The Dark
I used to think I was not on the shoreline, standing there forlorn, hands on hips, tsk-tsking everything and everyone else. I used to think all my relatives and the families of friends and even most if not all of my friends were all there on the shoreline, afraid of the deep dark ocean. That shoreline is nothing more or less than accepted society. The community. Civilisation.
I used to think I alone had broken free somehow and was out on top of the ocean, swimming the breaststroke, ignoring the pleas of everyone else on the shoreline for me to come back to them where it was safe on sand. I did come back in to them regularly. To help with this or that. To guide, to give solace, to sing, to tell stories, to tell them they were all okay.
But I would always return to the sea, to the dark, to the universe that had ushered me forth.
Mainly I kept swimming, floating, and when darkness fell and the pleas from the shoreline got louder and more intense, more plaintive, at that point I would roll over on to my back and do the backstroke and blow air in and out. Taking long deliberate strokes in a direction I could not see but could somehow sense. Their cries would die out and the moon and stars would light up the sky above, a smorgasbord of eternal possibilities both forward and backward in time, in sight, in thought, in consciousness.
This has been the story of my life. To me. In my head.
Trouble was at some point I slipped under the surface. And then a second time. And a third. Time and time again I slipped under. Could not breathe. I am a lifetime asthmatic and I wonder where that came from. I know where it came from. Still I slipped under the surface many many many times, so many times that I did not notice it when one day, one last time, I did not come back up. I did not resurface.
And I don't know now how long I've been under, in the deep, in the dark. All alone.
But I do know it's been a very very long time. Most of my lifetime. And the songs I've written, the stories I've written, the stuff I've created, has been, when taken together, my long long journey back toward the surface. Back to the top. Back to the oxygen. To the stars. To the floating, rather than the drowning.
My view of the world has been tainted by this submerged life. It has had the stink of urine and bile and sweat and coffee and cigarettes coursing all through it and around it, stinking up every sojourn, every project, every friendship, every relationship, every course of employ, every course of study, of self-reflection, every fitness and wellness regime.
And then this morning, not a half hour ago, I broke through the film, through the surface and took a breath. And I realised I didn't have to ever sink down again, didn't have to ever drown again because the ocean, that ocean, is only knee deep. That's if you want it to be. You can venture further out and it gets deeper, but there's nothing out there except all your woes and pain and your enjoyment, your revelry of that pain. The darkness doesn't get any darker. The good stuff rises to the top and comes in and out with the tide. The bullshit filters down to the troughs deeper than Everest is high. That's where it's supposed to go. Looking for answers out there is like looking for answers in a sewer, in a toilet bowl, in a turd. And all a turd is is what you cannot consume anyways. So leave it there. It's none of your business.
I used to be friends with Georgiou. His parents were from Greece and had migrated to Brisbane after the war. WWII. He'd worked in his family's corner store in Highgate Hill full time since the age of 14. When I met him he was 39. A decade older than me. He had no dimensions to him. No light. No lightness except when it was self-deprecatory. He was all shade. All darkness. All regret and deep deep bitterness at life inside a grocery store.
George and I would meet for coffee on his rare mornings off. In New Farm or Yeronga or occasionally down in West End or Hill End. Some place where his father and mother and brothers and sister would not be likely to go. To catch him relaxing.
George most often talked about the cloud. His personal cloud. I'd never heard of such a thing but I instantly believed him when he told me about it. "It hangs over me all day every day," he'd say.
"Mmm-hmmm," I would say.
"What exactly is this cloud?" I would ask. "A heaviness?"
"It's hard to describe," George would say. "Heavy, certainly. It sucks the life out of you. You feel exhausted all the time. There's no joy, no peace. Just the cloud."
"No wonder you have trouble finding dates," I said. "I bet the women see this cloud a mile off."
"Do you see it?" he asked.
"Me? Nope," I said. "But then, you know, I'm a guy and we are notoriously clueless about that stuff."
Now at some point, possibly around the time of knowing George but not necessarily triggered by that relationship, I went under. I think I know when I went under. I think. I guess. I guess it was '93. In '93 I was unemployed the entire year. In July '92 I got my Bachelors Degree from the University of Queensland. I majored in journalism, philosophy and history. I loved it. I was the loudmouth sonofabitch in every class. I argued with professors, I wrung my hands, I orated from the back row, I questioned, cajoled, made visiting presenters earn their keep. Not for the sake of it, but because I so often smelled holes. Holes you could drive a submariner through. Hell I even banged my head on the desk a couple times.
One time in Ancient Greek History the professor was talking about how much power women had in Ancient Greece because they could throw themselves at the feet of their father, their uncles, their chaperones.
I said "That's not power. It's a reaction to not having any power."
