Darkness

I'm home alone and it's dark

But not dark enough
Being alone lends itself to sleeping
Except when things are not dark enough

But being alone means my baby is miles and miles and a year away
And they won't know to buy him stacks of red apples
or to play him Little Ghost

I lay in the quiet dark room
 in the soft big empty bed
and wait for sleep and darkness

The house

Not quite 30,  I've gained both a rheumatologist and a realtor in the past year
Both titles seem so adult when I say them aloud
Today I sit and wait for the call about the house
I've always imagined this moment to be something that I'd share with my closest friend, the father of my children, my soulmate. He'd look into my eyes and say something like "I can't wait until we have this little place to call our own."
But instead I send my brother a text and then I leave a voicemail for my best friend (who's probably sleeping in to the sounds of the ocean).
Last week we saw Beyond the Pines and there's a line where the handsome guy tells the beautiful girl "I want to take care of you." And it's taken me 30 years to realize that things like that only happen in the movies.
So I sit quietly in the coffee shop and wait for the call
I concentrate on not letting my dreams get ahead of me
----------------------------------

"You can make a plan

Carve it into stone

Like a feather falling

It is still unknown

Until the clock speaks up

Says it's time to go

You can choose the high

Or the lower road

You might clench your fist

You might fork your tongue

As you curse or praise

All the things you've done

And the faders move

And the music dies

As we pass over

On the arc of time

So you nurse your love like a wounded dove 

In the covered cage of night

Every star is crossed by frenetic thoughts 

That separate and then collide

And they twist like sheets until you fall asleep 

Then they finally unwind

It's a black balloon 

It's a dream you'll soon deny"

- CO 

dangling

Sometimes I'm dangling from the cliff called bitterness with only the thin nails on my pinky fingers keeping me upright. Sometimes I allow myself to let go. Drop. Drown in a sea of bitterness, anger, and self-pity. I let myself go there for a few hours or maybe a day. But then I tuck it all back up into a neat little folded origami bird and place it in the pocket overlapping my heart.

kitchen tiles/kindness

One summer ago

during a late night talk,
while standing on the partially re-tiled floors
of your parent's kitchen,
you stated that you did not want to be "bound" to me
because of my kindness.
I could tell by the way that you let it crawl out of your mouth, that you thought of
kindness as both
a leech
and
a weakness.
Kindness, to you, is a symptom of naïvety, half-knowledge and unconsciousness (but this took me another year to learn).

Before I met you "kindness" was always just "kindness."
simple, transparent, happy

Before I met you I was simple, transparent, happy

Now I understand
that kindness has the power to skew dreams
and manipulate men.
I keep handing you my rosy glasses,
you keep handing them back.
At least we're consistent.



Proverbs 3:3 Don't ever forget kindness and truth. Wear them like a necklace. Write them on your heart as if on a tablet.

Monday Morning Muffins

Muffin Mondays

I drive away from the suburbs and right into downtown early on Monday mornings to pick up my Muffin. He's usually still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, and sometimes dressed in pjs, but he greets me by running down his dad's front porch and giving me a full body bear hug. He usually gives me a few sentences about his weekend and then grins as he says "goodbye Daddy-bootie," which is his new favorite hobby- adding "bootie" onto the end of any sentence. 

I love that he's getting old enough to actually like some of my hobbies. Monday mornings we have our downtown coffee date. He's a muffin connoisseur and I need my caffeine after working very long and very late hours at the group home over the weekend. 

He tends to be his chattiest first thing in the morning anyway. He looks at the windows and quickly classifies any bystanders as good guys or bad guys. He plans a walk around the block once we are finished. "We'll defeat them Mom," he tells me, "we are bigger and faster and I'm Iron Man and you are Pepper Pots. Pepper Pots likes coffee, and Tony Stark."  

He tries his first ever cup of hot (warm) coco and smiles out the window, pleased with himself. He later tells me that if you love something a lot you just have to hold it tight and rub it on your cheek. I think he's right.

INTP + ESFJ

INTP:

INTPs are pensive, analytical folks. They may venture so deeply into thought as to seem detached, and often actually are oblivious to the world around them.

