Insight is Sour

There is no nonsense in running away. Leaving for only a moment, simply disappearing into a realm I didn’t understand, I was making a deliberate raid on my subconscious to reveal something I didn’t realize I needed. I needed to leave. I grabbed all I thought I’d need for a brief drive to cool off: truck keys, a water bottle, cigarettes, cell phone, gum and an orange. I’ll never know why I chose that orange; I haven’t eaten one in years. But out of all the fruit in my fridge that orange is what I decided will do during this dramatic exit; a decision that will confirm my struggle with my individual nature, my futile fight for naive desires. I threw all of the items into my bag and furiously drove off into a world whose secular rules are only but arbitrary to me.

It was a quiet Sunday evening: no traffic, around dinner time so all the runners and dog walkers were safely tucked away into warm homes nursing their pot roasts. Meanwhile this mad woman is screeching down the road with no concept of time or where to go. I was utterly mad with confusion, and after a few minutes of driving I pulled into an empty parking lot near a playground. How long I sat there, hands clenched around the wheel, I’ll never know. Staring into a dying brush that bordered the park, whose branches wore only but a few surviving crimsons leaves amidst that cold autumn day, the orange suddenly held an overwhelming presence. I reached into my bag to investigate the mysterious fruit.

It was extremely small, perhaps a mandarin. The flesh was rough and gave a little when I softly squeezed it; I could tell its demise was over due judging by the wrinkling that encircled the top where once stemmed a root. The orange looked so humble in my weak hands; my hands with no body of their own but the mound of fabric I was draped in to overt the cool weather. I placed it on my dashboard, directly in front of me, as if I was about to indulge in a conversation with this meek fruit. I leaned back into my seat carefully observing the orange. Time for a cigarette.

Why an orange? In fact, I hate oranges. They are far too tart, a pain to peel and always left the beds of my finger nails dry from its citrus juices. I am in no way an orange person. Being such a bright, tropical fruit it is not the usual choice of produce for the cold and cynical type. Happy people eat oranges. I’ve never seen a tough or poignant person eat an orange; maybe an apple for those of us who shed a cold eye on the world but not an orange. An orange emits a spirit that’s welcoming and exciting; like opening a present you’re unsure of the radiant flesh it contains. Apples, on the other hand, are predictable. You know what you’re getting yourself into when eating an apple and it requires no effort to devour. No, I am not an orange person.

Rain began to pierce my windshield and this orange remained perched on my dashboard. It held this disposition that appeared to be mocking my insecurity about the orange’s supposed prejudices in contrast with apples. Was it not I that chose this fruit? It didn’t very well hop into my purse impervious to my own hand. Perhaps my choice was not necessarily accidental. In a mad fit of rage I could have very well been unconsciously choosing a particular item that was so foreign to me; could my mind have been rationally aware that choosing an orange would throw off my equilibrium causing me to reconsider my sensitivity towards this trivial purpose I call a life? Possibly.

Maybe the act of choosing this orange was revealing a side of me I wanted to unmask. Maybe I don’t want to be an apple person anymore. Maybe I want to bask in the mystery and uncertainty of living in this absurd world; a world that will leave me twitching and whipping sweat from my forehead in excitement and anticipation. Perhaps the account with this orange was more of a confrontation with myself. My demand for rationality within an indifferent universe is ultimately fruitless like the expectations of one’s choice of fruit. The hopeless struggle to achieve something, anything, is not only an exemplar of my innate human condition, but a benign characteristic that need not be so complicated. Maybe by choosing this orange I was choosing to accept a world that is forever hostile; eating apples was my way of transcending reality to fill the void of the fear; the fear of existing.

The orange remained silent; its brilliant flesh radiated a sort of arrogance that caused me to dive into this mindful lunacy. I held no grudge against the modest fruit, my quest to clear my head was ultimately successful, but I felt belittled by an objects ability to remind me of my own personal judgment. An orange has gained a higher purpose, a sort of height that I’ve gained in my brief escape that is not necessarily validated by an even higher one. I had two choices: cope or revolt. To revolt would be eating the orange in all of its ambiguity; to cope would be to head back home in search for an apple. My theory on living may have changed that night and although the purpose of my decision is not apparent it still existed. For a brief moment, I had a compassionate perspective on the vagueness of this life; this life of apple and orange people.

A Poem: "Awakening"

Awakening
By Jenna Reimer

There is something at my door.
I feel it, I smell it.
The door mutters - sick.
Footprints of water trail behind me;
Old bath water gargles down a rusted drain.

