day). However, I'm giving you an early peek at the picture so you can start thinking of what you'd like to write. The limit is 250 words. Any genre or form is welcome so long as it was inspired by the photo. Rules will be posted when the contest opens (the week of the 5th), but they will be the same as the last contest (posted HERE).

Start spreading the word! And prepare for your "Ascension."

Happy Holidays!

Wishing you and your loved ones a wonderful holiday season! May your merriment be plentiful and your company warm.

--Jason and Aine

Knelt at the Solstice

Ink of the solstice
Stains the hours bereft of sleep
Cling to candlelight and flickering greens
Celestial nights, our souls will keep

Pulse

As they sat close, he brushed a fingertip down the curve of her neck. Slow. Painting her portrait skin.

"But why do you find vampires so exciting?" she said.

"You want me to try to explain it?"

"Yes."

"Well," he said, drawing the caress back up to her chin, "it's the jumble of all the primal emotions at once. The predator. The prey. Hunger. Conquest. Sacrifice. Sex like pain, or death, but so much stronger." He touched her lips. "To fall in someone's power. To give yourself to them completely. Being devoured. In ecstasy."

Her breath shook. He was closer now. Pressing. "What are you doing?" she whispered.

"Think of the impossible intensity. Being conquered by his eyes. Bending your head back. Baring the beauty of your neck." She closed her eyes as he tipped her chin upward. "Surrendering your life. Pleading for it to be taken. If only to feel the howling pleasure of losing it."

He kissed the soft line of her jaw under her ear.

His lips trailed down her magnificence.

"Oh God," she breathed.

He drew back one last moment before their night tore open. "Now you understand?"

Then they spilled more precious things than blood.

Here We Are Now, Entertain Us (Smells Like Teen Spirit)

With the lights out it's less dangerous
Here we are now
Entertain us
      --Nirvana, Smells Like Teen Spirit

"You're getting tired of me, aren't you?"

"Me? No."

"It's okay, if that's the way you feel."

"No."

"Sometimes you seem so annoyed."

"Sometimes I am annoyed."

"And sometimes you won't even look at me. Like now."

"I need a drink."

"Right now?"

"Can't think of a better time."

"You don't want to talk about this."

"Was that a question?"

"No."

"You're getting angry with me, aren't you?"

"No."

Evergreen

He weaves
on the shadow-side
(or she)
forests darkly tangled
becoming paths
of synapses
and recollections
our feet dirtier
for years up to the knees.
Blaze into our chlorophyll
our sun-scorched leaves
propel our roots
into crowded ground
and sigh.
Tonight
moonlight loves
whisper in branches
eternally grown
evergreen.

Upcoming Contest

We are due for another Clarity of Night short fiction contest, don't you think?

Okay, overdue.

Here's what I have in store for you. Since I've missed a contest somewhere along the way, I've decided to increase the prizes for this one. At the very least, First Place will carry a $50 prize! I haven't decided on adjustments to all the other prizes yet. Also, I will be posting the photo early (the week after Christmas) so people can get a jump on writing if they'd like. The contest, then, will open in early January. Just in time to shake off those New Year's hangovers!

Stay tuned!!

Fun Friday

If you're like me feeling the stress of the holiday season, you don't want to overtax your brain. So how about a little fun again?

This time, it's group story time! I'm going to start a story below. In comments, add one or two sentences to move the story forward. Every so often, I'll copy all the comments into the main text for ease of reading.

I can't wait to see where the group mind takes us!

***********************************************

"Yo!" He rapped on the glass. "Yo!"

Inside the cab, the passenger's chew-stuffed cheek stopped bulging.

"Let me off before the highway, man. Okay?"

Caleb looked back at his human cargo and gave him a big toothy grin and nodded his head.

"Ya sure buddy, wherever you want."

Then as he turned his head back towards the road Caleb looked at his brother driving and the both started to laugh.

Mitch’s smile broadened as the thought of a highschoolish prank entered his head. He turned to Caleb driving and said, “ Dude lets show this guy the back roads.”

Jimmy knew his aunt would have the ighway patrol out looking for him by now, so it would be best to stay off the main roads.

She must have found uncle Tim in the tool shed by now. He took a shy pleasure in recalling the scene. The old man's left eye performing one last annoying wink, his rotten teeth exposed in a frozen grin. That grin that had mocked Jimmy so many times. Not anymore, if only he could take it out of his mind. He was going to. He pressed the notebook harder to his chest, as if to make sure that it was still hidden underneath his shirt, and got ready.

The truck's tires dug in, and swerved onto the dirt road. The ruts jounced Jimmy hard in the bed. The notebook went flying, and its leaves broke free, like an explosion of butterfly wings. He clawed at the air, but the pages of his journal floated down, landing like footprints on the filth and mud.

In a panic, Jimmy began banging on the hood of the truck to get the attention of the two men in the cab.

"We've gotta stop," he shouted at them. "Gotta stop. I lost something."

But the truck didn't stop, and Jimmy's anger began to break free.