Precise about their descriptions, INTPs will often correct others (or be sorely tempted to) if the shade of meaning is a bit off. While annoying to the less concise, this fine discrimination ability gives INTPs so inclined a natural advantage as, for example, grammarians and linguists.

INTPs are relatively easy-going and amenable to almost anything until their principles are violated, about which they may become outspoken and inflexible. They prefer to return, however, to a reserved albeit benign ambiance, not wishing to make spectacles of themselves.

A major concern for INTPs is the haunting sense of impending failure. They spend considerable time second-guessing themselves. The open-endedness (from Perceiving) conjoined with the need for competence (NT) is expressed in a sense that one's conclusion may well be met by an equally plausible alternative solution, and that, after all, one may very well have overlooked some critical bit of data. An INTP arguing a point may very well be trying to convince himself as much as his opposition. In this way INTPs are markedly different from INTJs, who are much more confident in their competence and willing to act on their convictions.

Mathematics is a system where many INTPs love to play, similarly languages, computer systems--potentially any complex system. INTPs thrive on systems. Understanding, exploring, mastering, and manipulating systems can overtake the INTP's conscious thought. This fascination for logical wholes and their inner workings is often expressed in a detachment from the environment, a concentration where time is forgotten and extraneous stimuli are held at bay. Accomplishing a task or goal with this knowledge is secondary.

INTPs and Logic -- One of the tipoffs that a person is an INTP is her obsession with logical correctness. Errors are not often due to poor logic -- apparent faux pas in reasoning are usually a result of overlooking details or of incorrect context.

Feeling tends to be all or none. When present, the INTP's concern for others is intense, albeit naive. In a crisis, this feeling judgement is often silenced by the emergence of Thinking, who rushes in to avert chaos and destruction. In the absence of a clear principle, however, INTPs have been known to defer judgement and to allow decisions about interpersonal matters to be left hanging lest someone be offended or somehow injured. INTPs are at risk of being swept away by the shadow in the form of their own strong emotional impulses.

ESFJ: 

ESFJs are people persons - they love people. They are warmly interested in others. They use their Sensing and Judging characteristics to gather specific, detailed information about others, and turn this information into supportive judgments. They want to like people, and have a special skill at bringing out the best in others. 

All else being equal, ESFJs enjoy being in charge. They see problems clearly and delegate easily, work hard and play with zest. ESFJs, as do most SJs, bear strong allegiance to rights of seniority. They willingly provide service (which embodies life's meaning) and expect the same from others.

ESFJs are easily wounded. And when wounded, their emotions will not be contained. They by nature "wear their hearts on their sleeves," often exuding warmth and bonhomie, but not infrequently boiling over with the vexation of their souls. Some ESFJs channel these vibrant emotions into moving dramatic performances on stage and screen.

Strong, contradictory forces consume the ESFJ. Their sense of right and wrong wrestles with an overwhelming rescuing, 'mothering' drive. This sometimes results in swift, immediate action taken upon a transgressor, followed by stern reprimand; ultimately, however, the prodigal is wrested from the gallows of their folly, just as the noose tightens and all hope is lost, by the very executioner!

An ESFJ at odds with self is a remarkable sight. When a decision must be made, especially one involving the risk of conflict (abhorrent to ESFJs), there ensues an in-house wrestling match between the aforementioned black-and-white Values and the Nemesis of Discord. The contender pits self against self, once firmly deciding with the Right, then switching to Prudence to forestall hostilities, countered by unswerving Values, ad exhaustium, winner take all.

As caretakers, ESFJs sense danger all around--germs within, the elements without, unscrupulous malefactors, insidious character flaws. The world is a dangerous place, not to be trusted. Not that the ESFJ is paranoid; 'hyper-vigilant' would be more precise. And thus they serve excellently as protectors, outstanding in fields such as medical care and education.

The inferior Ti function may rarely be expressed. In fact, ESFJs may take affront at the aloof, detached nature of dominant Ti types, or conversely, be drawn to them. Some ESFJs construct rationale which have the appearance of (Jungian) Thinking logic, but under scrutiny are in fact command performances of "Thinking in the service of Feeling," (i.e., Thinking-like conclusions which do not obey the tenets of impersonal logic; they rather construct scenarios from only those "hard, cold facts" which support the conclusion reached by the dominant Extraverted Feeling function.) 

