February 17, 2008

Moving on down the road

I have disappeared for a long time now. I feel differently. You can now find me here.

Posted by jefield at 9:50 PM | Comments (0)

September 11, 2007

A flash and then...

There was an incredible event this evening. As S. and I stood on the front porch, an amazing thunderstorm swept into town. The flashes were fast and furious, lighting up the whole sky, and then the cracks of thunder were raw and close and unmitigated by anything. We could sense the electricity in the air as the storm winds blew through the trees. And then, as a thunderstorm does in these parts, the sky opened and the rain fell. For a few minutes, the deluge came and the lightning was fierce and the thunder bore down upon us and things were strange and beautiful on our front porch. Then the thunder and lightning passed and the storm settled in to becoming a torrential downpour. The ferocity of the rain was transfixing. Then, I was running through the house, closing windows and making sure that everything was dry. It was a beautiful moment on the porch. It welcomed us into Fall. The air is cool now as the breeze blows through my window and I cannot help but think that this storm presages a kind of internal activity. There is the beginning of the creative again. The summer, for me, is an outward time whereas this time of year facilitates my tendency to inwardness. I long for the days to come, but not in the sense of passing outside of myself and hoping to be elsewhere, rather I long for the day to come as a kind of guarantee on the potential of this moment. I would rather be here right now than anywhere else in the world. I know that this space has lain dormant for a long period of time. I am hoping that this storm draws me back into the kind of writing which this space has always allowed for me. Ebb and Flow is a space which allows me to express and make real a certain understanding of the world which no other kind of expression has afforded me. Tonight, I look forward to many more posts which will draw you into my world and my way of being. Tonight, I look out and see you. In the space between us, there is a kind of electrical storm. We manage to make out the outlines of our individuality in the togetherness of our lives in this moment. The storm which passed through my life tonight only allowed me to open up this space again because it made me acutely aware of the fact that we are sharing the world. The space of thought which lies between us is dynamic, mutable, and electric with life.

Posted by jefield at 10:31 PM | Comments (1)

August 7, 2007

I do have things to write

But I don't have time to write them. Consider this a raincheque on the future. As I sit here tonight blissed out from an incredible yoga class, I imagine so many things to write. But it is late and I am tired, good tired, the kind of tired which you experience when you are full of life and your muscles require sleep, so I will bid you bonne nuit. I will find my way to this space soon, so very soon. For now, know that I imagine good things to come.

JE

Posted by jefield at 10:49 PM | Comments (0)

July 22, 2007

Road Trip pics

It has been a long time since I've posted. I decided that while I was on vacation that I would not post anything on Ebb and Flow. S. and I arrived home from our road trip on Friday evening. It was an absolutely fantastic adventure in getting lost and finding ourselves over and over again. The time spent driving was an amazing opportunity for us to talk about life and what it means, while the time with our family in the maritimes provided both of us with a wonderful chance to get to know everyone a little bit better. I have posted pictures from our road trip as a slideshow here. I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as we enjoyed the living that allowed us to capture these moments. The adventure of life keeps on giving and giving. Life in the moment is extraordinary. I will post more on the trip later.

Posted by jefield at 3:34 PM | Comments (2)

July 8, 2007

The birds

So, we have a cat. Our cat is named Satchel and this is his first real summer as an outdoor cat. Being an outdoor cat has been phenomenally good for Satchel's health. He's lost weight, he feels more muscular, he looks healthy, and he seems happier. At the beginning of the summer, Satchel would not go outside during the day, but now it seems like he spends every waking moment outside doing cat things. We consider Satchel to be a kind of teenager with somewhat mysterious ways. He wanders in and eats whenever he wants to, we clean up after him, and he seems to sleep all the time. Of late, though, his cat behaviour has become somewhat more problematic for us. A week ago Thursday, I was at work and S. telephoned. With no explanation, she said, "You have to come home now." After explaining that I couldn't just leave, she told me that there was a bird in the house. Satch had brought a live bird into the house. I told S. to separate Satchel from the bird and then using the broom herd the bird towards the window or the door. She hung up and about ten minutes later she telephoned to say that the bird had flown out the living room window and, although she was disturbed by this occurrence, everything was fine. It was interesting though because in the ensuing discussion, we both recollected Margaret Laurence's A Bird in the House and the superstition that a bird in the house presages a death in the family. Superstition aside, we were both very glad that the bird had not died in our basement. After work that day, we did some investigation on the internet and S. was able to confirm that it was a grackle that Satchel had caught. Fast forward to the following Tuesday. It had been a long weekend of many adventures and I was having a difficult time waking up for work, when I heard S. call out my name and say, "Jon Eben, there is a dead bird." I responded by saying that she was only saying that to get me out of bed. She repeated herself very seriously and I went downstairs and, lo and behold, directly behind my chair at the dining room table was a dead baby starling. Now I don't really like starlings very much. They are dirty, noisy, bossy little birds, but I also did not want one dead on my floor. When I picked up the bird to take it outside and deposit it in our green bin, I noticed that its neck was broken, but there was no blood. I ascertained that Satchel had killed the bird by playing with it. He had not eaten the bird. I felt a kind of relief from this realization. He may have killed the bird, but it was still an experiment. He was not a purposeful murderer. That is, until today. I was having a relaxing afternoon listening to a Bill Munro album when I heard the sound of wings beating against the heating ducts in the basement. I quickly realized that there was another bird in the house. The predator had struck again. I wanted to rescue the bird, so I ran into the basement. I saw Satchel looking up at the ceiling from a table we have in the basement. He jumped just as I came down the stairs and the bird flew towards the only window. With a fluid motion that reminded me of footage of big cats killing zebras, gazelles, waterbuffalo in Africa, I saw Satchel streak across the floor jump up onto the washing machine, stretch both paws out, grab the bird and pull it towards his mouth. I heard the bird screech and screech and screech. I ran away and covered my ears thinking that the bird would be dead in a second. In a minute I made my way upstairs and waited. I phoned S. at a friend's house and explained the situation. She refused to come home until the bird was out of the house, dead or alive. I was left responsible. I went downstairs. I found Satchel purring and rubbing up against a bird that had almost given up the fight. There was blood. There were feathers. I left again. I called my brother. He suggested that I get Satchel out of there and then use a shoe box to carry the bird out of the house. Next time I came down, the bird was nowhere to be seen. Satchel was walking around purring. I took him upstairs. I went looking for the bird. I noticed some blood on the washing machine, peeked over the edge, and the bird came flapping up into my world. I was terrified. The baby starling was perched on the edge of the window. I ran over and caught the bird in a shoe box. I took it outside. I left the bird, but there was enough blood in the box to convince me that it would die very soon. After some deliberation about making Satchel into an indoor cat again, we have put a bell on him. Too much trauma and death for a week and a half. The little graveyard of the mind.