Still it went on, with everyone in the room agreeing it was in fact real power and me arguing it certainly was not until at some point I began bashing my forehead on the desk while they gabbled on. Not my proudest moment, but still, sometimes things were so reduced.
I used to think I alone had broken free somehow and was out on top of the ocean, swimming the breaststroke, ignoring the pleas of everyone else on the shoreline for me to come back to them where it was safe on sand. I did come back in to them regularly. To help with this or that. To guide, to give solace, to sing, to tell stories, to tell them they were all okay.
But I would always return to the sea, to the dark, to the universe that had ushered me forth.
Mainly I kept swimming, floating, and when darkness fell and the pleas from the shoreline got louder and more intense, more plaintive, at that point I would roll over on to my back and do the backstroke and blow air in and out. Taking long deliberate strokes in a direction I could not see but could somehow sense. Their cries would die out and the moon and stars would light up the sky above, a smorgasbord of eternal possibilities both forward and backward in time, in sight, in thought, in consciousness.
This has been the story of my life. To me. In my head.
Trouble was at some point I slipped under the surface. And then a second time. And a third. Time and time again I slipped under. Could not breathe. I am a lifetime asthmatic and I wonder where that came from. I know where it came from. Still I slipped under the surface many many many times, so many times that I did not notice it when one day, one last time, I did not come back up. I did not resurface.
And I don't know now how long I've been under, in the deep, in the dark. All alone.
But I do know it's been a very very long time. Most of my lifetime. And the songs I've written, the stories I've written, the stuff I've created, has been, when taken together, my long long journey back toward the surface. Back to the top. Back to the oxygen. To the stars. To the floating, rather than the drowning.
My view of the world has been tainted by this submerged life. It has had the stink of urine and bile and sweat and coffee and cigarettes coursing all through it and around it, stinking up every sojourn, every project, every friendship, every relationship, every course of employ, every course of study, of self-reflection, every fitness and wellness regime.
And then this morning, not a half hour ago, I broke through the film, through the surface and took a breath. And I realised I didn't have to ever sink down again, didn't have to ever drown again because the ocean, that ocean, is only knee deep. That's if you want it to be. You can venture further out and it gets deeper, but there's nothing out there except all your woes and pain and your enjoyment, your revelry of that pain. The darkness doesn't get any darker. The good stuff rises to the top and comes in and out with the tide. The bullshit filters down to the troughs deeper than Everest is high. That's where it's supposed to go. Looking for answers out there is like looking for answers in a sewer, in a toilet bowl, in a turd. And all a turd is is what you cannot consume anyways. So leave it there. It's none of your business.
I used to be friends with Georgiou. His parents were from Greece and had migrated to Brisbane after the war. WWII. He'd worked in his family's corner store in Highgate Hill full time since the age of 14. When I met him he was 39. A decade older than me. He had no dimensions to him. No light. No lightness except when it was self-deprecatory. He was all shade. All darkness. All regret and deep deep bitterness at life inside a grocery store.
George and I would meet for coffee on his rare mornings off. In New Farm or Yeronga or occasionally down in West End or Hill End. Some place where his father and mother and brothers and sister would not be likely to go. To catch him relaxing.
George most often talked about the cloud. His personal cloud. I'd never heard of such a thing but I instantly believed him when he told me about it. "It hangs over me all day every day," he'd say.
"Mmm-hmmm," I would say.
"What exactly is this cloud?" I would ask. "A heaviness?"
"It's hard to describe," George would say. "Heavy, certainly. It sucks the life out of you. You feel exhausted all the time. There's no joy, no peace. Just the cloud."
"No wonder you have trouble finding dates," I said. "I bet the women see this cloud a mile off."
"Do you see it?" he asked.
"Me? Nope," I said. "But then, you know, I'm a guy and we are notoriously clueless about that stuff."
Now at some point, possibly around the time of knowing George but not necessarily triggered by that relationship, I went under. I think I know when I went under. I think. I guess. I guess it was '93. In '93 I was unemployed the entire year. In July '92 I got my Bachelors Degree from the University of Queensland. I majored in journalism, philosophy and history. I loved it. I was the loudmouth sonofabitch in every class. I argued with professors, I wrung my hands, I orated from the back row, I questioned, cajoled, made visiting presenters earn their keep. Not for the sake of it, but because I so often smelled holes. Holes you could drive a submariner through. Hell I even banged my head on the desk a couple times.
One time in Ancient Greek History the professor was talking about how much power women had in Ancient Greece because they could throw themselves at the feet of their father, their uncles, their chaperones.
I said "That's not power. It's a reaction to not having any power."
Still it went on, with everyone in the room agreeing it was in fact real power and me arguing it certainly was not until at some point I began bashing my forehead on the desk while they gabbled on. Not my proudest moment, but still, sometimes things were so reduced.
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