Pleasure is the alpha and omega of a blessed life, our first and native good, <\/i>
\nfor that reason we do not choose every pleasure whatsoever.<\/i>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>Epicurus<\/p>\n
1.<\/p>\n
The last time I abandoned you was at a ball game
\nin between innings with a hotdog in my hand
\nand a hat on my head.\u00a0 I was having a beer<\/p>\n
with the beer-girl under whose ponytail
\nI could just make out a tattoo tucked in the small valley
\nbehind her left ear: amiga<\/i>. Let\u2019s make this interesting,<\/p>\n
she said, taking control with imperatives,
\nthe kind which begin with infinitives:
\nTo befriend: to follow: to faith.\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n
If only I could call myself an Epicurean.
\nFor it\u2019s as obvious to the stars as it is to the sun: pleasure
\ncomes in the sort of friendship that starts<\/p>\n
when another throws a cold cup of beer
\non your burning crotch.\u00a0To bless a life
\nbeyond signs and superstitions,<\/p>\n
beyond disorder and uncertainty, beyond
\nwetness in its quietness
\nis to shatter a soul into empty space.<\/p>\n
If only I could have spoken her language of ethical theories
\nI would have been able to express my thanks
\nas I stood under the hand-drier being blown<\/p>\n
into higher consciousness. Or to put it another way:
\ninto my shirt pocket she tucked a collection of Epicurus\u2019
\nSovran Maxims<\/i>: about friendship (the most important<\/p>\n
means by which wisdom acquires happiness), \u00a0about desire
\n(natural but too often unnecessary)
\nand death (death means nothing, for it has no<\/p>\n
sensation, and that which has no sensation is nothing).
\nWho would want to contemplate death, <\/i>I thought,
\non this day in the sun, as I sipped my beer,<\/p>\n
so refreshing and hoppy. But the word death<\/i>
\nkept ringing in my ears, and it produced in me a sensation
\nI had not known before: as if the beer in my mouth<\/p>\n
were tasteless; as if the ballgame were ball-less, as if my
\nbody and mind were warmly being blown
\nnot <\/i>by the winds which waved the flag above<\/p>\n
the right field’s foul pole, but by the words of Epicurus,
\nwho, as he lay dying, of strangury and dysentery, under the
\nolive trees in his Garden, remembered his old friend Idomeneus:<\/p>\n
On this blissful day, which is also the last of my life… my continual <\/i>
\nsufferings are so great nothing could increase them; but, <\/i>
\nI set above them all the gladness of mind of our past conversations.<\/i><\/p>\n
How was it possible, I asked myself now, to lead the sort of life
\nwhere death would be bliss under olive trees surrounded by friends?
\nI swore to forsake the prodigal \u2013 the hot dogs, the drinking, the<\/p>\n
sensual lusts, in favor of vegetables and sober reasoning.
\nEven when Epicurus is around, as he was on that day,
\nhitting fly balls deep into the outfield, every so often<\/p>\n
reaching us in the bleachers, it\u2019s not so easy to choose between
\npure and impure pleasures. Just as it\u2019s not so easy
\nto leave behind old pals to follow a beautiful<\/p>\n
new pal \u2013 with a beautiful tray of beers, slung around
\nher beautiful neck \u2013 into the storeroom, to spark
\nand flicker, if just for a moment, if just in your imagination,<\/p>\n
under a blown-out bulb. Time is neither wholly ours,<\/i>
\nnor wholly not ours<\/i>. But already, our 7th inning stretch was over.
\nThe organ blared, the fans cheered. To be called<\/p>\n
back to the ballgame was just another way of confirming
\nthe need to put Epicurus\u2019 philosophical ideals to more tests.
\nWith the crack of the bat, the tempest in my soul soared,<\/p>\n
sending me clambering over flip-seats, tracking
\nthat ball, hit so high and so hard
\nabove our heads, until I lost my sight in the summer sun<\/p>\n
and leapt over you, and out of the stadium,
\ninto the sky, in search of the magnitude of all of our limits.<\/p>\n
2.<\/p>\n
I’ve lost track of where Epicurus ends and I begin.