Posted by jefield at 10:01 PM | Comments (0)

July 6, 2007

St. John Conservatory

Weekend before last, we went on a picnic with our dear friends, B. and P., who happen to be travelling through Europe for the next couple of weeks. The picnic was had at the edge of a pond in St. John Conservatory, a little piece of paradise set aside for walking and taking in nature. I took some pictures of the event, so you can check them out here. The day was a lot of fun. The food was great. And it was simply splendid hanging in the woods with bugs and fish and tadpoles and frogs and turtles and, of course, other people. I really like natural environments and how we interact with them. This trip brought me a lot of joy.

Posted by jefield at 11:52 PM | Comments (0)

June 27, 2007

Ella Kathryn

Well, I have very exciting news. My brother's family has a new addition. On June 25th, at 4:52 p.m. AST, a young beautiful girl weighing 8lbs 3oz was born. My brother, T., and sister-in-law, S., named this sweet baby, Ella Kathryn Field. I am so incredibly happy for my brother's family right now. I expect that they are having an incredibly intense experience. The newness of a baby's life tends to throw all extraneous details out the window. Only the essential matters right now for them. I am now an uncle several times over (three times by law and twice by blood) and I have to say that it is a pretty phenomenal state within which to exist. I cannot wait to meet this precious young girl and smell her sweet baby smell and rock her to sleep in my arms. There is something so fantastically amazing about the process of life. Ella Kathryn is new to life, she is fresh, she is open, she is tender, she is soft, but, at the same time, I recognize that she is remarkably strong. Ella's sister Anna, another strong girl, is now experiencing what it is like to have a younger sibling and, although I know her life might feel chaotic in ways that don't entirely make sense to her young mind, I also know that having a sibling to go through life with makes an inestimable change in experience. These sisters will be friends, playmates, rivals, explorers, and learners together. They will have the chance to learn not only about the world, but also about one another. They will experience life together and, if my experiences with my siblings are any example, theirs will be filled with love and hope and care (and the occasional sadness, to be sure), but all in all, what they have will be shared. They will have those experiences together. I envy my brother. I am looking forward to the possibility of fatherhood because I think it will open my life up in ways I cannot even imagine right now. Ella is only two days old, but already she has stirred up my life. The thoughts pour out fast and furious now. It has been a long day. I am already looking forward to my adventure in Nova Scotia this July. Ella, I cannot wait to meet you. Tell your sister to help you take care of T. and S. I send love to all of you guys in Nova Scotia tonight.

Posted by jefield at 10:44 PM | Comments (0)

June 14, 2007

My wife

It has been one week since S. left for Vancouver and we have been having an email correspondence that reminded me of all the writing we used to address to one another when we were younger and apart. It has been so long since we've spent a significant period of time apart that I had forgotten what longing is like. Now, you may say that a week is not that long. Sure, sure, but when you've got a relationship like S. and I do, then you know that there is a strange stretching of time that makes separation feel infinite. Now, when I spoke to her on the phone this evening, she laughingly joked about the (as she put it) whimsy of my emails. Now I may be many things, but I do not often think of my writing as whimsical. I queried her on her choice of words and she told me, "You know, all that romantic stuff." That stuff is my bread and butter sustenance when she is not around. S. won't let it stand when she is around because it is a tad overwhelming, but when she is away, it offers me a way to communicate some very fundamental aspects of my identity. You see, the person I have become today is inextricably linked to the phenomenon of my wife. I care about her because she is part of me. We have an easy relationship that allows us to simply be together. We don't expect any thing other than what each can offer. So, I have to confess that writing this post is, in some ways, an avenue to circumvent the stricture that S. has placed on my self-conscious whimsy. I believe that S. is an extraordinary person who deserves to be loved because she is who she is. I don't know what I can say beyond that. In my mind, she is all that I need. Missing her has become a normal part of my life while she has been gone, but, now that she is coming home, I can open up and say that I cannot wait for her arrival. I am all atwitter with excitement about the possibility of seeing her again. I anticipate her presence. I think of the conversations we will have and the food we will eat and the music we will listen to and on and on and on. So, now, on the verge of posting this, I hope that you are reading this, S., and that my whimsy has not become too much. I hope that the sentiment I have expressed is adequately circumscribed by unromantic language. I hope that you read this and think of me here thinking of you. You are my future, my love. I await your return.

