A Symbiotic Relationship

[2 July 2008, 23:37] To live in perpetuity. We imagine such a life. Yet, on this night of the new moon, when an eclipse can and has occurred somewhere on Earth, I see perpetuity in the call of the tree frog and the smell of a scented candle. I look at myself reflected in the glass of the sunroom door, the image of the human nearest me, the only representative of the human race I know, and wonder what perpetuity really means.

Many thoughts occur to me, either through recollection of the day’s events or expectation of what I will do. In this moment, when I sit here secluded in the sunroom, the cats locked in the house with my sleeping wife, what do I think about? How do I appreciate this moment and this moment only?

I feel some tension in the muscles of the neck and upper body. I show my appreciation by letting those muscles relax as much as possible while also maintaining a hold of my hands over the laptop keyboard. I bend my ear toward the open window and hear not only the tree frogs but also the katydids and the hum of nearby traffic. Maybe also crickets. I show my appreciation by rejoicing that I still enjoy sounds in frequencies outside my hearing loss. The sights around me exist almost solely in the realm of human creation – objects in the sunroom lit by the table lamp, night light, street light, or outdoor solar light. These I appreciate for the creativity of human minds. I smell a fart composed of fermented, digested foods from earlier today, including barbeque chicken, baked beans, potato salad, banana pudding, Sicilian salad, cantaloupe, Godiva chocolate brulee, tea, Sam Adams beer, cappuccino and oatmeal. The candle overwhelms me, otherwise. I show my appreciation by taking deep breaths through my nose, flaring my nostrils for full effect. I taste toothpaste and tomato sauce. I show my appreciation by licking my lips and swallowing. I reread this paragraph, seeing that what looks like sanity and normality stays with me throughout the day. I show my appreciation by smiling to myself.

Thirty or forty yards away, the driveway of my new neighbor plays host to a variety of performances throughout the week. Sometimes, my neighbor will start up his rumbling diesel Dodge truck before my wife leaves for work but usually he leaves after she does. During the day, he will return to the house to walk his Rottweiler around the backyard while he chats away on his cell phone. Occasionally, workers will come to his house to put objects in his garage. Just now, at midnight, a car quietly turned on and backed down the driveway without turning on headlights. I had entered the sunroom and typed on this laptop computer for half an hour before the car made its presence known. Of the car’s occupants, I can only guess their number/age/sex/reason for backing down the driveway. I do know the car came out of the garage because although I observed only brake lights to indicate the movement of the car (and I only guess the vehicle’s shape as a car because the brakes appeared low to the ground and the engine barely made a sound), I did see what looked like a garage door closing and the automatic garage light stay on and go off after approximately five minutes.

I sit here and wonder how long the caffeinated effects of three glasses of unsweet tea consumed from 11:30 to 15:00 and one cup of cappuccino consumed at 20:00 to wash down a small dish of Godiva chocolate laced crème brulee will last. I sit here to spend time writing, to give myself the opportunity to appreciate my existence in the middle of the night. I sit here to allow myself…hmm…”allow myself” to what? More than just to be. If I allowed mere existence to enshroud my sense of self, I could lie down in bed with one cat in my arm, one cat between my legs and my wife at my right elbow serenading my eardrums while I mentally twiddled my thumbs until I finally fell asleep.

I sit here to write to you. Ahh…that word. “You.” “Tu.” “Vous.” The other. Not the self. A human body whose thoughts I can guess from your actions only. Even if I had an instrument that could tell me with great certainty your next action, and thus to some degree your action-oriented thoughts, I still see those actions and thoughts from my perspective, not yours. So what? By the age of two, most everyone knows these things.

But do we? Of course we do. At least, as long as we have a normal set of genes. Even an abnormal or unbalanced set of genes leans us toward a basic understanding of self-vs-other. The very essence of life separates a living entity from the rest of the universe, giving rise to self preservation, the recognition of others’ desire to exist. Again, I repeat old concepts and understandings. I do so to crawl through the muck of a swamp to reach the bottom of a foothill that leads to a small mountain whose peak will give me a vista from which I may pick a path down to the next water-logged valley and climb my way up a higher mountain whose view will lead to higher plateaus of understanding.

I drag my feet. I wearily lift my legs. I laugh to gain strength. I stop and put my hands on my hips, sucking in air. My thoughts serve both as burden and sustenance. The weight stays the same. My journey exists outside time, trapped in an unknown space. My vocabulary loses meaning. What can I do with words like “justice,” “fairness,” “kindness,” “football,” “thirst,” “love,” “hate,” “meanness,” or “fashion”?

A story begs for telling. Yet without words, where does my story find a starting point, clash or climax? Can I tell my story at the same time I live life in the moment? Sure, I can use a running commentary, an immersive video catalog of my daily actions, with multiple angles and views. But like my thoughts, these momentarily turn into the past.

What purpose would my story serve? As a historical record, of course. At the least, anyway.

For whom? A useless question.

So our lives turn into stories, with obvious twists and plots that grow with hindsight. We all know that.

I sit here, taking up space. I use stuff. I suck on energy supplied through electrical lines that feed the halogen lamp, laptop computer and other devices dependent on remote power plants. Fossil fuel. Nuclear energy. Hydroelectric dams.

My eyes dart around and my fingers pop up and down. Every once in a while, I scratch myself or move around to keep from stiffening up.

I exist and allow myself to merely exist, asking only that I perform minimum duties required of me to justify my existence to others. If justifying my existence mattered little, could I only sit and watch how others justify their existence by text, audio and video performances broadcast into domiciles through the Internet, and/or cable, satellite or over-the-air television? For a while. Kind of like eating peanut butter and crackers for a week. Better find some variety the next week to offset the sameness. We all crave variety. For some, variety may mean new television programs to watch. I crave a little more.

At 1:10, I can tell the caffeine has worn off. My butt muscles have numbed. I see the stories I could tell that justify my existence as a typist but can wait till tomorrow or the next day because I allow myself to put the stories aside so I can sleep.

My life occurs regardless of telling it like a story. Maybe in spite of it. The stories I tell may include my life. Actually, they have to. Despite my attempt to hide myself, to let myself exist outside of space and time in a land of perpetuity where I neither live nor die but wander and wonder aimlessly, I find my body sitting here patiently waiting for stories to unfold, wake up, look at me, take me in, including my five senses, my pounding pulse, my popping synapses, and my numb butt, gauge my worth in an imaginary life and stick me into their plotting ways. Woe to me to even get in their way right now. I’ll just go to bed and let them work out all the details overnight.