All his colored-pencil pictures slapped into the ground near a telephone pole leaning in the dusk.

Even the sketches of his uncle. And his big, fat tears scribbled in pink and blue.

5 O'Clock Road

I started playing music in grade school. French horn. A few years later, I quit.

But that's not to say that music didn't deeply fascinate me. I picked it up at age 17 with the piano. I wanted to learn, really learn, the intricasies of music and theory and composition, but felt like the information bounced off a wall in my head. It wouldn't penetrate.

When I was 29, I picked up the bagpipes and took lessons from a piper. I feel pretty proficient at that. If you've been a reader of The Clarity of Night for a while, or have visited my YouTube page, you've heard me play.

But still, music structure and theory remained mysterious.

To be honest, music composition is something I've always wanted to do. Song writing also. But I resigned myself to the fact that it was beyond my abilities.

Mostly.

But then, the bug hit me again. I bought Music Theory for Dummies and dove into chord structure, chord progression, and accompaniment theory. It began to stick!

I have a long way to go and still may find it beyond my reach, but I'm very happy to share my first original composition with you. It's a little piano tune that I made into a short video. It was my first foray into chord progressions.

A road is good place to begin any journey. I hope to share more compositions and perhaps songs. For now, here is 5 O'Clock Road.

Leeward

I remembered you. How we laid there afterward. How your breathing smoothed as if silky sleep tucked over you. Even as my fingers rippled the color of your hair.

I remembered sunset clouds. Plaid woven and warm. Your eyes painting the dark with things I couldn't see.

Your skin glowed like a mountain in last light.

A mountain I climbed. And claimed.

Only to drift down, the climber claimed.

Into the long caress of leeward night.

Fun Friday

One of the best things about blogging is the community we form. The pieces of ourselves we share. Our precious thoughts we craft into words.

It's like an instant, alternate universe. With each click, we travel impossible distances. Almost a collective mind. The door is always open, and we're never more than a millisecond away.

So lets build some community today!

Here's the game. Using the next letter in the alphabet, tell us a random fact about yourself. The more delving, the better! Come back as many times as you like.

I'll start with the letters A and B in comments. Anyone up for tackling C??

Fragments

Rose light blooms in the clouds. Caresses a heartbeat into snow.

Phantom colors.

Phantoms.

Why do I keep coming here?

Tree branches click a cold cadence in the wind.

The sky is so beautiful. Almost alive.

Every second, it dies.

A gun shot rolls down the valley. Not harsh. Like distant thunder. Too far away.

Maybe it's enough to remember.

Maybe.

But cold is cold, and I like the sting on my hands.

It's easy to lose yourself.

For me, it is. Drift in the twilight.

The moon crescent rises. A cup for the bright planets. Venus. Jupiter.

White rolls its carpet to blue.

Who is walking?

Are my ankles red-ringed with caking snow?

A fragment of me entangles ahead.

Disembodied, in the black net of trees.

Give me five more minutes.

To the trees.

I'll collect my fragments.

Maybe then I'll know.

Delicious Pain, Part 2

(Catch Part 1, HERE.)

What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger.

There is the kind of pain that hits us from the outside. An illness. A setback. An unexpected failure. Yes, you bleed, but also learn what it takes to heal. The next time you'll be more prepared, maybe you'll navigate around the pain altogether.

But that's not the kind of pain I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the kind of pain you carry deep. The kind of pain that infuses and becomes part of you. The kind of pain you might not even recognize as pain, because you feel its mirror most keenly, the fierce, sweet desire to soothe it.

So, what do you do when you realize such a pain is haunting you, and you decide that you no longer want to be driven by it? To be repeating the cycle of discontent and satisfaction?

Is it enough to see the pain for what it is? Can you cure it by just stopping?

I don't think so. I don't think that's realistic. When you experience a high, sooner or later, you'll be drawn to repeat it.

So what to do.

I believe that the only "solution" is to replace the high with other highs. More healthy ones. I use the term solution loosely, because I'm not entirely sure that it ever goes away, except perhaps with a long passage of time.

Someone can't decide what highs to choose. That's sure to fail. You can't just get religion, or take up knitting, or whatever half-assed suggestion might be thrown your way. You know what highs are close seconds to your delicious pain. Those are the ones you need to concentrate on (assuming they're healthy), at the same time you need to keep reminding yourself of the harms your delicious pain causes when you feel drawn to it.

For example, since my delicious pain ultimately pushes me to rely on other people's draw to me to soothe it, my replacement highs need to be more self-driven. Rather than chase the wonderful feeling when someone is drawn to me, I need to focus on when I feel wonderful highs experiencing something alone--a reflective moment in the forest, finishing a fine piece of writing, playing music. By reducing focus on others, I can then enjoy more healthy relationships with people.

The truth is that both highs come from within. Other people don't really do anything for me. It's me allowing myself to rely on them to drive my happiness that's the problem. When I feel the pull of delicious pain, I try to imagine it for what it is, beautiful on the surface, but easy to see the rot underneath when I turn it over. The joy is barely skin deep.