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I've rarely felt a sense of stability in my life.
During my youth growing up in the country I moved from house to house, not staying in one for much more than two years until we moved into town and eventually ended up where my parents reside still. Being a country boy in town did not fit in well with the other students, and it was hard to secure any true friendships. Though, my brother and sister didn't (seem to) have the same problem. When genuine friendships manifested, somewhere down the line they fell apart. This has been the continuing pattern of my adult life as I have travelled from city to city, house to house, flatmate to flatmate, friend to friend. I knew though I could always go home to the same family who I grew up with and have continuously provided financial and emotional support when needed - that has been the only constant as I have moved in and out of depression, suicidal thoughts, loneliness; abandonment by people whose lives I thought I was a wanted part of. I look at my brother and sister and can still see friends that they have kept either from school, or their first lot of flatting experiences - those people outside of family have always been there as part of their travels, through the good times and the bad. I simply have no idea what that must be like. Loss of friends has collapsed any sort of solid ground that I may have stood on at the time and sent me plummeting into deeper depression. Years go by and all I see are faces I once knew... In 2014 I entered into a relationship that was formed through a mutual activity and developed with us living together across the Summer of 2014/15. The month and a half that we spent together was the most stabilising experience I've ever had. While I was living in her house, sharing in some food costs, I asked nothing of her and she gave me more than I could have ... expected. If I had bothered expecting anything, that is. For once I felt like I had a place to reside where the person I lived with accepted me as I was and wanted to know about me, not just whether or not I had a job yet... As we shared our views, our thoughts on the world, her interest in my novels and music, I felt a sense of contentment that I'd never felt before, confidence in myself, confidence in my partner, a mutual respect that lifted me away from any feelings of self-pity, paranoia, or mental instability that questions what is happening and sets confusion up as a road block that I can't help crashing out of control through as thoughts tumble into panic mode. A part of me felt at home. It's crazy that I'd let that go. She certainly thought so. My greatest fear is that I will never experience that kind of stability ever again, that feeling of looking out a window and not thinking about what tomorrow will bring, the sense of being loved by someone who I expected nothing from. It's a fear of being alone. The kind of loneliness that family can't fill. When I said goodbye, I felt strength. I had been given a great gift that I was letting go of to chase a dream. But I was also letting go because I couldn't love her the way she loved me, and I hated the thought of eventually putting her in the same position that she had been in for the last 15 or so years with her ex - that of not being loved and made to feel like an accessory of sorts. She had risked so much to be with me, the least I could do is leave her with happiness and her own strength still intact rather than disappointment or hurt. So I moved on. Into my new flat. Into my job. More students to teach, more faces to remember. And then I moved on. Onwards down the country side. Into my new flat. An old dream to pursue. And then I moved on. Into my new flat. An old dream to kill. I don't see new faces any more. I just see faces I remember. And then I have to try to remember where I remember them from. Over the last two weeks I saw someone twice that was so familiar that I spent the next day trawling through my memories trying to figure out where I knew them from, or even if I did know them at all. After going through teenage memories of neighbours, class mates at school, all the odd jobs I went through in Invercargill, schools I later taught in across New Zealand, I finally realised that the person I recognised was someone I had spoken to at the laundromat prior to moving out of my orchard accommodation (there were massive suspicions of someone in Invercargill following me here...). But the familiarity of the face, not just in terms of it being so close in time (a month or so prior), stretched back into my distant past, which is why I felt the need to go so far back to try to locate it. I wonder if people who stay in the same place most of their lives still see new faces.