JE

Posted by jefield at 7:03 PM | Comments (2)

June 8, 2007

Taking a moment to breathe

First off, I want to thank Caryn Drexl for the use of her exquisite image entitled Her Breath. Her excellent work can be found here. It is really worth taking a look around. Uhmm, where was I? Ah, right, breath. Breathing is vital. I often wonder if we truly understand the complex process involved in inhalation and exhalation. We take in the atmosphere, in all of its purity and pollution and, somehow, miraculously there is life within us that pulses and pulses through time. Each time you are taking a breath, you are betting on the possibility of continuing this process. Everyone knows where we go when the breath eventually goes, so, knowing that, what do we do? Do we choose to turn and face the world and understand the depths and beauty of what is surrounding us? At best, we catch glimmers out of the corners of our eyes. But there are those who can bring back these glimmers. We gather around and attempt to understand this fragment from that other world which is so powerfully beautiful that you have to turn away just long enough to breathe and then face it again. And on and on and on it goes until you find yourself trying to pull that moment of understanding together and, somehow, in the internal subterranean chambers, it happens, it all just comes together in the most extraordinarily exhiliration, life. Simply that, the fact that we are is so important to remember. We take this way of life for granted. It is time to become more aware and more capable of curbing our endless desires. Take a moment to breathe and remember this thought.

Posted by jefield at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)

June 5, 2007

Perhaps this is a little much

Well, some of the irises have migrated to the house. We had really pounding rain the other night and many of the blooms were knocked to the ground and unable to lift themselves again. So, I cut them off and brought them into the house. What with the flowers that S. brought the other night on his visit, we are overwhelmed with flora. Though they were taken at night and the flash is a bit strong, I decided to put some pictures up on Flickr. You can check out the slideshow here. Things are going well chez nous. And yes, I cut off all my hair again. Seasons change and the reality of southern Ontario heat and humidity requires a pragmatic reaction.

Posted by jefield at 9:24 PM | Comments (0)

June 3, 2007

Next the garden

This weekend, as I was tending the vegetables in my garden, I caught a glimpse of purple out of the corner of my eye that I did not recognize. I did not immediately turn to figure out what it was because, it was as though I did not fully understand what was there. Have you ever had one of those moments? A moment in which you dimly grasp something near the periphery of your experience, but do not have the foresight to firmly direct your attention towards that hint, that flicker, that miniscule foreboding. It was one of those moments. I kept on working in the garden, pulling weeds here, tending plants there. Everything was going fine. Then, when I was finished, I turned away from the garden, started to look across the yard at my neighbour's flowers, and there they were. As though unbidden from some extraordinary other world of creation, all of my irises were in bloom. The purple that I glimpsed became a world of beauty. They were there. They were real. And I had only noticed them dimly. When that much beauty is contained in the world, it is important to remember to give yourself time to look. So today, when my friend, S., was visiting, I made sure to point out the irises because beauty should not be ignored.

Posted by jefield at 11:41 PM | Comments (0)

May 25, 2007

A t-shirt I saw in a picture

I was looking at a set of pictures taken of individuals as they were popping balloons. It was a fascinating little exercise in collection. One of the participants in the series was wearing a t-shirt that said the following: "Trees are bad for pollution." The shirt made me laugh. And then, as if from nowhere, it made me want to cry. We live in a strange world.

Posted by jefield at 2:26 PM | Comments (0)

May 24, 2007

Guelph & Environs

S. and l took a delightful trip to Guelph over the weekend. We visited with N. and Ruby and my friend Greg. I was struck by how fun a road trip can be. We are already looking forward to our trip to Nova Scotia this summer. The road trip that never ends. If you are interested, here are some snaps from our trip.

Posted by jefield at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)

May 23, 2007

Ruby

Meeting someone for the first time can be an auspicious occasion. When that person is the baby daughter of a close friend, then the level of joyfulness becomes augmented even further. S. and I had the opportunity over the weekend to meet our friend N.'s baby girl Ruby. As soon as we met Ruby, everything became Rubylicious. She is a happy baby with an incredible set of eyes. Although she is not entirely comfortable going to people other than mom right now, she is still a total blast to hang out with. She is on the verge of walking. We've been doing it our entire lives, but there are always those first few steps which gesture into the future and the possibility of a life lived. I always recognize the pure potentiality when I am around children. It gives me enormous gratification to realize that a being so small has all the makings of a full grown individual inside. The latency of this particular thought allows for me to see that there can be very few things more breathtaking than the openminded glance of a baby. Ruby and N. have already established a formidable relationship. I suspect that this has a lot to do with the amount of time that they have spent together (you see N. is a single parent). I am incredibly proud to know both of these people. They have a bond that is going to grow and change, but the fact of their being together with such strength and in such a short period of time will never be diminished. Meeting someone like Ruby let me get to know a part of my friend, N., which I am sorry to have missed as a result of leaving Vanvcouver. Her life as a mother began shortly after we left that city and I know, had we stayed, things would have been different, but we cannot dwell too much on what hasn't been because if we do we lose sight of what is. To Ruby and N. I hope you are doing well tonight.