\nPerhaps it’s here, outside the ballpark, where celestial phenomena
\nlight up the loose corners of the landscape?<\/p>\n
At the corner, \u00a0by the traffic lights, I paused
\nat the pedestrian crossing. All momentum, I discovered,
\nis not perpetual, some of us just stop \u2013 <\/i><\/p>\n
dead in our tracks. Friendship may not be
\nmomentum, but it’s at least one of the reasons
\nwe still believe the Earth to be round, like a baseball<\/p>\n
to the head is round. I imagined the brush-back, the balk,
\nthe vibrations of the bat in my hands from a bunt
\nbecoming more than just metaphors for life.<\/p>\n
So much within us is unknowable but the knowledge
\nthat some of us will never find tangible pleasure
\nin intangible experience troubled me. I sprained an ankle<\/p>\n
leaping off the curbside, running as if I were stealing a base
\nor a bagel. One has no idea, really, about what it means
\nto race across the street until one is en route,<\/p>\n
with no one to hold their hand, no one
\nto open their eyes to the eternal flow
\nof flight coming their way.\u00a0 At this point, I\u2019ll ask you<\/p>\n
as I asked myself, what if you lose track of your motivation?
\nWhat\u2019s the difference between becoming
\na cautionary tale and a myth? If this moment is \u2013 or,<\/p>\n
if this moment is not<\/i> \u2013 the very something that comes next \u2013
\npost-pleasure, post-pain, post-friendship, post-
\nus \u2013 in the name of Epicurus, does that make us<\/p>\n
prophets or heretics? Don\u2019t let me dissuade you
\nfrom settling like a star in a rocky sea. I\u2019ve tried not to wonder
\nabout just what you think of me. But, between us,<\/p>\n
who really aspires<\/i> to have their number
\nretired for charity and hung down from the bleachers?
\nWho doesn’t want to challenge death and its proposed void?<\/p>\n
I’ve tried not to forget the strange coincidences
\nthat began in our childhood and landed us into each other.
\nOnly the unconscious knows what it means to escape consciousness<\/i>,<\/p>\n
I read that day from the Maxims <\/i>inside my shirt pocket.
\nAnd another: \u00a0a bean ball will set you free <\/i>
\nto pursue life outside the batter’s box<\/i>.<\/p>\n
In the distance, I could see fires by an altogether
\ndifferent sense: the smell of smoke making me un-
\nbutton my shirt, and free my collar to fly high and away<\/p>\n
like the wings of a bird. In that instant,
\nI waved goodbye to the man with a large yellow hand on his hand.
\nIt may have seemed like my foam finger was giving<\/p>\n
the finger to the world, for an imagined life in a tree house
\nin Peru or a beach hut in Thailand, but even as I walked
\ninto that liminal space, no longer fearing being stopped<\/p>\n
by a cop for drinking beer out of an open container,
\nthe horizon was heavy with the sun’s burning.
\nThe soul\u2019s capture appeared unforecasted, but foreshadowing<\/p>\n
snow-fall in my hands on a Sunday in July.
\nAnd maybe this is why these miles have felt
\nso cold? Our old friend, Moonrider, you’ll recall,<\/p>\n
knew there were spaces between worlds
\nwhich could be populated by other worlds.