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Just hangin' at the flat listening to some Queens of the Stone Age. I'm not a big fan of Like Clockwork, but the song 'I Appear Missing' resonates a lot with me:
It felt contrived and somewhat "poor me", regardless of how true it feels so I didn't publish it on it's own. I feel better about contextualising it here as part of a larger post. There was a BBQ happening at the flat, but it wasn't suggested as a flat activity, it was just something that my flatmate said: "I might have a BBQ tonight." I read that as "I might have a BBQ tonight" and by the time I realised I was expected to be a part of it with my other flatmate, I was already down the rabbit hole of anxiety and confusion, my brain flipping out about my own stupidity and feeling like an outsider again. I didn't want to move into a flat with other people, but I am financially unable to live on my own so felt forced into this position. That, I don't hate, nor regret, but there has been a feeling of being uncomfortable around my flatmates, maybe because they are younger than me, maybe because there are things that haven't been said, or that one of them is not expressing, therefore causing me to feel like I have to tip-toe around that particular subject matter because it hasn't been put out in the open. I don't necessarily begrudge the flatmate for not being more communicative on this subject, as I feel it is their right to either talk about it or not, but it has also made me feel like ... I don't belong / am not trusted. This, I don't blame myself or them for, since it is a reflection of the society we live in, but I do feel somewhat out of place nevertheless. When I first went looking for flats, I found a house with an upstairs that was self-contained, but with house-kitchen downstairs where there were three more rooms and an orchard worker already renting one of the rooms. Upstairs was being rented for about $240 /wk and I was ready to jump on it since I had full-time work, and even on minimum wage I was willing to make sacrifices just to have that personal space to myself. Unfortunately, the house was sold within the week. This flat came along and I snatched it up after a really positive look-in, and although the flatmates are still positive people who I like, I can't help feeling I have little in common with people who do a lot of kayaking, trail biking, snowboarding, and are both skippers during the summer tourist months. And they love watching Rugby (audible groan). And I like books. I left music. I wanted no part in chasing something that gave nothing back. I gave everything I had to it, every emotion I felt, every spare piece of time to scrape and sculpt songs out of, but ultimately, I had no way of presenting these songs to the world. At least not without the support of others. That support seemed to come and go but never stuck around to help out in the long run. I just ended up feeling like I was at square one all over again, every time. Most musicians make steps that move their goals forward, but every step I took ended me up right back at the start like I was restarting a race I had already run many times and got nowhere with.
Most of my adult life I've asked myself when do I get to sit down and write my novels? Dirteater of which has been in existence since 1997/8, but has only had notes and an occasional scene written for it, but of which the entire structure, characters, themes and narrative are all worked out; Welcome Home 1998; Deiaul 2001. In 2014 when I had no work but was given the chance to apply for a teaching job I had previously enquired about but hadn't manifested until now, I had begun moving into writing mode with Dim Day and I made a decision to pull my job application knowing I'd never be able to continue writing while teaching full-time (I know what my writing habits are like!). I was told by a family member that I was making a big mistake and would regret not going for the job choosing to work on my next novel instead. I don't regret it at all. I wrote more than I'd ever be able to write working full-time in a job where I had to care about other people's needs over my own. This is the frustrating reality I faced when I did finally take a teaching job in Canterbury during 2015 after my writing had slowed down (at this point I had already moved onto expanding 'The Future Unfolds' into Auralye on a Harp). In 2016 after the new year had started, work had become a minefield of bad communication from management and inadequate support for a Provisionally Registered Teacher who had travelled from job to job with inconsistent evidence of teaching being gathered.
I love the classroom, I love the students, and I love being there for them and encouraging their talents no matter how big or small; but a part of me was dying from not being able to fully express itself, and I couldn't stand seeing Dirteater drift further and further into the distance as the years went by. Do I have to be an old man in retirement before I can sit down and write the novel I planned when I was just 21? I made a decision. It was the right decision. Whatever poverty I face now is a result of that. I have no more music to give anyway; what exists just needs to be recorded and anyone can do that - it certainly doesn't need to be me! The isolation isn't a problem. If I could have that, I would take it; it's the non-isolation that financial strain causes that is a problem and having to work around the issues in my head as they