Ishmael by David Quinn

I would have to say – this is the most thought-provoking book I have ever read. Never have I felt more tugged through a book by only the promise of knowing some kind of meaningful conclusion about life. As far as fictional value goes – it lacks. But I think that’s the point. Or maybe it doesn’t and I’m a horrible critic. Throughout the story, the author uses the same basic form of question/answer type writing – digging you deeper and deeper into a crack Quinn has made in the center of the Earth. Maybe the consistency is what makes his conclusions so easy to digest. The book discusses the implicit meaning behind “Mother Culture” and what she tells us as a species bent on self-destruction. It poses a lot of difficult questions - why is it possible for those inside our ‘civilized’ culture to speak with calm and poise about our impending doom? What keeps us devestatingly sedated under the impression that we have done this to ourselves? How did we come to be  this way?  This book is fantastic. 5 Stars!

Illusions of a Reluctant Messiah

What does it mean to be “Messiah”? Is it possible that this person contains the mystical energy of the heavans – or is there something behind a curtain in each person’s  life, that most have not yet discovered? What if we could pull back the curtain? What would we be capable of? This one is relatively short, but meaningful. It doesn’t necessarily have any kind of important events – only a story line that gives the characters a place to discuss the inner workings of being a modern-day Messiah. The book is beautifully constructed. 4.5 stars – just because I like a book that really sucks me in. I do have to say though – it does inspire a much more “optimistic” life view – whereas Ishmael kind of leaves you, having fallen over the edge of the Earth, with no where to go. If you’re looking for something feel good and spiritually awakening – this one is a great read.

Add dirty dishes, a new washcloth.

Listen.

Intricately eradicate messy food and a broken glass from dinner before submerging and suffocating this evening’s utensils.

Somewhere in the distance a match screeches in contact with a hard surface. A cigarette is lit.

The evening television presents the news of the day – never inquiring about the details of your adventures and activities of the day. Only the lives of others.

“How was your day?” – “Good.”

Reach into the messy water and pull out the plug.

Listen.

Staring into the drain, you allow everything to whirlpool into oblivion. Dry the dishes and place them in their respective places.

Two glasses are missing, as expected.

Ice rattles in the next room.

The pressure of a bottle of coke is released and its contents are poured. A new bottle is opened, one without pressure, and poured. Sip. More pouring. Sip.

Someone flops into the chair and the TV volume is turned up.

You like to imagine that maybe it’s not your father, that someone else has come into your living room and invaded your home.

The kitchen is clean, dishes are done. You are excused.

Silently you make your way through the kitchen and behind the living room. In a straight line of sight you  can see your father in his chair and your mother in her bed watching TV. Both are ingesting their after dinner, before dinner and during dinner snack.

Expecting a “Thank you!” you stand silently for just a moment, sigh, and move on to your room.

Retreating here, everything is different. Posters and medals and trophies cover the walls. A faded drill team uniform hangs lonely in the corner – you haven’t been in months.

You put in your favorite CD, light a candle and try to disappear. It’s called astral projection – an out of body experience. They say you can go anywhere and not take your body with you. Like a ghost.

It doesn’t work.

You enter the bathroom.

Turn on the faucet, but don’t add soap.

Step on the scale.

Not good enough.

Intricately eradicate messy food.

Step on the scale again.

That’s better.

Slowly lower yourself into the tub, feeling it’s warmth on every inch of your body – it’s the best you’ve felt all day.

Things seem better now. It’s okay, you are going to be beautiful some day and then everyone will love you. It’s okay that it isn’t today – you are just saving up time.

This evening’s utensils slowly drag across your skin, but only for a moment. You’ve saved a piece of broken glass from dinner. Today wasn’t that bad.

Reach into the messy water and pull out the plug

Stare at the chain and allow everything to whirlpool into oblivion.

Sitting in the tub you feel gravity pull you closer to the ground – reminding you of things you do not need reminding of.

Get ready for bed.

You pop four pink and white ones. Lectures are heard coming from the living room – you are angry.

Screaming into your pillow, you claw at the sheets. Crying your voice away. Crying yourself away.

The medicine begins to distort your room, oblivion is near.

You reach over and grab a slip of paper containing your grades for the semester.

Holding it against your chest, you close your eyes. Tomorrow you will leave it on the dining room table…maybe someone will see it.

Right before you fall asleep, you think – “Things will be so much better when I’m a teenager.”

empty turns,

marked delusion,

side-kick burns.

Broken hands of fallen words,

She looks back after each wrong turn.

Each time it comes she runs and hides,

Too scared to face what’s there inside.

Tumbling down she reaches for you,

but all have left and left have you.

She hits the bottom,

cries aloud,

So it goes,

It goes around.

So I guess being a vegetarian just isn’t enough anymore.

I present to you a short list of plants that have been a part of numerous studies and have presented significant evidence in our quest to rule out any possible food source culminating in guilt for the human race.

Dracena, five-angled dodder vine (it can hunt!), sea rockets (a weed that attacks other plants and destroys them, except those plants that have some sort of relation to itself, so it shows preference to relational species), strawberry plants, reed, ground elder, clover (if a slug or other predetor is nearby a warning signal is sent via a communication network and their stalk changes to a much tougher texture, making them appear much less enticing to those that might destroy them), orchids (can mimic an insect’s sex so precisely so as to fool another passing insect into thinking that it is a potential mate with pheremones), and a ton other ones that I’m too lazy to list right now.