The indifferent world loiters outside
Drunk on hostility and pissing out moons.
I remain still, naked, no body of my own
But the puddle of cold water at my feet.

It seems most unatural to spare me.
Spare this dream that dreamed me waking,
Will dream me dying
In a fire's center of tired shadows
Of bastards and whores,
Obscene shit, of suffering.
I am home.
I am not home.
I am afraid.
If anyone had been watching,
They would have seen me weep.

A Poem: "Autumn" by Charles Baudelaire

I adore autumn; to come across a poem that is rejecting the beauty of this seasonal transition was rather shocking. However, it was a refreshingly lovely detour from the typical romantic poetry that is always in awe of the fall.

Autumn
By Charles Baudelaire

Soon we will plunge ourselves into cold shadows,
And all of summer's stunning afternoons will be gone.
I already hear the dead thuds of logs below
Falling on the cobblestones and the lawn.

All of winter will return to me:
derision, Hate, shuddering, horror, drudgery and vice,
And exiled, like the sun, to a polar prison,
My soul will harden into a block of red ice.

I shiver as I listen to each log crash and slam:
The echoes are as dull as executioners' drums.
My mind is like a tower that slowly succumbs
To the blows of a relentless battering ram.

It seems to me, swaying to these shocks, that someone
Is nailing down a coffin in a hurry somewhere.
For whom? -- It was summer yesterday; now it's autumn.
Echoes of departure keep resounding in the air.

The Written Reason

If being a writer is like the unpredictable path of a drifter, then the very thought of accepting your passion to pursue this literary journey is as frightening as the puzzling maps and foreign road signs.

Why be a writer? You are entirely aware you are unable to live on your writing; you would starve to death along with the other poor souls who are naive enough to believe they could make a living off of their writing alone. Forget money. You know the chances of being one of the few writers who become famous in their own right are slim to none… you’re content with living a solitary, financially meager life.

Society tells you to be safe. Take the safe route: become a nurse, a banker, an insurance broker. You can’t. You hate the confused looks you get when you declare you want to be a writer, and loath the insufferable response they give you following your assertion: “Good for you, what’s plan A though?” You agree it’s a lot easier to just fall into the corporate world and live a secure life; they congratulate you on your success in the business world, your annual promotion and meticulously cut grass… yawn. You hate the very idea of living so concrete and continue to furiously attack page after page with your weapon of choice, a pen.

Though, that’s it, the pen. The pen is your cavalry, your strategy when trying to attack the mysteries of the world; it is your third limb that seems to work aimlessly with your chattering mind. You write because you must. You feel a need to write. While others indulge themselves in the congenial world of yah’s and nah’s you insist on venturing into a realm of unknown.

Why not risk it? Your voice is ink. The paper listens. So what? They enjoy the nine to five routine while you prefer the blending of your days into nights where there is no concept of time. They want pot lucks and office parties; you want midnight coffee breaks with the stray cat who strategically sits on your fence while you write.

It is a necessity. By writing, you reveal a part of yourself that was hidden amongst the chaos of your existing world- an absurd world. You write out of love, hate, forgiveness, forgetting, anxiety and sadness. You may have something to communicate to others or something to hide that only that piece of paper will keep secret. All you truly know is that you have this incurable desire to attack that page like a pure obsession.

You recognize the life of a writer is walking along the same path as that drifter; standing, vulnerable, in the shifting winds on a desert road. You’re walking to a destination that is vague and uncertain. The very thought makes beads of sweat fall down your face, shift in your chair and nervously twitch. The fear. It is this undying panic that makes everything clearer, everything defined. It is this very feeling that makes you grab that pen and write it all down.

A Poem: "So You Want To Be A Writer" - Bukowski

So You Want To Be A Writer
By Charles Bukowski

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

Video of the Day: "To Autumn By John Keats"

A Poem: "To The Poet"

(I Was reading some Andrew Marvell and wanted to try my first pastoral poem... excited arn't yah?)

To The Poet
By Jenna Reimer

Give the sun the grace of night,
Neutral doves the morning flight.
Let crystal strings drift aloft a brook
Where leaves lay grazing from a tree that shook.
Sprouts that dance amongst the wind
Will rest in soil and rebirth again.
Shower the land with precious stones,
Nourish the field where creatures roam.
Basking in the day's lilac scent,
Their bows embody life’s inherent bent.
Write the beauty of tomorrow's mourn
And speak of truth that life adorns.
Mould the hills for us to reach
Where a place in time we will come to meet.