I’m staring at the word carry, and at once considering what I carry with me, and what I no longer carry. There’s a mix of in-going and outgoing baggage and thoughts, dreams and failures, a sea of past and present suitcases holding the half-sunken vessel that is me. The things I hold inside, the things I let go of, drifting off, bouncing both restfully and fitfully on the waves of life.
I know, I had better stop the ocean metaphors before they get too old; that is a part of this process of life, learning how long to hold onto things, how long those things still serve a purpose and are worth the weight, the spaces they fill.
I’m gay and I had a vivid sex dream about a woman just before I woke up this morning. Some days I hold the label gay proudly, some days I feel restrained. Most days, it all fits together fine, but these labels we acquire, they can create boundaries, ruling things out that don’t fit.
So much walks with me; my sexuality, my politics, my fears, music, writing, ideas, people I know, people I wish I could know. Longings, hopes, all that stuff that is built into the human condition and that is built into me. A sunset I saw at the Grand Tetons when I was 12, the park where my best friend died, the feel of the air outside tonight. In this way, I travel back and forth throughout time, my own sci-fi film, my own reality.
We make realities through things and thoughts, experiences and voids, through what we choose to hold within us and what we choose to shed, off to the psychic dumps of our little lives.
I know this is all too simplistic, and it’s a beautiful night outside. People chatting across the street at the cafes, cars on the freeway in the background. I can almost hear the stars shining, the ocean on the other side of the city waving, the trains and the world.
Some moments it is all a bit too much, but at moments like now, it is just right, beautiful and calming, a comforting reassurance that life is living, and so am I.
Kevin Army 