Some evidence has also been brought to the dinner table suggesting that plants show emotions such as anger, sadness and happiness. Though I’m sure as a species we mere humans are not keenly aware of these emotions as of yet, but perhaps someday…

All this said,  it looks like my only option is to move away from society and die quietly in the woods on my all-water diet so as  not to be even more of an infectious murdering parasite to mother earth.

lol, or I guess I can just go on living my life.

Ta ta for now!

The part I struggle with the most is how I’m supposed to move on from my childhood. I have two options (because I am in inherently black and white ONLY person): 1. forgive my father without his reparations and simply discard his actions as that of an ill-informed youth or 2. Cut him out of my life and hope that some day he concludes that he has indeed done wrong and that me cutting him off set him in that direction. Clinically, I know that cutting him out would be  the best thing for him. But for me, I have no idea. This may be my addiction to self-flagellation talking, but I do want a relationship with my father. As much as I joke about it, I would be deeply hurt if he just died tomorrow and I didn’t have a chance to fix all the things that are wrong with our relationship. But who says it’s mine to fix?

I have no moral code with which to decide the “correct” course of action here. Everyone has different opinions on the matter, and both actions are completely justified. And as far as my recovery goes, I have no idea if I’m doing the right things. Every day is a struggle and I know that that is part of it, that recovery is harder than remaining the same… but it seems like there is no end in sight. I have no reference to who I am trying to become, and that bothers me.

and now… some poetry, enjoy!

She drags herself across the distant carpet.

It is soft, and brown and red and wet.

She smiles and sees that something has changed.

Reminded of a slug, she reminds herself that all creatures are beautiful

All but this one.

But she would never call the slug ugly,

She is a species unbeknownst to humankind.

There is no one to blame for what has become.

She set out to be what she became full of hope and motion.

No  hands, only the barely touchable compassion of

those she has since come to call her family.

But they are not.

And it hurts worse than salt ever could.

Worse than the pointed follicles of the now soaking carpet.

I am tired.

I am sick and tired.

I am sick and tired of listening to everyones bull shit.

Because you have NO fucking idea what the world really is.

I’m sick of the rampant alcoholism, I’m sick of the passive aggressive remarks. I’m sick of being told how ridiculous I am just because you are so utterly convinced of your own superiority. You are not superior. “We are the scum of the earth.”

I’m angry.

And sad.

And fucked up.

And I’m trying.

And I can’t try any harder.

And it feels like I’m sitting still and the whole world is just blurring past me.

So just leave me alone to try and love myself, I’m not worth any more of your effort.

Life isn’t fair, so they say.

I’m still pissed.

-Evanescence… I know… but it spoke to me.

It was a Thursday.

I was in the 4th grade.

It was recess and I was wondering around in the woods by myself, as usual. (We had these fenced in woods at our school… yeah I know… but it’s Alaska)

It was sunny and the temperature was perfect and I was sitting on a stump thinking about how much I wished someone was there to walk with me.

I thought about these things a lot.

Three girls from my class were walking and gossiping and laughing… they happened to come across me on my stump.

They were the “popular” girls.

I always wanted to be one of them.

They started heckling me about being out there alone… about how weird I was.

I started to cry, and a sort of anger started bubbling up inside of me.

I stood up on my log, I started to yell.

I told them they had no idea how much I wanted to be them. How much I hated myself, how fat and ugly I was. How they didn’t know how lucky they were to have everything they want, to have boys notice them, to feel wanted in the class.

The leader of the pack – Britney – looked at me and said… “I’m sorry, I had no idea.” She was legitimately sad by what I had to say, about how I felt about her as a person.

It was the most sincere apology I have ever received.

Sadly, my feelings never changed.

I hope it’s enough.

4-28-09
Dear Kimberly,
You’ve thought about this all day.  You have weighed and compared and made lists in your head about what this would mean for you. You have made the decision to recover, whatever that means. Two nights ago, on Sunday 4/26/09 at approximately 10PM you attempted to commit suicide. You failed. This is a blessing. The love that has so graciously surrounded your life made itself known in the form of those that would be irrevocably hurt by your absence. At the time of your attempt you were confused and in an un-copable amount of pain. These emotions were a direct result of many things including; your upbringing in an abusively chaotic environment, your lack of resources to deal with those events, and your complete addiction to the pain of those memories.
The choice to recover is going to change everything. You are going to want (and perhaps even need) to run and hide and disappear back into your warm dark cave, but I’m here to tell you to stick around in the sunlight. I’m here to tell you that that is not the answer. They love you. It may not seem like it at this particular moment, but that voice is coming from a place where there is no light… a black hole of fear and anger and defeat. You do not want to die, but to simply escape. You are going to recover. Life is going to lie in from of you, full of experiences and opportunities that have the potential to make you that much more special.
If you are reading this, the most important thing for you right now is to take care of yourself. Imagine that broken little girl…Kimmy… give her the peace and tenderness that she so desperately needs. Stop searching for problems to fix. Those seemingly requiring your intervention will go on without you. They will grow into a stronger more meaningful person without you there to be the backbone you so wish to be. All you can do is love them.
It’s going to very hard sometimes. Things are going to seem hopeless, but remember that they are not. You are special and beautiful and very much needed in this world. You have a change to make here. You are not finished. I’m only asking that you give yourself the chance to find a way to cope with your entire range of emotions, good and bad.
Because it matters.
Because I love you, a lot.
<3 Kimmy