Ashlandsblog

There was a time in life when it was apparent that every man needed some time alone. It’s less obvious now. You’d have to rip open a space in a consciousness to get it. I do miss the days when I was free from spectators. Cold night, and walking in circles. But walking was never walking; it was searching.

And then you bring someone else into the mix and it all goes terribly. All of a sudden I have to adjust my pace, listen to their perspective, pretend to care, and they stop to pee. Motherf*ckers always ruin my tempo.

Thinking, to me, is like Jazz music. It exceeds analysis. It relies on intuition and action. You do what you do and you deal with it. So when I have someone asking me questions about how I come to some conclusion, I have to bite my tongue. You’re either a thinker or you’re not. Non-transferable skills, buddy. The post doesn’t even make coherent sense. I’m addressing an imagined adversary, a disappointing former companion, my sister who never asks for ketchup and gets me to ask for it.

Spectators everywhere. In no man’s land is anyone ever alone. Put your hand out, there’s always people reaching.

Growing inches from the day I’m born. Limbs unfolding, and the mind unravelling. Only to find that no matter how far into look into someone, I see halos. I’m not concerned with the good. I have seen them all my life. In my pursuit, I’ve lost my tidings. I’m looking for the devil that’s in disguise. For once to meet someone with no apology, all disclosure of their cruelty without excuse. Come on, make it easy and appear to me in crimson, horns and all, hooves. Do something bad, cause the pain and admit you are inconsolable. Don’t show me a past that makes up for it. I’d rather black and white. Anytime I think I’m close, someone weaker hides behind the veneer of austerity. Just another fraud with paper horns, and in my deep frustration I’ve started snatching the halos off of people’s head and frisbeeing them. I would like for once to not make amends on behalf of every injury sustained, worse to admit they’re not from some formidable foe, just another person whose limbs keeping growing and mind unravelling. And worse still that the closest I’ve come face to face with it is in the mirror.

“I didn’t know it was anything wrong,” says he. Everyone talks with a tone drawn from a certain central theme in their life. My sister identified mine as, according to her, the tone and base of someone always insufferably self-advocating. And that’s true, what’s wrong with that? Should I not make it explicitly clear at all times that—oh well, everyone has a certain theme.

My favorite customer, although sometimes he makes me question that title, has a chronic case of always being the “biggest person in the room.” He knows better, he feels more, he is going to lead, he’s the reasonable one.

The other one is poorly cracking jokes, or even his menial recall of the day is arm in arm with a base of laughter. As if everyone’s supposed to find him amusing or funny. But it’s not so, now it reads more like the ghost of his dead stand-up comedy career haunting his life and dialogue.

My oblivious friend tells me a story about what he did. And when I question the morality of the situation, he says he had no idea it was a bad thing to do. He’s oblivious, but somehow someone managed to follow a 15-step sequence of what a bad guy would do in a certain situation. Without practice. How crazy. If only he was cluelessly able to do the good guy things. A mind built to protect itself from blame. You’ll find most guys resort to this. A costume of innocence.

At least we can thank God those people eventually find someone just as bad, and it devastates them back into our shared reality.

I set 3 alarms, 10 – 15 mins apart, and I always start getting ready after the third. My first moment in the morning is pressing snooze and it turns off. I wish I could do that with people. Picture me with three Z’s comically over my head, the higher consciousness reminding me that some part of me is indefinitely bored. 

The first person that speaks to me in the morning, making some observation. Throwing a hook, a glittering thread designed to tug at my ego. It’s not that big, if it was, I wouldn’t complain about the attention. I’m suffonsified. Acknowledgement? Turn that into a golden trophy, but don’t forget the box. I’ll turn into a tiny coffin and add it to my graveyard. 

If act one was acting interested, act two is otherwise. And I’m better at act two. But in act three, we’re all together. Act three, is where all our untold stories meet again in conversation. Parting in real life, embedded in myth. Someone mentions me, and I’m alive again. Real reward is atmospheric, you can’t see it. It also helps me alleviate the desire to keep up.

I’m a metaphor. You guys are stakeholders.

Dog and cat. Black and white. Red and blue. Acting interested. Pretending otherwise. It’s not you, it’s –

There’s a miasma of the self I can’t escape. Every so often, I return back to myself at an alarming pace. It’s almost like no change or transformation has ever taken place. To me though, it’s like being healed again. Mended back to my younger self, a self that could willingly and naturally be unreasonably upset or irritable. On days like those, my family would bend the knees. Friends alike and any around my radius, tormented by my sullen demeanour. Any sage to cast away the purple clouds of despair that at times befall someone helplessly hopeful. 