Or Conversely, Be Drawn To Them, 

paper collage, acrylic, thread

© c.r.r. 2012 

incremental doses

when it comes to love and cancer 
sometimes preventative care goes
farther
than a potent dose of chemo

so confess your love more 

often

and stop smoking those cigars

                          -we both will be 
                            better for it

c.r.r.

Your flesh will be a husk, but yr. soul a star

Go Naked To The White

“Evil dies, but good
   Lives forever –
     The evil in you will die,
& your flesh with it, but
the good in yr heart &
   soul will live forever –
     Evil can’t live, good
can’t die –

     Your angriness, impatience,
hassels, even that & your
shit, all – will die, cannot,
wills not to live; but the
  flashes of sweet light will
never die, the love, the
kindness of hope, the
  true work, joy of belief –

                              As for reforming others,
                              let them reform themselves,
                              if they can’t they were
                              meant to die; they
                             are barely alive now if they
                             can’t reform themselves to-
                             morrow; better a cleaner of cesspools than a re-
                             former. Let every man
                             make himself pure as
                             I have done – that’s
                             the “reform” –
                                  Work on your own soul –
                             experiment to see if one
                             man can be saved, as
                             the whole lot en masse
                                can apparently not –
                                 on yr own soul first,
then the angels of 
your soul, yr mother, your
wife (a new, good wife),
your children. If a son
or a daughter is bad,
throw it in the sea-
  Your few good friends.
  Cultivate yourself like a 
  flower; pull out weeds 
  like Cassady, Ginsberg, 
  Burroughs; accept the
  nourishment of White, 
  Holmes; - water yrself
  carefully- & keep your
  flesh fit so as not to
  burden the soul with
  temporal strains & remove
  that much energy
                                  for its prime considera-
                                  tion & meditation –
                                    God, & Good – Direct

contact between you &
  God means no church,
  no society, no reform,
  & almost no relationships,
  & almost no hope in
  relationships – but
  kindness of hope inherent
   in what that is good,
    shall live, & what is
      bad, dies – Your
      flesh will be a husk,
        but yr. soul a star –
             The greatest & only
   final form of “good”
        is human –

                                  Because intellectual
                                  & intellectually willed
                                  good & so conceptual
                                  good is only a word –
                                   “Almost” no hope in
                                  relationships, means,
                                  no foolish hope, but
                                  true hope –
                                       Everyone to his own
                                  true work – There
                                  is no good in work
                                  which does no good.
                                    Railroads, factories,
                                      solve & give nobody
                                      nothing, serve the
                                      flesh only, at great
                                       time & sacrifice, are
                                         evil –
The true work is on
belief; true belief
  in immortal good;
  the continual human
  struggle against
  linguistic religious
  abstraction; recognition
  of the soul beneath
  everything, & humor, –
Lights in the foggy
night are not necessarily
bleak & friendless, but
  just lights (in fact to
  light yr. way), & fog
  from the necessary sea –
     Stupid, fatuous men
are not necessarily
    all stupid & fatuous,

  nor all on the horizon,
nor completely devoid of
good, or hope – The evil
in them will die, the
good will live – Bleak
& friendless universe is
  only one of several
  illusions, the greatest &
  only immortal one of
  which is good –
    Enough, the words to
  this “idea,” or belief,
    are limited, the combi-
  nations to describe it
    almost exhausted al-
    ready – Manifestations
    of this in humanity, there-
      fore in your writing work,
           are endless however –
This is the return of
       the Will

Just the sight of the “snow”
under the locomotive, brings back
sweet light of the boy soul in
Lowell, the human earnest desire
to revisit Lowell this New Year’s
& soak up the sad hints of
the past in a grateful soul,
  from just … “snow” – So
    immortal love also hides
    in things – talisman details
     for the temple soul –
      but soul, soul, soul, the
       “details” is the life of
            this thing –
GO NAKED TO THE WHITE.”



Kerouac, Jack.  OCT 31 1952, Book of sketches. Penguin Books, 1952-1953, New York. PageS 228 - 233.