Roger and Me (actually it was Dave and Me)

How about a bus tour of Flint? Drive past the hollowed out remains of the American Dream. Buick city is rusting out from the inside. The story is long and complex, but there are people there that remember, that love Flint. I am not fooling. There are people that love Flint. People that have dedicated themselves to saving it, or keeping it alive, or reawakening the rusted leviathan. Flint will turn from brown to green. It will be a place where people will be happy to live. While I was there, after seeing that it has as much to do with race as it does with turning bad policy into good, I turned on a movie in my hotel room, an HBO movie that looked to be a spin-off of Hotel Rwanda. Rwanda has suffered something almost incomprehensible to me, except that the movie was close enough to reality to hit me. I knew the Papyrus swamps, the iron gates, the hills, the sky. I knew the churches, and people that could have been the people but were not. I watched individuals try to get a handle on what happened there, to face the reality, to overcome the horror, the lose, the shame. They try--  try to reconcile, and that's it. That's the hope, that out of Horror we all learn something deeper. Hatred will not win. Many may have to suffer much in the face of hatred. Hatred is senseless. It is a cancer that not only eats at the hearts of men, but at the very heart of civilization. In the clutches of hatred civilization becomes degradation. The only thing that can overcome hatred is love, a pained and self-sacrificing love, a greater concern for others than concern of self. There is no neutral party in the face of Hatred. To save the life of another may cost your own. The madness will not cease just because you flee from it. Did anyone think to save the life of another by putting their life in between? Why is it that in Rwanda the people that came to help fled with their pets, while they abandoned their neighbors? Surely they were frightened. Surely they knew they couldn't stay. Where were the heroes? The heroes were those who gave their lives for their families, for their neighbors. The heroes were the Africans; the heroes were the oppressed who knew the only thing they had left to give was their lives. The heroes were those who grew sick of the killing, and tried to stop it. The heroes were the ones that cried "Never again!" and as long as they live vow to see that it never does. The heroes were those that opposed the notion that it was wiser not to get involved.

Flint juxtaposed with Rwanda. I couldn't eat. Was it horror I felt or shame? I wept for Rwanda. Every time I think of Rwanda I weep. Flint will survive. Flint will come back to life. If Rwanda can, Flint can. Do not speak of race. Speak of me and you. I am white you are black. I am 41 you are 20 or 47 or 101. We are different, but both have one life to devote to living. We both have but one life to give or not. We choose to hate or to love, to deride or to encourage, to contend or resolve. We shape our world by what we believe. We can believe what we want, but we bear the consequences of our actions. Understanding is better than believing. Reality is. What we believe does not shape reality. How we respond to reality is shaped by what we believe. What does Hatred solve? Death begets death. We must sometimes give up so much to forgive, but what is the alternative?

When I got home tonight I learned that my father's hunting buddy shot himself in the head. Life is hard but what is the alternative? It is hard to be courageous. I can't accuse anyone of being weak. Each of us makes mistakes, but we must forgive and move on. What is the alternative? We are different but we are the same. We are both alive. Do not waste the only thing you really have.

I found myself on the Internet today

I tried to find myself on the Internet today. Was it odd. I was a musician, a poet, and a dead porn star. I read my poems and I could have written them, and the music I made was heavily influenced by Tangerine Dream. "Optical Race" by Tangerine was the first CD I ever bought. I began to wonder about the pornography thing. I began to wonder if there aren't alternate realities out there, that maybe I was living as multiple people or had a split personality and didn't know it. I wondered how much I really knew about myself, whether I am unique as I thought I was. I have a weird name -I mean how many of me should there have been?

Often I search for people I lost contact with over the Internet. There was a woman I worked with in Africa. A woman who I thought I loved very much - I did love her, but we only had one wonderful night together. We didn't make love. She painted a portrait of my face, and we laughed about the lives we had in America. We talked about Purple and Orange and sunsets, and ate M&M's. She was a Christian when I wasn't and she castigated me about despising the book of Corinthians. She pointed out the amazing love that was spoken of in 1 Corinthians 13. She was right, and what I once loved and grew to hate I love again. Long after that night I bought her books on color. She was fascinated with Colors, and since I taught Physics she asked me if I could teach her all I knew about color. She was an artist and I loved her laugh, I loved her spirit, and I loved the richness of her life. I was a Physics teacher, and a writer, and loved to sketch. None of these held water for me. I am only a vain and selfish man. It was ever about me, and I am so so sick of dwelling on me. I never found her on the Internet.

I have forgotten her voice, her laugh, her eyes, her face. I don't even trust the memories of her. They are probably all wrong, and I'm sure after a space of ten years I have changed things. I never had a picture of her. And I will never see her again I suppose. I keep imagining us meeting, in some unexpected place, but I don't even know where she got off to. She pushed her way into my life, and then flew away. The clouds of Tanzania were wonderful. The white towering cumulous clouds that sat in that blue, blue sky. Cerulean Blue. Azure. She is always the warm sunny afternoon. She was like a dream, and maybe a thousand years from now we will meet in Heaven. She grew angry with me because I was messed up. I've come to realize that I want to draw all my self worth through the acceptance of those I love. I followed her around like a wounded dog. I burdened her with the strength I drew from her. The day at the port, she was cruel behind her sunglasses. That was the day we said goodbye, and though we saw each other after that I never let her in. We had come too close too fast. It was too intense, like a match flaring up full of the fury and energy of fire, and then dying. We argued over stupid things. Words have always got me in trouble. Maybe I am too scary. She said to me once "just tell me, don't write anymore words." The last letter I received from her was a patchwork of crossed out sentences. I don't even have that.

The years have flown away like so many dead leaves in a fall breeze, and I am left with my words and myself.