Small Flesh Wound with Wet Cement June 22, 2008
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I think I should update.
I have been writing, I’m writing a sort of me-moire or novel. The current manuscript flows rather freely between fiction and non-fiction, but all major events thus far are based on memories that I tend to regard as true.
I have wondered if I should take an excerpt from the freewriting that I have done so far and post…I don’t think I will. I think I will keep it under-wraps for the time being, but maybe one day.
What I can promise you is that I will try and keep working on separate projects so that my blog does not degrade into an inert puddle of old posts. And if it does, you can look forward to the school year when I am enrolled in a poetry class, so if poetry is your cup o’ tea — stay tuned round September.
.
I quit my job at Boston Pizza, which is good because I was really getting tired of all the cat calls coming from the corner booth. Well, to be honest I was tired of a lot of things there and in the end I think that it was a verry good decsion — my mother and some of my other friends say that its good for my health both physically and psychologically. I am inclined to agree.
I work as a landscaper now, mostly shoveling dirt and shoveling gravel and shoveling concrete; then hauling dirt and hauling gravel and hauling concrete. My unofficial job title is “The Mule”. I like my new job.
Its greatest advantage is simple, it gives me an opportunity to shut my brain off. Sure, I still contemplate epistemological questions, such as the limits of skepticism…and other thoughts yet wander their way through the overhanging jungles of my brain. But overall cerebral activity can be become quite relaxed at work: move dirt here…I like that best.
Last week I quite my job. Last weekend I went to the mountains. I cut my hand in the mountains; this week sealed the small flesh wound with wet cement.
(Anyone Spot AK down by the Water in this Pic — That’s Classic Cairns Photography)
P.S. Did I mention that I got to go to the mountains with some of the bestest friends a man could ever ask for? And we laughed? As Harry would say: “I often wonder if that’s all we are really here for, I mean really here for.”
I have also been skateboarding… May 25, 2008
Posted by david in Creative Non-Fiction, Musings.1 comment so far
This is an excerpt from my diary…
For Those of You Who Have Been Wondering What I’ve Been Up To Lately… May 23, 2008
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I’ve been working/going to empty lots and Wainwright, sporting my new pump-up shoes and being a little showy-off with my new cool haircut…here’s the video of a passer-by…
A Man Sets Out to Run the World… May 18, 2008
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A man sets out to run the world
With slanting side streets
And hills overlooking harbours.
Under torrid day light
And the musty haze of dusk.
With stars in his eyes and stars overhead
With drums in his ears and drums in his chest.
He runs in straight lines and gentle curves,
He runs in circles and paths that fold back and back upon themselves.
.
He covers the gate of his father, and his brothers,
his contrymen and his lovers…
Borges tells that all these trails of blood and water
Trace his iron clad labyrinth of fate against the persistant time.
.
Sometimes when I run
I block out the wind, the groans of the city, and stop my metronimic heart.
In that silence I hear only
The kiss and cuss
Of fine gravel being spread out;
Tumbling across the face of the earth to find rest again.
And I wonder, with all the gravel that I have pushed out,
All the blades of grass I have swept aside with my bare heel,
And all the grains that I rushed away with the soul of my foot –
What strange face am I drawing in the sand?
*
* *
*
¹It seems to me, that the more important question I can’t let rest, is that when the drums in my chest begin to weaken and fail – when the trail of blood that once trickled begins to lap down upon the hot asphalt, when my knees and my face press themselves and lay themselves down upon the earth… — in that silence — will I hear the beating horse hooves of my salvation? Will the deep swells and hollows of the earth echo this ressonance as to gently shake my stillest face? Will I feel my saviour’s hands firmly hold my cheek bones as they percieve the same touch they felt, only once, on the day when they were moulded from the dust?
