A Felicidade (Tom Jobim)

Tristeza não tem fin		Sadness has no end
felicidade sim		happiness does
A felicidade é como a pluma		Happiness is like a feather
que o vento vai levando pelo ar		that the wind lifts through the air
Voa tão leve		It flies so lightly
mas tem a vida breve		but has a brief life
Precisa que haja vento sem parar		It needs for there to be endless wind
A felicidade do pobre parece		The happiness of the poor is like
A grande ilusão do Carnaval		the grand illusion of Carnaval
A gente trabalha o ano inteiro		People work the entire year
Por um momento de sonho		for one moment of a dream
prá fazer a fantasia		in order to have a fantasy of
de rei ou de pirata ou jardineira		a king or a pirate or gardener
e tudo se acabar na quarta feira		and all is ended on Ash Wednesday
A felicidade é como a gota		Happiness is like a drop
de orvalho numa petala de flôr		of dew on a flower petal
Brilha tranquila depois de leve oscila		It shines quietly then swings lightly
e cai como uma lágrima de amor		and falls like a tear of love
A minha felicidade está sonhando		My happiness is dreaming
nos olhos da minha namorada		in the eyes of my girlfriend
É como esta noite passando, passando		It is like that night that passed by
em busca da madrugada		in search of the dawn
Falem baixo por favor		Speak quietly please
pra que ela acorde alegre como o dia		in order that she wakes happy like the day
ofrecendo beijos de amor		offering kisses of love
A felicidade é uma coisa louca		Happiness is a crazy thing
e tão delicada também		and also so delicate
Tem flores e amores de todas as cores		It has flowers and love of all colors
Tem ninhos de passarinhos		It has bird nests
Tudo bom ela tem		It has everything nice
Pois é por ela ser assim tão delicada		But because she is like this, so delicate
Que eu trato dela sempre muito bem		I always treat her very well

Changes and Disappearances, Part II

I thought of Ryan tonight, when I was reading about Lubbock somewhere. It unlocked in me a host of memories. We’re so far away from one another; I feel like everything I’ve worked for has been frustrated in some mysterious way, as if gotten myself caught up in something I can’t get out of. Ryan’s been waiting for confirmation from the people in Presidio (near Big Bend) to start working as a teacher there. Of course I’m wanting everything to go along well for him, and of course I want to be there with him, but I don’t think they’re going to give him the job. I think he’s going to do something entirely different with his life and his life-actions. I think God will lead him to a different source, to a different path where he can really find what’s important. Whatever happens, I’m going to stick with him, even if it means that we have to go through hell and high water.

When I started out with him one cool Saturday night, I probably figured that I wasn’t going to hear from him again. We had gone out to a local restaurant for dinner (and he paid for me, thank God) and I figured, ‘This guy is so hot-looking, he’d never want to go out with me again.’ And maybe a day and a half later we were together again, and I was in his trailer, and we were having dinner. He cooked me shrimp, and pasta, and he even fed it to me, and we watched Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow. It was so good because it was so simple, and because we were just two people, together. There were no presentiments or desires. I knew I had such great feelings for him because he honestly didn’t see me as this body in which he was either repulsed or felt desire for; what we had was real, it was tangible. I don’t know if there are any other harmonics from there, but I knew what I was feeling was something authentic. Since I didn’t know what it was at the time, I didn’t think much of it. Later, when I did realize it, I found out that what we had was something more, and I didn’t even see it coming.

I had never really been in love until I met Ryan. For me, his affection and desire put an end, even if it was for a short while, most of the problematic things that had been plaguing my personality. Every reassuring word, every gesture, every touch–it meant something. It was so subtle, and yet so grand. With Ryan everything was a unifying act. I remember that day–it was so fresh–we went out to the Lubbock Lake Landmark, and the little park that was there. I held hands with him there, and there was no one around. I was so helpless then and he took care of me. I was so lucky to have had him there for me, for I realize that he would have gladly taken the whole world on his shoulders for me to at least make sure that I was safe and taken-care of. I remember staying in bed for hours in the hotel rooms I stayed in, counting the hours until my departure. It was so bittersweet then because I knew then that I wouldn’t see him for a very long time, months, years, even. And yet I was so happy to be leaving the realm of whatever had made me so miserably unhappy.

Now that I’m back home I don’t know how to tolerate this longing to be with him again. He said to me recently, ‘Joe, I see you somewhere in my life, either way.’ I’m just so terrified of failure. I threw everything away and now I am lying about it. I’ve lied to everyone about practically everything. And yet I feel no shame because of it. I feel so numb doing it. I’ve been so ashamed to say that I went to a really good school and then have so much pride in saying that I had such a fun time there, despite the fact that I starved and cried and went nuts, practically. I lie to everyone now. I don’t insinuate, I flat out lie and feel good about it. I lied to a religious person yesterday, practically talked about how I was so well-versed in the Hebrew scriptures, when I really wasn’t. I live in my lies now; they’ve become something of a fortress, a support system that makes me forget about every horrible thing I’ve done, all the things I’ve gone through. It seems so strange now to even say it, because I find myself lying to Ryan more and more often, and I know that can’t be good. I’ve gotten to the point where I’ll practically lie to him about anything and everything. Never mind that it’s useless to say anything to him; it’s become something where I say something and he just responds positively.

Everyone had been right all along–I’ve been pandering for attention. Just so that everyone would listen. Just so everyone would clap and pat me on the back, and say, ‘Yes, that’s what you’re supposed to do. Never mind that you’re as transparent as water. Just keep on doing as you’re told.’ I can’t really tell anyone. I don’t want to. I’ve just gotten accustomed to the fact that I will be…alone, seperate from the world. It’s just fine with me. They have said, ‘You’re not wanted by us anymore–here, go and find someplace else to peddle…whatever it is you peddle.’

