Travel Log #25

December 23, 2009

Tel-Aviv almost flooded me out yesterday, every street inundated past my ankles within two minutes of the start of the rain. Everything, including my shoes, went straight into the dryer when I got home, and bed has never felt better.

Today, I'm in a place I've never been but that feels comfortable: a university. I have searched a lot of places all over the world for a combination of professors who might be able to collaborate with each other and me to aid me in my research and my work. Of course, my standard is ridiculously high (Clark, which no one can beat). And of course, the only place I have found mythopoetics is the Clark. But I can carry Wallace Stevens around and perhaps enlighten others. Or, I can at least explain to them my focal lens and hope they can find it within themselves to help me study the language of conflict through a mythopoetic lens so that I can demonstrate the power of fiction as a most real reflection of reality. Monsters jump off the pages and they mean something--I attempt to decipher the meaning--and I bear in mind that monsters jump off the pages because they jumped out of people's minds first, and they began as a story that turned into a myth, which in turn became the Supreme Fiction.

We shall see if this department amounts to anything. Toronto also seemed good, but I have yet to make it there in person. The search for the perfect graduate school proves more difficult than I thought; and while part of me itches to return to school, most of me wants to work. In the best of all worlds, I will be able to to do both. Schools costs money, after all, and I hate being in debt. Once I get a job, I might suck it up and live in another crap hole for awhile and pay off as much of the loans as possible. I don't like the fifteen year plan. I want to get it down to five. Fat chance, but here's to hoping. Thus far, my hand has proven correct, if we want to believe in palmistry: I have gotten everything I have really wanted ambition-wise; the right schools, the right programs, the right internships and scholarships and jobs. It wasn't easy--isn't easy--I've kicked and screamed and worked my ass off the whole way.

But, like I said, the hand is right, if we want to believe in palmistry (which I don't), because alongside all that good luck is anothe rline that no one else anyone has encountered has seen. It parallels the first line and it counters it. Perhaps it is bad luck, or perhaps it is nothing at all since palmistry is a load of crap. But if it isn't, perhaps it isn't any of those things; perhaps it is representative of choice. We all have a choice, I know I have mine, and we must keep life in balance.

Over all, I have had a plan for myself within the monolinear labyrinth of life. I pretend so well that it is all under control that most of the time, I almost really believe it. I get other people to believe it. Really, though, I'm just like everyone else. I have no clue. My tactic to survive the raging ocean? Go under the wave when it's about to break and come up for air in between. really, I have nothing to complain about. After all, I have Seraphim all over me and they are always on my side even when the days are as dark as night. They remind me not to get too bogged down by human society's trivial bureaucracies. In the end, it will all pass and what seemed important in one moment will be revealed as wholly insignificant in another, particularly if we pull back just a little bit.

I am happy with my life. I have done well for myself so far. I have accepted that some things will never come for me, that I won't ever share a lot of my joy or any of my sorrow with anyone tangible. I'll share it theoretically, like this, as a character speaking from a page. People are more privy to connection with those who aren't real than with those who are, anyway. At least I have this medium. Some have none at all.