Casimir Pulaski Day, by Sufjan Stevens
This song makes me think of a quiet smile with soft tears. It’s bittersweet in the best way a story can be, and it reminds me that the world is a strange, beautiful, awful place.
I’m a solitary person by nature. A few close friends, and a thousand acquaintances.
I find it difficult to endure small talk for any extended period of time. I’m not interested in the latest sports game, or celebrity gossip, or the weather, or your niece, or that thing your roommate did. I will nod and smile and ask polite questions, but it chaffes and wears me down to have to fake interest.
There have been a few occasions when I was among a rare group that welcomed the odd personality I actually have, and the unusual topics I like to talk about. This year I had the pleasure of experiencing that again.
I went to an out-of-town weekend seminar. The others there were all strange in their own ways. They weren’t afraid to talk about their passions, nor were they prone to gossip. It was refreshing.
I opened up for the first time in a great while. They welcomed me, were interested in the kind of person that I was, and didn’t demand (however subtly) conformity. I found camaraderie amongst them.
I hope for a rebirth. I want to throw myself into rigorous work, to strain myself against all that has been set before me in hopes of earning well-deserved rest.
I want to be honed. Let me cut my teeth upon hard tasks. Grit on skin, blood in my mouth. Find struggle and welcome it. Be sundered and be grateful. I have lived in confusion for too long. I need something as straightforward as a cliffside.
I have dreams that are too far away. They can’t be fulfilled by who I am. I am in need of trials, and of difficulty.
Quiet. I feel the softness of silence like a warm blanket on an icy winter morning.
The world is full of noise and distraction. Everyone, everywhere, is vying for attention. The voices of passersby and rumbling of cars prick at my mind. Maybe they’re irrelevant, or maybe that tidbit of conversation will prove useful? Or that rumbling the sound of a car racing in your direction?
We are drowned in sound. So much so, that many find quiet uncomfortable, in the manner of one running without shoes for the first time in years. We are naturally sensory creatures, but our minds are awash in input. We are overloaded and strained to breaking. The quiet is a burning salve on our open wounds.
But it heals.
Slowly, the mind finds itself again. The deluge of thoughts so long suppressed becomes a placid stream, then a still pond. We begin to understand what monks mean by finding inner peace.
There is a smell to summer where I live. I don’t know what flowers or weather produce it, nor do I know any better way to describe it. The scent of summer simply is.
What it inspires in me, however, can be put into words. I feel cleaner. I feel as though the weight of all of life’s burdens is but another splash in the pond. Summer’s scent reminds me that the world is older than anything I can reckon.
I remember playground games and schoolyard friends. I recall the child I used to be, and the anxiety in his heart. But more than anything else, I am impressed with a feeling of tranquility. I understand how far I’ve walked. I know how much I’ve changed.
And I am reassured that the next summer will come, as they have for millennia.
There is a place, a couple dozen miles from where I live, that resembles nothing so much as an enchanted dreamscape. It’s hidden behind a little breakfast house known for its blueberry pancakes, alongside a placid river.
Unsuspecting wanderers would be struck by the prevalence of albino peacocks. Not merely one or two, but at least a full dozen, intermingled with their more colorful cousins. They prance and pose with all the expected vanity. Some pretend disinterest at visitors, while others demand the attention of all present.
Those that manage to disentangle themselves from the flock would find themselves at the edge of a concrete loop. The right path leads through a wooded area, populated by lawn ornaments and elk. The left takes its guests to the top of a tall hill, where a small one-room church overlooks a vast desert plain, and the soft blowing of the wind is the only sound.
The loop threads through all manner of other oddities. There is an oasis where birds chirp and a small stream gurgles. There is a vast basketball court populated by full-sized brass statues of children playing, and surrounded by dense forest. There is a small burial ground with two graves and an enormous marble lion.
It was a place that reminded me of nothing so much as the empty land in C.S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew. There was a solemnity, an absolute quiet that none but the animals dared disturb, and even they with great restraint.
This is a harder topic for me. Most of my life is wrapped in technology. My studies, when they’re not actually about computers, almost always need software to get done. A lot of my hobbies do as well. I write through a keyboard, and often read through a Nook.
There were a few things that I managed to get through without screens. Chief among them was my fitness routines. I made a lot of progress in improving my running times. I also managed to regain a little bit of my old boxing technique.
Socializing was more scarce this past year than many others. Many of my older friends got their degrees and moved to find work elsewhere. A few fell out of touch. On the other hand, I attended a weekend workshop class that had me live with a dozen other students out of town. It was a pleasant experience that introduced me to several interesting people. I liked being able to break up my routine and use some non-technical skills for a short while.
Camping has become a more ambiguous pastime for me. I enjoy outdoorsmanship, but I realize now that I no longer enjoy camping with family. I found myself aggravated for little to no reason, spending much of my time trying to appear like I was enjoying things. They are the same people as they’ve ever been. I think that’s my problem.
I’d like to change, but so long as I live here, I can’t. There’s a quote from the First Law trilogy that comes to mind,
“If you want to be a new man you have to stay in new places, and do new things, with people who never knew you before. If you go back to the same old ways, what else can you be but the same old person?”
The last year was productive for me, but not especially interesting. I did the same things I always do; copious amounts of schoolwork/work, reading a few dozen books, and trying to keep myself at some level of fitness. There were a few highlights though, so I’ll place those in the entry.
It was a solid year, if not an especially remarkable one. I’m getting the feeling that it marks the end of an era. A lot of things are going to happen this coming year.
I’m not a heroic rebel, that does the things others silently wish they could. I’m not a leper, cast out of all groups and an unwelcome presence amongst others.
But I am just a little out of phase. Just not quite belonging. Just… off.
I’ve been a member of many groups, but never a part of them. There’s always been something in me that pushes away unity. Some sliver of impartiality that refuses to submit. I curse it and bless it in the same breath.
My friends have been few, but close. Their only commonalities are a bright spark that compels them to dream a little more daringly, and a kindness in their hearts. I love them even as we drift further apart. I wonder if they would say the same for me?
Mine is a story of walking just a few inches off the beaten path and the things I found while doing so. It’s about learning how to relish my own strangeness, and find others that would do the same. It’s about perseverance, courage, tranquility, and a feeling of being lost.
But mostly, it’s about trying to find a place for someone that doesn’t fit.
Solace In Madness 