They have all changed, and disappeared. People. Ideas. Beliefs. I will list them now, in chronological order:

–Joel, to whom I lent a CD I waited four weeks to get (The Harp of New Albion)
–Richard, who met me, had an awkward conversation with me, then left with little to no pretext, as if he wanted something
–Patrick, who wrote me a letter, to which I responded but then ended shortly after that, when he dropped off the face of the earth
–Eric, who doesn’t want to talk to me, citing that he’s ‘busy’ and then randomly talking to people
–Matt Kennedy, whom I tended to have a lot of disagreements

–the idea that I had some sense of self-worth, which has now disappeared for good
–the idea that I needed to fit in, which I’ve realized never existed in the first place
–the idea of honesty
–the idea that one probably never will find the real love of their life
–the idea that everything is redeemable

–the belief in myself
–the belief in others
–the belief in the fundamental goodness of humanity

from <i>Cage</i>

I met Henze, the cataloguer, on 117th Street, on the way home from work. It was 1988. He and I had been sitting across from one another on the subway, and upon recognizing me, said: ‘I’ve met you before, yes? Back at Black Mountain College?’
‘Have we met somewhere?’
‘Yes, I was…well, I don’t think you remember, but–’
‘No, it’s not a problem. Of course I remember. Who are you?’
‘My name is Carl Henze,’ he said, swabbing his shiny forehead with a handkerchief. ‘I worked for CF Peters.’
‘You did? I did some copy work when I was younger there. It wasn’t much, just a couple of transcriptions of Busoni. Whom did you see at Black Mountain?’
‘Cage.’

Of course I knew who Cage was. He was John Cage, the upstart, the radical. Everyone had pointed to him as the singular cause and start of the massive break between the dead European music I learned in conservatory and the music that was being played now in the lofts in Lower Manhattan. Jesus Christ of Greenwich Village. Of course I knew who he was. My wife Sally had gone to see him do something with a piano, once, back in her college days–she had always been a fan of difficult music. I had gone to Black Mountain College to do some transcription work on Satie

‘I’m working with Schoenberg now,’ he said, coughing a little. ‘I’ve been working with him since the end of the sixties. I’ve been trying to restore some of his verein that were found in a damp box at the end of World War II,’ he said to me. ‘But Cage–he was something else. I remember…’
‘Remember what?’ I asked.

Changes and Disappearances, Part One

I think it’s been sometime since I’ve actually sat down to process my thoughts into language, to let them coalesce into something solid and dependable. I’ve come to realize that forming those words and ideas into tangible thoughts has become something difficult, something contrived. Of course I love to write, but so many things get in the way. You have a good idea of what you want to write about, but somewhere between creating images and then setting them down to paper obstacles arise. Then there are other principles that seem to arise: the problem of non-interpretation, for example. Treating everything as just objective matter, equidistant to all things, and not taking it as anything subjective. You want so badly to make a story–an idea, your own; and so you delicately craft it till there’s nothing left of it. And then you actually realize you have nothing but basically a shell of something that someone else wrote.

I’m repulsed by the idea of this. I so desperately want to have a voice of my own; to say things that haven’t been said before, to invent something new and different, to do things that are drastically disimilar from anything done conventionally. I feel like I need to be freed, though, from convention. I need freedom from words, from ideas, from beliefs: the only thing I’m looking for, I’ve come to realize, is images. I don’t think of my compositions as memory spaces, or as really anything distinct anymore. I think I just see colors, or shades of colors, or sounds, or sensations. I need to freed from presentiments, from expectations, from beliefs. I think these are the most lasting, because you’re basically raised with them and they’re always the hardest to get rid of. Dr. Spell said to me, ‘You’ll find your own voice, all you have to do is give it time.’ I feel that I’m sincerely trying to get there. I’ve been obsessed with the idea of interpenetration, and of non-obstruction. Maybe the best thing to do is to otherwise free myself from obstructions, by letting myself see clearly the intentions in my world and follow through with them. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so useless.

Elsewhere, things have been quiet. I finally got the refund from my loan, and with the money, bought myself some nice things. I raided the Barnes and Noble–last Sunday I bought 6 CDs; the following Thursday I bought two more, including one that I’d been looking for forever, Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel. Before that I finally went shopping for new clothes and shoes. It was good to spend money on myself for a change. I gave Mom the three-hundred dollars that I had owed Ryan forever, and told her to get a money order for it (although on the way back to school she told me that she had used $100 for food). Actually Ryan’s been considering moving to another city–a city further south than even he’s expecting; Presidio, Texas. I find myself at a point where I feel like I’ve reached the furthest point in where a long-distance relationship can go (which isn’t very far). I’m terrified of dissatisfying him, of making him unhappy. I think somehow things are good between us. I tell him that I love him every time I talk to him. He occasionally responds, usually when we have phone sex or something. But this unfair, I think now, because he just recently told me without any pretext. It was the first time he’s said anything like that to me since we’ve been talking.

There are others, though. I’ve been haunted by memories and presences of other men. I’ve been talking to some other guys, too; and I’m sure Ryan is the same. Not too long ago he told me that he had slept with this one guy named Eddie just because he missed having someone to make love to. Surprisingly I was not angry with him–I was disappointed, and in some unrealistic way, I sympathized with him. I said to him, ‘What would make you do that? You have someone who loves you so much. It baffles me.’ And it really did–I sat there thinking, ‘What possessed him to do such a thing, when he knows someone who would willingly give his own life for him, who, even though he had to leave everything behind and resolved to never come back, promised to come back anyway to come and see him?’ In some ways I’ve gotten closer to him, and in some ways I’ve withdrawn from him. I don’t even know if there is such a thing as love anymore; I’ve been so immolated in the whole thing.