So the people that have seen me bright might wonder why the Ash they’ve come to know, eager to tease, and sweet talk his way to your cup full, seems like he’s deep in the ocean, rid of thirst for next few lifetimes? That’s the real me. I’m afflicted by vastness, not a lack of anything. Permission slips to do whatever the hell stacked in my back pocket. I’m further away from touching my toes the closer I get. Because I’m hardwired to turn to back into myself. Displeased and unaffected, what once was clear skies, is all dark with cracks of light. And I name those cracks after people I know who remind me of days past.

When I meet these people, all of you, I am again reminded of a time I can be wilful and unreasonable, and like the days when I had a village of people to be street lights to my escape from solitude, I turn to you. And this disclosure, the only sign of some gratitude.

This one’s long-lasting. He parks his car exactly along the lines. Plaid blazer, plaid shirt, plaid socks, plaid scarf, and plaid pride. This man lives in lines, and he doesn’t cross them.

There’s a measuring tape in his pocket, and even if you think he’s not measuring the distance between him and another, he’s calculating it. A respectable amount of distance. He’s the kid in school who organized his stationery and waited for the teacher to praise him. And it all worked.

There’s nothing wrong with a man who lives in lines until he meets someone who loves crossing them. Diagonally. No measuring tape needed. No filter with words, no filter with what he wants to see. And so when they meet, lovely lines wants some fire. An ember- even an ash would do. To see what it’s like to break the rules. Jump the fence. Say the terrible joke (I think he’s crossed that line many times). I wish I could tell Lines you can only come down from a pedestal. But he’s worried he’s the single pillar holding up our sky.

But behind bars, he makes imaginary lines and jumps over them every time. And that’s why I’ve never seen him without a smile.

It’s better to die. You’re going to die anyway. Have you met people who can’t help but speak? Everyone knows someone like that, and we all know how badly we wish we didn’t. It’s inauthentic. If they write you ten sonnets, they love you; if they write you three hundred sonnets, they love writing sonnets.

Have you met someone who never speaks? They walk on the edge of safety and danger, perpetually flirting with this and that. Somewhere between speaking and dying- that’s a true romantic. People who speak in code. You never know; they’ll never confirm. A lifelong game of conquest, a door that leads to stairs, and stairs that go up, then down, and back to the same spot again. A box within a box, and if you look closely inside, you fall again into the trap of their uncertainty. That uncertainty is the only certainty about them. Words push you away while their eyes call you closer. Black and white. Cardboard under dusty clouds.

Romance in care and unspoken words is love that doesn’t ask to be recognized or witnessed- just felt. What else is God, if not unspoken?

Project Title: TBD

Shoot Location: WPG Concourse

Director: Ash

Compensation: My absolute care (conditional)

Seeking:

An individual who can authentically portray a regular customer who is constantly performing a “nice guy.” Must look handsome from all angles; tall, 6 feet and up, no more than 6’1”. Dark hair, wide-eyed. We want dispassion, a mute sense of exhaustion.

Must order a cortado. Sometimes forgets to say thank you, but still asserts goodwill through expression rather than words. Half-hearted approaches only- don’t act too eager for the part.

Our last guy only pretended to like coffee.

“I mean it’s strange, isn’t it? Worrying about what people think? Anyone that says that is lying too. You can’t care what everyone thinks anyway. There’s about 8 billion people and I definitely don’t care what all of them think. All details of life are-“ 

she pauses for a moment and interrogates her surroundings. And quickly adjusts her crown. Eyes narrowing, a takes a mighty drag of her cigarette, like we’re in smoking lounge. Long earrings, swaying like chandeliers “- consequential and inconsequential at the same time. The answer is in everything, born one day, decaying since then. Something sweet like milk to something bitter, smiling ear to ear then slowly your cheeks are too heavy to smile like you once used to. You can make your life mean something or nothing at all, if it doesn’t mean anything? do fuck all. Who cares and maybe you’ll feel a twinge of misery. Maybe persistently, or you can make everything mean something and have a latent comforting thought that it all matters. Both come with pain. I can convince someone to go on a little longer, to grab on a little longer, to see things a different way, if that doesn’t work? Burn your eyes, and rely solely on other senses. You better appreciate what’s before you, even if you’re used to it. I can be cruel too, I can wonder. There’s better out there, but I know there isn’t. Better is in me, and it’s in you. You’ll go searching for something, you’ll definitely find something but nothing becomes part of you like what’s already made of you.

There really are no more lessons, I’ve been kind, and forgiving, passive and confrontational, direct and mean, silent and reticent, sharp and ambitious, clear and concise, calm and collected. There’s no reward but the self.

So yeah I do think- wait what was the question Ash?”

“Do you like Taylor Swift?”