This is a variant of yesterday’s, same poem, but different thoughts after the poem. Was occupied most of the day so didn’t have time to browse new poems much.

My high school physics teacher, Mr. Cook, was very ardent about specifying how there was only acceleration but no such thing as “deceleration”–we only accelerate in other ways. In case it wasn’t already evident, I am making an analogy to attachment, and how generally, detachment is not real but really just the old ones being bumped out by new attachments, ready or not. Brain only has so much space, heart only has so much capacity to feel at a time. And in some aspects, I mean, thank god! But in others, well, especially when all there is is good, how sad it is to see things get bumped.

“Aligarh”, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra

I really like this poem and it’s rather topical. But I guess, I wasn’t really thinking about that at the time. I think about how I’ve had varying degrees of attachment to Rachel over the past three years, and really, there has been no real detachment save attachment to new people. Concretely, not that anything is ever a clean cut, I don’t think I shall ever send her another poem, at least not for quite some time. Anyhow,,, nothing but ambivalence.

The last day of July. July is spent. I am glad. It’s been very hot and I shall not be sorry to see it go, I find myself nostalgic for autumn and for that distinct cooling weather with a cold breeze that is only a tad chilly but really defined by being transient. Everything I love is transient. A love of form is a love of endings, and vice versa I suppose.

Sunday I spent with my aunt and uncle and cousin and his (new) wife and it was a lot of fun and felt like positive family interactions, rare, but something to attach to if I could attach but alas they are rather distant in life right now. I finished Time is a Mother on the train, which was good. Had lots to mark the book up with. We went to church, which was quite stimulating. The pastor talked a lot about how the Christian god is a gentle one, slow to anger, and much more inclined toward mercy than toward justice and judgement. Which I realize is 1) how I’ve been trying to hold myself and 2) not how my father held myself. In addition to this, he mentioned off-hand at the start that whether your parents were able to admit their mistakes and apologize was a big indicator of whether you would have attachment issues as an adult, which I found very interesting and topical to yesterday’s thoughts (which are on that blog post). Anyhow, I was just thinking about how I wish my father had heard that sermon, and how he really hasn’t had much external stimulus permeate his skull in probably many years, as neither books, church, friends, nor family seem to do it, namely that he doesn’t seem to be able to respect or get close enough to other people to take anything they say with much gravity, which doesn’t bode well. And so I imagine him bouncing around all alone in his own head, which makes me rather sad and sympathetic. And I want to try to sit down with him again, this time only out of gentleness and kindness, and try to help him in whatever form I can. I don’t expect much, and certainly not immediately. But it seems like a very sad and difficult way to live and I should like to help relieve that a bit if I can, given I am separate enough from him at this point to try to come to him without any anger, with detachment (but really just attachment to other things, now) and care about him as I can, and use no anger and only gentleness. Which is to say, I get nothing or very little out of this. But I’ve been thinking. Tell me father, what god do you pray to? To whom do you bow your head? Acknowledge any; allow me to speak to you in whatever language you give any power. There must be at least one. It’s okay if that language is only self. I understand. I imagine it’s largely self and emotion and insecurity hidden behind a screen of “logic”. In any language though, I feel you are flailing. I think you need help. I’d like to help you work through some of your problems, at the very least, acknowledge them. I’d like you to be able to grow old, die in peace and with your immediate family able to love you some without too much repoach. I’d rather the words in my head you bring to mind not be ranting with the force of Kingdom Come (from TKS’ “My God, It’s Full of Stars”). I don’t think this is the direction you are heading in now. Life is fragile. Allow me this, as someone who is trying their hardest to care about you, love you. Someone who is intelligent, largely thanks to you, and can see your shortcomings and insecurities and traumas and hopefully soothe them, even if you cannot.