Posted by jefield at 8:56 PM | Comments (0)

May 17, 2007

The fireworks of Flaubert's epilepsy

For some time now, I have been fascinated by the life and work of Gustave Flaubert. The author who never fully appears in his work is particularly interesting for me because of his ability to maintain his scrupulous distance from his published writings. I am drawn into his refusal to reveal his hand because I understand that his absence is a more palpable form of presence and revelation than anything that could be accomplished through the "I am" and "I said" of writing. So one of my ongoing projects has been to read what Flaubert has written. About a month ago, I finished his last published novel, The Temptation of Saint Anthony, and have recently begun reading his correspondence. I should, though, indicate that I read Geoffrey Wall's Flaubert: A Life and that much of what I am about to write is influenced by that particular biography. Because I have experience with the reverse side of sanity, I am drawn to what Flaubert has to write about his experiences with epilepsy. The onset of his epileptic attacks allowed Flaubert to abandon his education at law school and, in many ways, created a space for Flaubert to live a life of the imagination. So that is the context. He was working away at studying for his law examinations, had taken a brief break from his studies and returned to Rouen to visit with his family. While home, his older brother Achille and he had gone on a trip to look into the possibility of buying a cottage. On that ride in the dark which is unimaginable to us now because we live in a world that is perpetually filled with light pollution, Flaubert had his first attack of epilepsy. His falling allowed him to return to a life of reverie and, although there were innumerable fees to be paid to the gods of modern day medicine, his time became his own. But what had happened? What had transpired in his mind? Later, he would write to his lover, Louise Colet, in a letter the following:

"Each attack was like a hemorrhage of the nervous system. Seminal losses from the pictorial faculty of the brain, a hundred thousand images cavorting at once in a kind of fireworks. It was a snatching of the soul from the body, excruciating. (I am convinced I died several times.) But what constitutes the personality, the rational essence, was present throughout; had it not been, the suffering would have been for nothing, for I would have been purely passive, whereas I was always conscious even when I could no longer speak. Thus my soul was turned back entirely on itself, like a hedgehog wounding itself with its own quills."

The fireworks of the self caught in temporal agony. The space of the self becomes expansive and vast. I understand this particular possibility of the self because it resonates with what I've felt in the past. The agony of seeing past the limit. The limit of the agony past seeing. The seeing limit of the past agony. There is a space of consequent understanding here which belies any simple attempt to map the mind.

Posted by jefield at 7:25 PM | Comments (0)

May 14, 2007

Taking stock of the forests of the self

Not long ago, I was wandering through the forests on the Niagara escarpment behind the university where I work. I stopped by the side of the trail and was stunned by the virtual silence that surrounded me. This silence, though, was only the silence of a forest disturbed because, as I sat quietly, the forest slowly but surely came to life as birds called to one another across the steep embankments, chipmunks scurried through the underbrush, and leaves that had hung on through the whole of the winter quietly gave way to the new spring growth. As I sat I also realized that my understanding of the world was slowly down. There was space between my thoughts. There was a forest of the self that I was in. So, within the live forest, I found myself further embedded within the forest of myself. The leaves of my life ruffled by the silence fell into place and I became enchanted by the possibility of understanding myself anew. There it was; that glimmering moment of recognition caught in the act of becoming in midst of a new space. This forest, though, was new only in appearance because its age transcended my ability to reckon. There was a wealth of knowledge hidden in the sounds of that space. As I sat, a thought came to me, I took up my notebook, poised my pen, and wrote, "Quietly now, I take stock of the forests behind the University." At precisely that moment, my phone rang and I was called back into that other world and those were the only words that I wrote. But if I could have continued, I hope that I would have ended up in the place where that afternoon I was taking stock of the forests of the self while understanding that every moment is a leaf in the vast canopy of leaves which make life possible on this planet.

Posted by jefield at 9:49 PM | Comments (0)

May 10, 2007

Why?

In the foreword to Survival in Auschwitz, Primo Levi writes, "The need to tell our story to 'the rest,' to make 'the rest' participate in it, had taken on for us, before our liberation and after, the character of an immediate and violent impulse, to the point of competing with our other elementary needs. This book has been written to satisfy this need: first and foremost, therefore, as an interior liberation."

