Today is Sunday, May 18. I make note of this so that perhaps in coming years I will remember to set aside time for this day, or days like it, as though it were a secret holiday for me only.
I awoke at about 7 am, which is rare for me (I usually wake up at 9), in the studio apartment downstairs which I've lately annexed as part of my living space. I have a mild hangover; it's been an intense weekend of revelry, voracious all-night lovemaking (with the big strapping guy who takes care of horses for a living) and cathartic laughter (treated Devon and myself to Margaret Cho performance at Viejas last night). I have been relishing the particular stillness and solitude of the early hour. It feels like a perfect time on a perfect day, where the quietness, the birds, the explosion of floral colors and the delicious war of pollen and fragrances force themselves to one's attention, as if to say, I am Spring (masquerading as Summer); I am erupting; I am proliferating; I am ramifying before your eyes; how can you overlook my grandeur?
I have of course been here, in this city (which I have lovingly nicknamed San Sargasso), in this neighborhood, in this house, on days like this before; but since I'm aware that I'm a different person (or, more accurately, a different collection of cells; memories; energy; perceptual filters), I try to pay minute attention to the world and how it falls into me now: miniature scarlet carnations against a white lattice; a hummingbird sharply changing direction; the dying moan of a small plane landing; the soft air that seems to dally in this time of coolness before the advent of the harsh heat of the day. I try to give my attention to the world as it occurs and filters through me, as though my being here, my witnessing of it, were of acute importance; an attentiveness free of anxiousness; a gentleness, like the rivulet of breeze that caressed the cup of a white hibiscus flower I paused to admire earlier on my walk to the coffeehouse.
Again an idea came to mind which I don't think I've ever written down: whereas at times I want to feel disgusted with my self-indulgence; ashamed and undeserving of the excessive, artificial richness and luxury of life that surrounds me, in contrast to the vast misery in other parts of the world (100,000 dead in Myanmar and millions in dire need of food, housing and medicine); there are times like today when I feel as though one has a duty to be and to live inconsequently (though not unconsciously) like butterflies; we may not deserve all of this, but if we are humble, kind, generous and attentive, if at least some few people in the world are free of suffering and arrogance for a time, and working out what it is possible to experience, process and create under such circumstances, then perhaps we are doing all that is required of us.
Perhaps there is a secret beauty and nobility even to my weekend debauchery. We gay men may not produce children with each other (at least not yet), but we do love and care for each other sometimes; and some of us act out and embody a certain wild freedom which I believe is emblematic and encouraging for others who perhaps are not so carefree (at least not yet).
(Just now, as I was polishing this piece of writing, a small orange butterfly alighted among the red carnations. As it turned in profile and fanned its wings, the sun's reflection revealed an iridescent silver and black on the underside, like a coy little offering of treasure ...)
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