cold

I am so cold this morning. The weather in mid-august has turned chilly. Clouds have taken the morning and the thought that sunshine hides out awaiting a glorious return seems like astrology.
The air-conditioning in my building, in my office, is set to "august," so my hands feel thick and slow. I feel these nipples on my chest, contracted and taut beneath my shirt, and I know the cold is real and not just some paranormal concoction of my brain in response to everything I see and sense this morning.
When I arrived I turned the key in my office door and flicked on the lights. Once I had taken a seat and pushed the button on my computer, I glanced at my phone and the red alert button denoting the presence of voice mail, and I remembered the ominous buzzing of my pager from the evening before.
The voice on the first message was one of my employees updating me on her daughter's health. The previous day the daughter had a tumor removed from the surface of her brain. All had gone as planned and on this day, the ides of august, she had endured a heart transplant. My employee informed me the surgery had gone well and her daughter was breathing on her own and she had even opened her eyes briefly though slowly.
She emphasized how slow her daughter's motion had been and I slowly moved the handset from one ear to the other, trying to ignore the budding frost in my office and my own lethargy. I made notes: "Heart Transplant went okay-breathing on own-opened eyes." My employee planned on coming to work the next day.
An icy smile cautiously pursed the corners of my mouth as I reached out and erased the good news. Star-D to delete. I should have savored that message. I should have listened to it twice, maybe even saved it. I was too cool just letting it go as if I can always expect good news and everything always works out for the best in the end.
The next message was marked by uncontrollable sobbing. My employee coughed and wheezed and her breathing was like another language communicating the same message on some foreign wavelength to a felt but unknown audience as she explained the reason for her 4:37am call: "Michael, I won't be in today. . ."
In that moment I begged in my mind to hear something other than what I knew I would hear in seconds. I didn't pray to god nor did I call upon any higher source, I merely begged in my thoughts as if throwing pleas against the inside of my chest, the lining of my stomach, as if hurling these wishes so forcefully within myself could create a hole in my being, could create a vacuum in the universe and suck all the numbing news and tragedy out to a place far away from me. I wished she wouldn't say it. I wished it weren't so.
"My daughter passed away two hours ago." Aww fuck. My employee cried and wheezed and clamped down on words before releasing them like a rolled-up, damp towel was strapped between her teeth.
"MMM-mm-michael, I just wah-wwwh-wanted you to know. I won't be innnnn, this week." Near the end of her message her words were like silence. Gradually I could hear no more sobs, no more panting, no more clenching phlanges.
". . .need to reach me my cell phn nmbr zz eenh-oonh-hee, ay-hoo-o, hay-ainh-hree-hainh." It was clear mumbling. I scratched out the numbers below my previous note. Star-D. I had grown used to listening to messages from this employee. For about four weeks she had been leaving them at all hours almost every day. I would listen regularly around 6:30am and one of the days she made it in to work I joked with her about the loneliness of my morning not having heard from her.
She will be lonely now. Her daughter is gone. The time she had her will never be long enough. All the happiness she brought will be remembered and when it is, it will be followed by bitterness and anger and frustration and despair. (No other response would be sane.)
My employee joked back that morning, exhibiting the strength only women know. When things were bad, she had the strength to cry. When they were good, she went to work and laughed when it was appropriate to laugh.
Today is my brother's birthday. He lives in a cell in a prison in another state. It is winter in my office. Yesterday I received a letter from him. He wants me to send him a care package I can purchase online. Hygiene products and microwaveable stews and chicken breasts, these are the commodities of prison life.
I wish I could go to a bar with my brother today and down a pitcher of beer and talk about how good it is to be together for our birthdays, (mine was four days ago,) but we are not together. One month ago I became engaged to be married. I wish my brother could be there on the day faith and I wed. problem is, wishes do not cause holes in the chest nor the universe. I will wish anyway.
My office is like an igloo now and I sink down into my chair in order to increase the surface contact with my skin. What I wouldn't do for some warmth.
There is one more message on my machine from another employee. Seems he has diarhea and won't be able to make it in today. He actually said that word. Star-D.

yeats' quote

The best lack all convictions, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

yeats earned his ink with that line alone. bad ass.

i'm reading this book that is essentially a big interview with bono. in a passage i read today, bono was quoted on alternate lyrics he wrote for ave maria singing with pavarotti at a charity event a couple years ago. (i understand the alternate lyrics appeared in about every major newspaper in italy the next day and i wondered about a people so in love with their opera singers.)

(may 25, 2003, u.s.'s intention to go to war in iraq evident around the world)

ave mariawhere is the justice in the world?
the wicked make so much noise, ma
the righteous stay oddly still
with no wisdom, all of the riches in the world leave us poor tonight
and strength is not without humility
it's weakness, an untreatable disease
and war is always the choice
of the chosen who will not have to fight

side by side it is as if bono is merely elaborating on yeats' theme, projecting the sentiment of yeats' in his time to that of the righteous in our time, ripping him off perhaps or paying homage.

(surely it is homage.) but the relevance of the discovery herein is this: the essence of man is unchanged. the essence of man is 51-49, good to evil or light to dark.

as i get older i realize how gray the world really is. and perhaps this is why our artists love the greens of nature, the blue of the sky, the golden yellow of a sunflower and the black of night.
i have to come to revile the characterization of a man as good. "you're a good man, charlie brown."

the intentions are great but intentions are fleet-footed warriors who go awol as often as they fiercely battle. charlie brown was more likely 51% of a good man and perhaps 49% of a bad one. when shulz wasn't capturing him in stills for us, brown was likely picking his ass or telling lucy some crazy lie trying to get to that other 2nd base. (not that there's anything wrong with 2nd base, au contraire, but trickery to get there is shameful.)

the world is gray and george w bush himself is a good man, (probably 30%.) most of us are somewhere closer to 50-50 and herein is the hope.

forget god.
forget a 2nd coming.
don't be lazy.
strive on behalf of goodness.
learn.
challenge yourself.
push for righteousness.
evolve.
do nothing flippantly.
relax to the max.
work hard, but always in the direction of goodness.
teach.
forgive, (including yourself.)
grow and interact.

live your life by these ideals and you will be noble, for you will be pushing the envelope of the evolution of the human species in a positive direction. if reason gives us anything over the animals, it is the ability to change and project our light upon future generations and in that, we should find a balance of living for ourselves and living for our posterity.