Posted by jefield at 10:21 PM | Comments (0)

May 8, 2007

Looking forward in the present

Where does time go? Where do we go? Where are we now? Where are we going? These questions and many others have been recurring in my life as I pass from moment to moment, but unlike other periods of my life when these thoughts, queries, and questions would have been recorded here for the perusal of all and sundry, these inquiries have only existed in my mind and the people with whom I've been speaking. I would like to apologize to my faithful readers for the breach of this space, but, at the same time, I recognize that I need to acknowledge that growth occurs in many ways in life and, it seems to me at this point in my life, that I required this time away to make better sense of what I am doing here in the first place. I have been doing all the things that I love doing: reading, listening to music, and writing. But I still have felt like I've been overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of things that require doing on a day-to-day level. Part of this I think is the change of season. I always find the transition periods between seasons to be difficult to reconcile. But enough of this. I am here back in this space to give you a sense of what I am planning. Ebb and Flow has suffered from an identity crisis. Or perhaps I should say I have forgotten what I started this weblog for in the first place. I am hoping to return to the more original format of the weblog where my comments would be related to what I am reading and thinking about and less about the difficulties of my life. Although I find my life to be an interesting phenomenon to examine, I am sure that you would like to see a more varied content in this space. Looking forward then. Looking forward with the eyes of a newborn. But do not think that I mean an innocent or unworldly looking. This is a looking that requires the openness to expect beyond expectation. The looking that calls out deep within the world and asks, as Baudelaire does in The Voyage, "Et puis, et puis encore?" And after that, what after that? This is a question that needs to be taken up at a very fundamental level of existence. In the increasingly commodified world in which we live, it is necessary to ask, "What next?" What is the next territory that will be colonized by marketers, transformed by stylists, and sold back to an eager public as a good that will make life happier, more full and complete? I've become angered by the devastating consequences of the lives that we lead. If you are on a computer reading these words right now, you understand the importance of asking the question, "What after that?" But it also echoes a train of thought which I've been having that I want to include more consciously in the content of Ebb and Flow; and that is, the importance of knowing what matters in art, literature, philosophy, poetry, music, life. So, for lack of a better manner of writing, I will simply create this space anew with the question, "What after that?" as a kind of resonating mantra. What will keep our focus? What after that?

Posted by jefield at 8:49 PM | Comments (1)

April 19, 2007

Spring

Well, I felt so much more alive today than I have felt for some time. The light, the warmth, the possibility of summer, all of these things infused my day. It seems that spring has decided to grace the Niagara region with its presence. The new season embraced me as I left work this afternoon. I walked out into the sun and was swept off my feet by a warm breeze, flowers blooming, and clear skies. I enjoy the winter, I really do. But I do so much better during the springtime. Spring is an inherently optimistic time of year. I understand why all the animals are performing their rituals of courtship. Spring and romance seem to waltz together through the world. I am especially alive to the changes in light patterns and I find that it is easier for me to function as soon as the rays of the sun are beating down with an increased fervour. I feel like things are starting to happen again because the connections are being made in my mind between who I am, what I do, and what I am becoming. I am starting to realize that the important aspects of my life are not any one particular reaction or thought formation, but rather what is important are the fluid relations which pass through my being. In this state of connecting with others and passing through the world, the articulation of the connection between who I am and what I do and what I think allows for me to engage with alternative conceptions of myself and the world. I see myself more clearly through the panoply of visions which arrive from the vantage point of others. We all experience our own reflections of the world through the others that we interact with in living. Through this process, we get to understand ourselves better, but we also are urged to become differently. If anything, we have to learn from the people that we interact with because, in doing so, we are enabled to understand differences. We are invariably different from one another. We are invariably different from ourselves. We are never given the opportunity to encounter ourselves, except through artifacts of the self, and the reflections provided by others. Our mediated relation to ourselves became especially clear to me today as I walked out of my office and into the bright sunshine and warmth of this wonderful spring day. It is good to be alive.

Posted by jefield at 8:12 PM | Comments (0)

April 8, 2007

Losing myself in meandering

I feel old. Not physically, nor mentally, but, somehow, existentially, I feel old. There is a fundamental aspect of my being that revels in its experiments with longevity. I remember things that don't need to be remembered. The small details and gestures which normally fade with time are emblazoned within my mind. Those details that I remember do not necessarily make me feel particularly connected to any time or place, but seem to force me to engage in a long and distant meandering. I'm given to being overly sentimental about my relations to the world, so this tendency within myself does not provide me with any particular joy, but, at the same time, I recognize that I learn precisely through my tendency to remember. My feeling old gives me material for my wanderings. I wish that I had the talents required to take you with me, but, as it stands, I cannot. I cannot because I can only barely recognize the limits of my experience. I am constantly faced with the dilemma of knowing where I end and others begin. Perhaps this being old requires acknowledging that the boundaries between us are more porous than we are encouraged to admit. In the paraoxysm of death, we all forget and blend into one. The quality of knowing and being known races ahead of us there; we all forget and in forgetting become more than we ever were on our own. I am tired and old. I am old and tired. Nothing will make me forget who I am as long as I am alive. I am losing my connections to the past. I am lost in the meandering. I am tired of losing my way. Every day presents the possibility of forgetting who I am. I forget and then am forcibly reminded of everything that was left out of my current proclivity towards understanding.