converge, conflict, and crash into situations I misunderstand and am misinformed about. It's almost ironic that the orchard work I have been involved in has allowed me to exercise responsibility through confidence in knowing what I'm doing and what is expected of me, and being unafraid to ask questions. But orchard work is coming to an end, and I aim to have time on my hands to write. Even if I'm stuck in this house with these flatmates I don't really relate to, I have to work to make that time to be alone to write. To write the days and nights away. Especially the Dim Days. Without doubt I have thoroughly been enjoying the experience of being outside and working amongst apple trees. I have the pleasure of working with a caring and humorous site manager, even if the owners/bosses aren't worth talking about unless it's in the negative. Unfortunate, but not atypical of the conditions throughout the New Zealand Horticulture Industry. Today a report was done on Kiwifruit growers in the Bay of Plenty, but this kind of worker exploitation and not living up to Labour Rights is rife across most of New Zealand (and very much so in the area that I am working). However, I take the good with the bad and am in a privileged enough position to be able to refuse working over 40 hours to meet a standard minimum wage rate knowing that the owners have to top my pay up if their contract rates don't meet that minimum rate. That's fine. Not so for the migrant workers who are hit the hardest due to their desire to make as much money as possible to return to their families and communities.  On Sunday I moved out of the work accommodation and into a new flat with a fire and two friendly flatmates. In fact, I may have sprained my thumb and over night it swelled somewhat and this morning I fainted in the kitchen while making my coffee and talking to Emma. I woke up on the floor wondering what had happened and Emma asking me if I was okay. After calling an ambulance and having me fully checked out, Emma left for work late, and Matt drove me down to the hospital for a follow up consultation. I generally don't cope so well with pain and injuries so it may have just been my body reacting to the injury. But it's great to have supportive people around me. It's something we all hope for.  On Saturday I took a trip to the beach, or estuary... It's an estuary. I come from Gisborne. I've lived in Whangamata. Maybe this stretches into the beach, but where I walked and took photos, it's very estuaryish. It's not often I use the word 'beautiful' to describe things, but the sunset was gorgeous! :-)
 Need new keyboard. Need new fingers. She’s so young, so early out of childhood, yet so soon to become her own adult. Sometimes J’nata wished she could trade the long arduous quarters of day for more time in her own life to experience and watch children become the same adults they were. Better adults. But it was never to be. Death came to parents within moments of children being born to their own children. Had any adults ever lived to see children of children grow to fruition? J’nata took the garden knife and started chipping away at the hardened dew-sap that had formed between the top of the apple and it’s stem. Ch’rie watched her curiously. “Why doesn’t it fall off like all the other fruit?” “All the excess sap from the previous dim day has hardened around the top of the fruit. It’s too hard to pull straight off so I’m cutting it down instead. The fruit’s fine, but it’s just a consequence of there being too much light during one of the dark days – all that excess sap caused by extra light has to leave the plants. Most of the time it simply drips into the ground from the plant leaves. In fruit-bearing trees is has a tendency to gather at the stems of the fruits themselves.” Ch’rie was eating into one of the fruit. “Those are supposed to be for the stalls," J'nata said. She stopped, teeth buried deep in fruit flesh, voice spluttering juice everywhere: “Still tastes pretty good!” A wry smile passed across J’nata’s face. “Hurry up and get that basket away to the stalls, otherwise people will be wondering what’s happened to you!” Looks good in a picture loose on the wall Better than right now It's what I've found in a soul unwound Better than right now Leaped off the ground only to fall Better than right now If I could grow roots and stay around to be by your side If I could grow roots I would stay here and never leave, but now is not the time I would grow roots but I can't slow down or I might crash I wish I could go back in time
I feel more and more that my ideas (novels) have no resonance in today’s world – the political construct created by oppression and the struggle to remove that oppression. My stories were formed at a time when there was little media representation of oppressed groups and women’s rights, so in 1999 I took having a female boss and a female manager as nothing out of the ordinary (but far better than the previous male bosses I had had).
This feeling of (personal) isolation and not connecting with the current world climate has made me want more and more to just remove myself from that world. It’s strange to agree with removing oppression, allowing religious tolerance, and supporting individual freedom, and then to be disgusted at how everyone on both sides of the arguments just end up throwing shit at each other. This is why America is so divided, and this is what will cause New Zealand to become so divided if we allow ourselves to follow in those footsteps.