I think I might have just answered my own question…because all I can imagine are nail-pierced hands stretching out in front of the artist’s eyes…
This was 3:36 on Good Friday 2007…I do plan on writing my contemplations from this current Easter, but my eyes feel much more clouded these days. I’m hoping for clarity — though it’s not a necessity. March 21, 2008
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well its 3:36 am good friday and i’m taking a minute to ponder. most of my brain hasn’t really clued in that we’ve come to that easter time of year again, with all the new things in my life i havn’t given it hardly any pondering. but i remember saying in one of my sermons that the more that we can make it to the foot of the cross the more we can understand “whys” of life, and be filled with the power for the “whats” and “hows”. so i’m trying to get there this morning (to the foot of the cross that is).
what i’m thinking about was that in the past my first thought of the cross is beauty. i always seem to see the cross (predominantly) as a very beautiful and poetic moment in God’s love story for us. i love isaiah where its talking about Christ and it says of Him, “Like one from whom men hide their faces” (Isaiah 53). men cannot bear to look upon the beauty of their own salvation, and how they mocked the hero that came back across enemy lines to save them, even though he was an enemy. that sticks with me, it always has. but this good friday i’m seeing something a little different, i (first) am seeing the power of the cross. the power of God is something that He know’s i need right now. “I am pressed but not crushed and persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4) God is almighty and gracious and He gives us what we need to overcome the evil that preses and persecutes and strikes down. this ”what we need” can come in a lot of different forms but the most crucial in all of history has to be the cross. there is just so much power held in those 3 small days. power to heal the hurting, undo the damage that we’ve done and power to set the captives free.
well that’s my ponder on the cross this morning straight up, its past 4:00 in the morning now so i’m going to bed.
Spring is Coming: Somebody Needs to Tell Jon McComish that He Should Stop Showing Off and Put on Some Shoes When He Boards… March 20, 2008
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February 28, 2008
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i wonder how much of literature is: man recreating a world that he has become disenchanted with.
the 4th conversation February 21, 2008
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::disclaimer: if you don’t know that ‘julia’ is my guitar, you might get a little confused::
::
i thought it right to finish what i started.
i began last week with an intemperate description of my intemperate mind as i struggled to complete an essay on things fall apart by chinua achebe. i believe this was the first book that i ever read twice. the book was: powerful, beautiful, purposeful and original — everything that my essay was not. thus, i had a conversation with sheryllee, my publishing partner, as i frantically searched for a muse in my life’s madness;
my pierides hiding in the lumpy pasture of my mind.
i let you, my readership, travel with me on this journey of writing an essay – four conversations, all containing a music video. hawksely workman to sufjan stevens to new buffalo and now david cairns. yet the piece of music and accompanying video might need some explanation.
::
i had an epic week. on tuesday i went to see matt costa and delta spirit at the starlite room. both acts were extremely good and the show finished around midnight. since i had been writing in circles for the past few days, when i arrived at home i decided to continue my weariness. this writing came hard at first, but by five in the morning the words were pouring out of me in torrents of genius. i lie – well, just the last line. no torrents of genius ever came.
it was a gritty boxing match. sticky blood and salty sweat covering the titans, as they battle for hours, in the name of vainity.
the final essay was not overly powerful, but thick with tension. not unspeakably beautiful but attractive by adventure. not purposeful, no, not at all – but it was original. it was a battle field and after a night of toil…here comes the sun.
the sun coming up on the end of the calamity, no remeinance of pure redemption, none. only the physical glimmer of the morning sun on the green parts of the grass that make us wonder about some moving on.
i came to this fairytaleish-civil-war-sunrise after a i had hammered out a solid draft. i then picked up my julia and decided to let her weigh in on the morning.
so there we were: me, julia, sheryllee, and God in the morning.
julia’s voice filled the basement as the essay lay on the table, and after many hours of correcting and editing i would hand it into my teacher the next day.
::
also included in my epic week was me, running out of groceries and eating pierogis for three meals in a row. just pierogis. did i mention that i didn’t sleep for about 40 hours straight, due to the fact that i decided to go to school after staying up all night? but after stumbling my way from february 11th to 15th, i loaded a irresponsibly packed bag into 1993 toyota carolla and headed for the mountains, which are an essay from God (if you will accept it): powerful, beautiful, purposeful and original.
in His essay i glimpse an end to such calamity and the beggining of a pure redemption.
::just in case your wondering about the music, its only julia, one time. she is just that beautiful, and if i could actually speak to her more properly, that symphony you hear behind her, might be a little more orderly. a little less ‘drunken men in tuxedos shammering symbols together at the wrong times and their tangy bows bearing down on mediocre chords’. but the music’s undercurrent is laced with some notes of shear brilliance, rising up on sturdy legs…finding their begining deep in julia’s sides::
update on my essay: i’m thinking that no one cares — still February 12, 2008
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well, i wanted to update you with a music video, but unfortunately there is so much debauchery in music video’s today, thus all my desired video’s were not fit for the toffee tree. thus i leave you with this nice video, a happy video