Posted by jefield at 8:44 PM | Comments (1)

March 31, 2007

Satchel in Spring

On a much lighter note than usual, I have a new photoalbum on flickr of Satchel's (our cat) first real excursion outside since the winter. He is a very peculiar cat, but, perhaps, all cats are peculiar. He has a strange tendency to attach himself to us when we return from work (a friend describes the syndrome as velcro-kitty), but then when we really pay attention to him, he, in an extremely capricious manner, will go from loving cat sidekick to biting monster. Even though they are really love nips and can be read as signs of affection, it still leaves me wondering what he is really thinking. S. would argue that he does not think at all. So, after all this, he and I went on a little adventure in the backyard yesterday. The pictures can be found here. Enjoy your day.

Posted by jefield at 12:25 PM | Comments (0)

March 26, 2007

The past finds me

I cannot help it. The past tracks me down and forces me to remember. The world brings me full circle. I was thinking about the cyclical nature of life, the transformational experience of time, and the generally bizarre echoes of the past which present themselves in my life. While these thoughts rumbled around in my head, it occurred to me that history is not so much a discrete transition from one stage to another (although I had not thought of it in this manner for a number of years), but an omnipresence of all historical periods simultaneously. The Dark Ages do not disappear, they simply become displaced from one sociocultural milieu to another. This transformation of my understanding of history allowed me to revisit a question that has plagued me for as long as I've been able to articulate it. That question is: Where does the past go? Although there is not a concrete answer to this particular speculation, I have been attempting to understand what it means to think through this enigmatic problem. I understand the present in its present-ness, but I do not understand the past. I know that somehow the present passes into the past and becomes a distinctly hidden entity. We try to retrieve the past through documents of human activity, whether these are stone age tools or last week's grocery list. The past surrounds us with its absence. It recalls the many things, both accomplished and unaccomplished to mind. I am also startling aware of the fact that the past is relative to every lived experience. I cannot begin to think about the past of, say, the French Revolution, without also, at the same time, thinking through my own memories of learning French in junior high school. The two are inextricably written together in my mind. My personal autobiographical history is intertwined with all the experiences which have occurred, temporally, outside my lifespan. It is becoming a question of what I will take into my life as part of me. For now, I am thinking about the past because I was reminded of it by an archivist.

Posted by jefield at 9:21 PM | Comments (0)

March 24, 2007

Why I write

Hello. I feel like I've been writing here for years and, in some sense, I have been doing just that, but today, when I was asked by a friend, A., why I wrote on Ebb and Flow, I did not feel like I gave an adequate response. This afternoon I talked about the inscription of the self in a virtual space, I talked about the need for the outlet of the thoughts which could not readily be expressed in any other space, but, ultimately, what I wanted to talk about, which I did not, was death. I write here because I am going to die. This space provides me with a graphic field to think through that eventuality. I am not a morbid person, in fact, I think that most people who know me would agree that I am quite joyful most of the time. But this dichotomy which I've set up connecting death and sadness, and, life and joy, is not adequate to the means of expression that I want to bring to bear on this writing. I write because I am indescribably alive and, in the face of this vitality, I find myself drawn towards the expressive side of my existence. I write for no single other reason than to acknowledge the very is-ness of me. Writing allows me to experience the space of imagination. Writing is a process that allows me to delve deeply into who I am and discover the echoes of my life which resound in the hollow cage that this body is (Arcade Fire got it from Saint Denys-Garneau's Cage D'oiseau who I believe got it from Plato's The Apology of Socrates, although I am willing to admit that I might have constructed this history). By bearing witness to the process of my own existence in written form, I can simply be. I write here because I am privy to myself more clearly. I learn from the extension of the self. I push myself out and become different through the words that I use to describe who I am. Proteus and Hercules. Discern for yourself who you are. I know who I am. I've been reading a lot lately and I feel full of thoughts. I love the transportation of the self through the worlds of the mind. Exploring the space that is conjured up through reading is the best thing I can imagine for myself right now. So I write because I am going to die and, although this may sound morbid, I enjoy the fact that this process marks the towards which I am following. The towards which all of us inevitably are following.

Posted by jefield at 6:20 PM | Comments (1)

March 18, 2007

Intensive space

Conversations help me to make sense of who I am. I hear certain motifs and themes that flow through the linguistic discourse of my life. Seeing as I am as I am, it is already clear that the fragments of the self which I have pulled out of the fluid stream of life are engaged in a process of coalescing into meaningfulness. Without knowing the exact divinations necessary to make sense of all of this, I am still immersed in the long dive into the self. I am caught up in the process of becoming other. Through analysis, I find that there is an interior filled with intensity which opens out upon the plain of my life. The space of dialogic communication is a profoundly meaningful engagement for me. I open up the space of my life for the consideration of others while, at the same time, I do my best to refrain from judgment upon the discursive constructions of others. Through this acceptance of the conversation of others, I make a space for others to experience their being in ways that are constructive, or, at the least, this is my aspiration. The delights of conversation have been a balm for me today. I do think that my understanding of the architectural space of dialogue allows for two significant elements to arise in relation to the self. First, by being open to the space of speaking with others, I am enabled to discover those elements of others which are often hidden or covered over in day-to-day life. This possibility of discovering things which are not readily accessible provides me with joy, but it also feeds into a discursive project that is very close to my heart. The details of life become grist for the mill of understanding. Second, I find that I discover that the self-revelatory practices of others allow for a more nuanced understanding of myself to occur to me. I can understand myself better when seen through the untarnished mirror of the self which others reveal when I am simply open to the space that is needed in order for conversation to occur. The space which transpires in conversation is intensive because it opens out upon itself endlessly free. There is no limit, no transactional account, no end to what may become in the possibility of voicing the discourse of the self. The self is, at best, just a placeholder for that endless signification that we acknowledge as the space of intersubjective communication. Conversation opens up for me the possibility of understanding, of meaning, and of being.