\nBetween me and Moonrider, always,<\/p>\n
there was a waning or a waxing, which we used as shorthand
\nfor the obliquity of heaven. The moon may shine <\/i>
\nby her own light, just as she might derive her light <\/i><\/p>\n
from the sun,<\/i> Moonrider told me one day. And I concurred
\nthat plural explanation was the way to engage
\nthe evidence which so often fell extinct in our hands.<\/p>\n
Anybody can be forgiven for anything nowadays:
\neven Moonrider. For the vainglorious expectations he had
\nnot of himself, but of me. Expectations<\/p>\n
can happen too soon, and stranger things have happened
\nthan strangers looking askew and talking about you
\nas you prepare to cross the street.<\/p>\n
Outside the stadium, seasons opened: clouds formed
\nand gathered under the pressure of wind;
\nrain came as exhalation; the violent inundation<\/p>\n
of lightning rubbed me for the first time in my life
\nthe right way; fiery whirlwinds;
\nstarry shadows streaking across the sky.<\/p>\n
In the middle of the street traffic,
\nI closed my eyes and a baseball pinged
\noff the foul pole, and fell into the open glove<\/p>\n
I had left on my ballpark seat behind.<\/p>\n
3.<\/p>\n
Dear friends, do not smile into the whiteness of the wilderness
\nis the first thing I learned upon arrival, not in the anticipated
\nsub-tropics, but in this fro-zone<\/i>. Smiling undermines<\/p>\n
the polar bears and the wolves, not to mention
\nyour own hopes about what you might achieve.
\nHowling into the distance can feel good,<\/p>\n
but when you are alone why howl into the distance?
\nDespite a tattoo’s coded message, I withdrew
\nfrom memories and future visions, wondering<\/p>\n
which would come first enlightenment<\/i> or death<\/i>.
\nI was the one and only passenger to board the plane
\nof the pilot whose advertisement said See you on the other side.<\/i><\/p>\n
At 30,000 feet he bailed, floating like a mushroom
\ndown into loam of the land. I scuffed my shoes entering the cockpit,
\nand held my breath over something lacking<\/p>\n
in myself. Man loses all semblance of mortality<\/i>
\nby living in the midst of immortal blessings<\/i>,
\nwasn’t a Maxim<\/i> I was aware of but one<\/p>\n
I spoke and respoke as I fell lonely and clinging
\nunder a parachute made out of paper
\nhoping for the submission of finding snow in my soul:<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>Who <\/i>among us can remember to not remember
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>the future? Who has no terror
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>of those who contemplate death?<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>Whose desires can be clear and certain
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>outside of their actions? Who takes pleasure
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>in a friend’s absence? Who <\/i>is not disturbed<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>by waking after dreaming? Who can live
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>as a God among men? Who is<\/i>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>superior to you? <\/i>you might ask yourself.<\/p>\n
To be an Epicurean, as I was not, is to believe
\nthe cold will abate even as it remains cold.
\nIt was not what I was expecting.<\/p>\n
It was not<\/i> as simple as silence.
\nIt was the not the sun under the sun,
\nthe snow bright in the snow.<\/p>\n
When the sun was overhead —
\nwhen the snow was in your eyes —
\nanybody can see heaven in himself.<\/p>\n
The decision to run home came quicker than the decision
\nto voice the insurmountable.
\nWhere was the last call and re-spark?<\/p>\n
Who was I to go wild-eyed into the wilderness?
\nThe 2000 watt fan heater in my office
\nused to put me asleep. It was deserved justice<\/p>\n
for the lust and bafflement I suffered
\neveryday. The last measure
\nof my fortitude, the last bildugsroman<\/p>\n
I read was about a boy whose flight from friends
\ncould be excused because he was 20 years
\nyounger than me. I stuttered through<\/p>\n
depressions of snow, ice crystal more drastic
\nthan the removal of a spleen. My hands: if you’ve only
\ntwo hands your life depends on two hands.<\/p>\n
My heart, O heart, who has, who can hear
\nmy hope? What I thought was never enough
\ncomplicated the moment<\/p>\n
between us, between you at the ball game
\nand me in this winter landscape, alone.
\nThe water under the ice was a distant reminder,<\/p>\n
a rhythm of speech,
\nof sea sounds
\nin between long lines<\/p>\n
in between short sounds
\nof my walking over a long-ago beach
\nto a sand bar,<\/p>\n
far out from rocks:
\nCome in! The water is as warm as the air! I shouted.
\nThe cold can only for so long be cold!<\/p>\n
4.<\/p>\n
The same conviction in me that inspired confidence in you,
\nnow inspires uncertainty and confusion. The knowledge
\nthat was pending has been deferred, so I’ve nothing left<\/p>\n
to offer. When we see each other again
\nplease remind me of your names.