Obvious right? Well, education and parenting has a long way to go before it teaches children the ability to listen without prejudice. Last night a twitter user tweeted “Every second American film is about a grown man grudgingly seeking acceptance from his domineering, distant and sometimes deceased father.” I quipped in reply “Damnit. Now I feel like I have to rewrite the themes of my next two novels” thinking of Dim Day and Deiaul. The silence was telling. I’m aware that my unwritten novels mean nothing to anybody, but not even a courteous 'like' for the "author aware of himself" was offered. But it also shows how irrelevant someone tweeting about themselves in reply to someone else’s tweet is. Because twitter rarely feels like a place to exchange ideas, thoughts, and feelings with each other – strangers connecting thoughtfully across distances. It’s just hard jibes and quirky remarks to get applause. Although I have known all along that my novels generally carry the same theme – the absence of family/father figure – we’re now at a place where that theme feels overdone to the point of “oh not another story about a son who hates his father...”. But then, this actual idea is something that Baz and I used to mock by re-enacting constantly with passionate extremism. So it’s not like that was ever the driving force of my stories. I was aware of it, but it wasn’t the focus; it was more about how this individual would come to themselves through all of that without the anger of overgrown teenage bitterness. Beyond all that, the internet is just a major distraction. There is little that I can do world-wide. Tweeting in support of my causes to an audience of 300 of whom a mere four might hear the message and be supportive in return feels self-defeating if I take it to heart. So instead, I need to move into a place that is positive for me, that allows me the freedom to write as I see fit. I no longer have a job, so that is not a barrier. I no longer have people requiring my presence in their lives. The future is mine. It is raining in Auckland and I have no desire to leave my hotel room other than to find something to eat. Last night I drove for a (very) short period to see how far away the Vector Arena was, but didn’t find it and came back screwing up the right of way at the bottom of Gladstone Rd. meeting with The Strand. I decided that I wasn’t going to do any further driving in Auckland. But it is raining. And I’m not keen on catching a bus. The hotel does have meals, but I would be concerned about the cost, though at least I could say it would be a healthy alternative.
It’s 12:13 p.m. I’m getting hungry. I’m going to risk it. At least, I can say, it’ll be an adventure. But probably not a very happy one. Just a few more words first: My room is a lie. Advertised with “a garden view,” it merely looks across the meagre shrubbery beside the footpath alongside Gladstone Rd. Cars consistently pass by leaving no room for any kind of tranquillity that “a garden view” could infer or conjure in a person’s mind. The window view gives no sense of place, only presenting a thinly wood panelled fence that shows a blue car parked on the road beyond it and the tail or front end of cars surrounding it; everything else is blocked by a couple of trees to my right. It rains in Auckland like you are meant to feel it. After looking at my meal list on the hotel room menus, I decided on the $18 Steak and Chips. ‘That sounds like a decent price’ for a meaty meal, I thought to myself. But when I got up to the restaurant, I ordered an orange juice and room service at an extra $3 because I couldn’t eat it up there due to a private event and wasn’t prepared to carry it back to my room after having to wait for it. So the total cost came to $25, and my regret kicked in with thoughts of ‘fuck, I really should have braved the weather and searched foe something with a less brutal cost attached to it’ (or something similar). Not that I think $25 is brutal, but compared to what I could have paid, it’s definitely more than what I wanted to pay. When I thought about it at the Copthorne Hotel last month, I was just happy to be paying for a meal that was ultimately healthier, and that’s something I’m now willing to pay for. Maybe at the end of the day I will be far more thankful that I didn’t bother trying to rape my soul by competing with car traffic, people traffic and the all consuming rain. Yay! My meal arrived. See, and in no way can I say that that meal wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t huge, true; and it wasn’t the most beautiful taste I had tasted either, but then I didn’t expect it to be; there’s no doubt I could have paid for the same meal slightly cheaper, but at what outside cost? And therein lies the rub. By not venturing out into the wet downpours (opposed, my semantically inclined critic, to the dry downpours of sunshine) I avoided battling with multitudes of bodies plagued by fashion and trends, muggy indoor temperatures, car parking costs, car driving costs, and all other temperament upsetting inducements that only Auckland can curse me with. In those moments I feel like an RPG character who has been cursed and has to wait a period of time for the curse to wear off, or, alternatively, seek help from a mage or harvest some weird plant that grows in an out-of-the-way territory and is surrounded by trolls or giants who protect the area because it is sacred to them and supplies them with special life enhancing properties but they need to be fought and battled against in order to even reach the area with the special curse-curing plants. I’d rather just let it wear off as I cross the Bombay Hills tomorrow. At least I have some tasty orange juice to see me through until that time. Tool Setlist:
I’m not sure which was last – Stinkfist or Forty Six & 2. And I’m also not sure where Schism comes in in the whole setlist after Pushit. I know the first three are correct, and Lateralus was last before the intermission, and then the drum solo. |
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