Posted by jefield at 10:06 PM | Comments (0)

March 14, 2007

Wavering

I've been tired lately. It seems like I don't have the same level of energy as I used to have. I wonder if this does not perhaps have something to do with the seasonal change. It probably also is related to the time change. Every year, the springing forward throws me for a loop. Even though I love the fact that the sun is up for so much more of the day, I still find it difficult to adjust for the first week. So here I am tired and you are probably wondering what I've been doing with myself. I've been listening to music, reading books, cooking and eating good food, doing yoga, practicing meditation, working, hanging out with friends, and trying to make sense of myself and the world. A fairly repetitive motif if you have been reading the pages of Ebb and Flow for any period of time. Life is full, though, and I am relatively happy. I am quietly contemplating. A question I've been meaning to pose to everyone who wanders across this site: Who are you? My grandmother sent me an email today with that subject line and, even though this was probably not her intention, it set me thinking about the limits of who I was. I began to think of what was inside me, what was part of me, and what was outside. The definition of the boundary of the self is something I struggle with at the best of times. I know others are prevailed upon by the depths of their understanding to question the who, the what, and the why of their existence. But it seems to me that there is a fundamental disconnect which can happen in our lives. We can all too easily keep these questions secret from those around us. We feel that there is a level of intimacy required to engage in these quests and we don't want to risk that others may be insensitive or uncaring about our personalities. I am wavering today because I am tired. I am wavering between the known and the unknown. Opening the self up to this type of self-scrutiny is not always easy nor productive. But right now, I feel unimaginably close to the surface.

Posted by jefield at 9:38 PM | Comments (2)

March 6, 2007

Losing track of time

Well, what have I done this time? To set the context, I will have to venture back to a conversation I was having with some friends of ours who were visiting from Edmonton on a recent trip through Toronto. L. told me that since she and D. had had their twins, they were making strategic decisions about how they spent their time because socializing time had become so supremely precious to them. I noticed she wasn't wearing a watch and asked about this. She replied, "I don't have time to wear a watch." It struck me as a profound and, at the same time, contradictory statement, but I passed on in the conversation to other topics and the evening continued. Four days ago, though, I noticed that the wind-up watch which I have been wearing constantly since S.'s father gave it to me had gained seven minutes. This watch was S.'s great-grandfather's watch and I treasured it even though I had never met him. The watch had always kept time slightly erratically. By this, I mean that it gained approximately three to five minutes per day. Every morning when I woke up, I knew that I had to wind the watch and set it back a few minutes. It was an interesting exercise in self-discipline. I knew that the measurement of time was arbitrary, especially because my watch was so fallible, but, even more than this, I knew that there was something that was eluding me in my use of time. So, all of this is to say that four days ago, I took off my watch. It was strange at first. The absence of my watch left me wondering what was happening. That is, I don't know why not wearing my watch would make me feel like I did not know what was occurring. But, somehow, it did. I made it through the day and only occasionally did I find myself pulling back my sleeve to reveal the absence of a watch. It is slightly shocking if you have worn a watch for a significant period of your life to discover that it is no longer there, guiding you through the moments, even if you were the person who decided to take it off. So, there I was, drifting through time, and I discovered that there were infinite other clocks in my environment should I ever require to know the time. There is a clock in our microwave, stove, in both of our computers, we have alarm-clock-radios in the bedroom; on my desk at work, for example, I have two clocks and my computer constantly marks the hours I pass at my desk. There is no lack of measurement of time. This is all too humourous, though, because now I am finding that I make better use of my time. I am more engaged in things and less often do I find myself wanting to get finished something only so I can get on to the next thing. Now I am more in time than when I wore a watch.

Posted by jefield at 8:39 PM | Comments (0)