\nIn the Vatican library, we once overlooked the other-wordly together<\/p>\n
but that was a world ago:
\nThings that are now and are to me come and have been<\/i>,
\nwas scribbled in the margins of a book.<\/p>\n
I took this to mean that it is easy to disregard
\nthe winter that is long and mild. This winter
\nhas been long, not mild.<\/p>\n
It’s put in me a hunger I’ve forgotten to mention
\nin speaking this way. I’ll pledge to stop talking about
\nour conversations which once seemed timeless and mutual<\/p>\n
if you can tell me when to stick to one’s soul
\nand when to relinquish it. Outside the sum of things <\/i>
\nwe live our lives unknown<\/i>, said Epicurus,<\/p>\n
but he also thought skepticism and superstition unhelpful.
\nHerodotus, he said, on their last day together at the ballpark,
\nwhat’s the score? And Herodotus in soft-spoken fashion,<\/p>\n
ran through the doctrines most important to his peace of mind.
\nWith no chance for a homerun in sight, the ball
\nwhich falls from the sky and breaks our nose<\/p>\n
produces a current of breath through which we can get
\nfree wi-fi. We reject as impossible our subdivision into smaller parts
\nbut watch the sky for someone rounding the bases nonetheless.<\/p>\n
In this mode between life and death, we are neither
\nat the peak nor the trough, there is no zenith
\njust a diamond made of ether we walk around ad-infinitum.<\/p>\n
What else can you tell me about friendship and the soul,
\nI howl at the moon nightly? What is their relationship
\nto time eternal and everlasting? One of the advantages<\/p>\n
of being alone is the time I’ve had
\nto study the infinite. Movement
\nbetween one’s feelings is infinite, just as movement<\/p>\n
between the mind and the soul is infinite. When I wake
\nin the night and see that I have so many hours left to live
\nthe world around me has a pulse:<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>the sky,
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>the ground,
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>my head.<\/p>\n
When I abandoned you last the formation of dew
\non the ball-park’s morning seats could have been mistaken
\nfor hoar-frost. When I abandoned you last it was my intention<\/p>\n
to live out my life chasing storms that came from
\nsomewhere and someone \u2013100 foot waves crashing over
\na 50 foot wall. \u00a0I ran out of gas and had to thumb it<\/p>\n
cold back to the city.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>To Idomeneus, leave my 1975
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>Fred Lynn and Jim Rice Rookie Card.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>To Hermarchus, all of those programs compiling
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>all of those statistics I’ll never understand.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>To Menoeceus, the belief
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>that bliss and immortality require no partiality.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>To Pythocles, the gladness that resistance is fleeting.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>To Epicurus, the belief that happiness can be found in the
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>paradoxical pleasures which consume me:<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i>cold like fire, brightness gone blind.<\/p>\n
Who could have known that so long ago the sun
\nwas already confirming life outside our minds?
\nWho would have thought that wisdom<\/p>\n
could be found in contemplating a day out at the
\nball park with friends? The last time I abandoned you,
\nthe sun was still high over the ballgame,<\/p>\n
but the night-lights were already on and
\nflickering like lost souls in the sky.
\nWhen I abandoned you last, the apologists<\/p>\n
were apologising for Epicurus \u2013 his self-confessed <\/i>
\nunknowingness<\/i>, his words pre-dating our words
\nunifying body, spirit, and, mind. From my body and mind,<\/p>\n
I manumit your body and mind. For your friendship,
\nif we ever meet again, I\u2019ll return your friendship.
\nFor my actions and words today, please know<\/p>\n
there are a variety of explanations.
\nWhatever after-life I have left in me
\nshould go to you.
\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pleasure is the alpha and omega of a blessed life, our first and native good, for that reason we do not choose every pleasure whatsoever. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Epicurus 1. The last time I abandoned you was at a ball game in between innings with a hotdog in my hand and a hat on my head.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[320,322],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n