February 26, 2007

Happiness

We all drift sometimes. We all get lost in the to-and-fro of life. We all have moments of sadness. Today, though, I want to articulate some thoughts on happiness. Happiness is not developed in the acquisition of goods or money. Happiness does not reside in the material aspects of our society, although we are relentlessly told that it does. The endless desiring in the economy of our world only further amplifies our alienation from any type of substantive happiness. I wager that the vast majority of individuals in our society experience happiness only briefly within their lives. And the instance of happiness is just that, an instant which, of course, passes and is gone. I do not think that happiness is an easy state to describe. Living in happiness is not an easy task. I do not claim to have mastered the art of happy life, but I do have the following considerations to offer. Happiness arises for me when I am able to accept the given circumstances of my life. When I do not fight or strive or argue with my life, then I find a type of quiet tranquility come over me that allows me to experience the harmony of happiness. Giving myself over to these experiences over time, I have discovered that the most important and relevant thing to remember is that I cannot cling to my moments of happiness because, immediately upon doing so, I discover that I am holding onto a memory and not living in the immediacy of the present. My happiness is fleeting. It is necessary that it be that way. Without the comparison between happiness and sadness, neither would make sense. I do not know that this is an especially profound insight, but it helps me to stay focused on what I am doing in the moment. I am here because there is not a single other place in which I could be with the presence of mind that I am inhabiting. The words that I use to express my experience come from a vantage point of distance. I inhabit the space between the words and in accepting the strange quality of this written experience, I discover that I am not alone, but, in fact, I am surrounded by the depths of life. In that depth, I experience the happiness of this moment which, though limited, expands exponentially on the plane of my existence. I discover the happiness which is mine. I hope that you have happiness in your life. I hope that you discover the now that allows you to be happy. But, if you do not have that experience in your life, do not give up. There is always the possibility in the future that you will be able to inhabit a happier state. Everything is relative. So the wheels of life turn. Every day brings different messages. Learn to examine them and come to understand why you are here.

Posted by jefield at 9:46 PM | Comments (0)

February 17, 2007

Pictures of Niagara Falls

My parents were here for two whirlwind visits in January and February. While they were with us in Ontario, we took them to Niagara Falls to witness the beauty of this place in the winter. I took a bunch of photos of us looking at the Falls which you can find here. Browse at your leisure. Take care of yourself tonight wherever you are.

JE

Posted by jefield at 5:26 PM | Comments (0)

February 15, 2007

I have a friend I've been meaning to call

Dear S.,
I have been thinking about you of late with an increasing frequency. I imagine your hectic life in Brooklyn, what with kid and job and writing. I know I should have called long ago, but it has seemed like every possible moment has been filled with friends, or family, or parties, or sleep, or food, or work. I imagine your deep voice on the phone. I imagine your slightly sardonic laugh as you recount your reading adventures. Your voice comes as a balm for me when I most need it. Your sense of the absurdity of life coupled with the absolute essential understanding that it is important to take care to make sense of the minutiae has kept me going from day to day. Your ability to do what you do has always astounded me. Prolific and aesthetically compelling. When there is a benchmark to be set in my life, I often imagine how you would approach a similar situation. I do not so much imitate what I think you would do, but, on a much deeper level, take my intimate knowledge of your beliefs and tendencies and use that as a source of knowledge to make the important decisions. We are brothers who are compelled to read ferociously. Our conversations skate across the thin ice of literature and I am definitely in need of a shot of your insight and worldly understanding. There are few people who I honestly feel that I could open up to as I do to you. You remember the hospital. The conversation in the park while I told you all the nefarious connections which I suspected allowed you to understand that I was not long gone, but merely in the realm of doxa. Zone, a present. I speak a strange language and you are one of the few individuals who can really understand the nuance of my voice. I wish that I could speak with you now, but I know you are sleeping. I imagine your apartment. Know that these thoughts reach out through the realm of the conscious wakeful world into the space of the dream. Butterflies and monks. Rest easy tonight in your bed. Rest easy tonight in your life. I anticipate the moment when I call you and I hear your rumbling voice in my ear. The intonation of your voice is a kind of solemn instance of beauty for me. The playfulness which is always Rabelaisian and Borgesian and Joycean continues on and on. Know, dear friend, that I am thinking of you, that I have thought of you, and that I will call. But, for now, sleep. Perhaps we will have a conversation in our dreams in separate countries.

JE

Posted by jefield at 9:27 PM | Comments (0)

February 6, 2007

Time slipping through my fingers like sand

The days pass. My fingers sift strange moments from the passage. Faces seen. Emotions glimpsed. Conversations murmured as though on the wind. I have opened up the moment within myself, but, in so doing, have managed to overwhelm myself with minutiae. There is a need for balance in my life. I often get caught up in my own personality. How better to describe this? I hear things that people say to me or about me to others and feel somehow beholden to these descriptions. I feel circumscribed by the voice from without. I suppose this is a rather ordinary description, but it coincides with my understanding that the moments of presence which I've been bringing to the world have been directed mostly outwards. Here. Here. Here, I can reestablish that connection through which I am able to understand myself and the world around me in a distinctly quiet manner. The tapping of the keys is a light balm to me. If you are not careful, the world slips by. There is only one life to live. If you are unable to grasp that life, then you have lost the possibility of actualizing yourself in the present. Do you see the small gestures in your life which give it its overall meaning? Can you pick out those tidbits of information which guide you through the darkness of the world? Have you ever lost your way and wondered how you will ever find your way back to the middle road? I do. I can. I have. But, what of it? Well, perhaps it is only enough to say that the sand passing through leaves a mark. It is an invisible mark, but a mark nonetheless. Perhaps because it is invisible, it is that much more significant. This invisible mark of the passage of time is none other than the thought of its passing. I feel time move through me. I feel time move around me and I know that the words I use to describe myself are being transcribed in time. I am making my invisible mark upon the world. What is there more to do? How can I hope for more? I see you looking here, looking there. All of this looking amounts to nothing.

Posted by jefield at 10:38 PM | Comments (0)