Living rural, we decided to purchase our Christmas tree (read: chop it down ourselves) on the island. We waited until last Saturday -- a dismal, damp day, with a steady misty rain and freezing temp -- to do the deed. Alex drove his new truck. I tried to see out the windshield. Finally we found a spot that a friend had mentioned to us ("My dad just bought a tree there yesterday." Which was a PC Vashon way of saying, "I don't destroy living things and then bring them into my home to hang baubles on them and gloat.")

There was a lone guy, set up under a lone tent, with a small wood-burning stove by his feet, to keep himself from turning to ice. The sign out along the road read "U Turn Xmas Trees. You cut. I cut. Xmas Trees." Immediately I'm thinking to myself: "Yes, he cuts." I'm not that interested in the whole sawing thing -- to be emphatic I'd mention my achy back (should the need arise).

Alex and I drove down a small, narrow road and into the 'lot.' Parked and then began milling around. Here were dozens and dozens of gorgeous Blue Spruce and Noble Fir trees, standing tall, proud and vibrant in their little plot of mother earth. Suddenly I felt uncomfortable about the whole process; I mean, I'd just read the book Fast Food Nation the week before, and decided that, given the nightmarish environment of the slaughterhouses (for both the animals and the employees) I wasn't ever going to eat hamburger again (sorry Red Mill.) I'm certain that if people had to kill their own meat they probably would stop eating it. Plus there is lots of feces in hamburger meat, according to the author -- and reading that, well, that was the sesame seed that broke Ronald McDonald's back. But I'm getting off track.

So I'm thinking: If people had to cut down their own trees would they still rush out by the millions and round up those evergreens each year? I asked Alex. He said, "Yes." Case closed. And then we spotted a tree we wanted. I let out a coo, and walked over to stroke it. Ouch. The fucking thing bit me.

To quote Divine in Female Trouble, when the longed for Cha Cha heels didn't arrive: "What are these?!!!??" Meanspirited Christmas trees. Alex laughed. I sucked on my finger tip. Well, fuck that tree. I sauntered over to another tree that was inviting. And like an idiot, I did the same thing again. Touched a branch's tip, and the goddamned thing nearly drew blood.

At this point I'm wet wet wet. My new wool sweater from J.Crew smells like a sheep dog, Alex is eager to leave. I declare: "OK, this one!" Loudly -- so it could hear me. I walked back down the lane to pay the guy. He showed me the saw. Subtly rubbing my lumbar, I brought up the bad back story.

Alex cut the tree down in about five minutes. But only after the fucking thing pricked and poked and bit at me again (I was holding it by the trunk). We slid it into the truck and went home. I waited and waited for that wonderful holiday tree scent to fill our living room. It never came. Apparently this sort of tree doesn't ever 'exude' (it only attacks). Meanwhile my arms and the back of my hands look like I've developed -- small red dots clustered willy nilly in patches -- the heartbreak of psoriasis. This is what one gets for cutting down their own tree.

Next year Safeway.

Anyway, the fucker's up.

We finally finished hanging all the ornaments and lights this afternoon. I'd have taken more pictures, but the bleeding started again...

-:-

December 12, 2002
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In It. Not of It.

Exiting a retreat is always a fascinating process. And it's easy to see why monks, of any spiritual path, choose monastic life -- there's so much less to hassle with. The living space is contained within the field of a common aim, the food is simple and scheduled. Rules of decorum are commonsensical and straightforward. Not to say the retreat I just wrapped on Maui was monastic -- but each time I leave the sacred space of a retreat, and make re-entry into 'real' life, I start considering (and understanding) the rationale for a 'contained' contemplative path -- it seems the easier way to go (though I'm certain those who undertake ascetic vows would argue with me -- still I dare them to rationalize how life in our day to day world is any easier.)

The Sufis have a saying that goes like this: "In the world but not of it." And in a nutshell this is the type of orientation my spiritual school and teachers teach. I chose this path because when I was younger I sensed, inherently, that there was no division between samsara and nirvana -- and I couldn't see the logic in embracing any sort of teaching that would separate the two from one another. Of course understanding this conceptually and having it established as a station ('in the bones' as I like to say) are two completely different things. And that's really what my commitment to a path (though I dislike that word as it connotes some kind of formula or system that's in place to deliver one to a final destination -- like the idea of 'heaven' has always seemed ludicrous to me) is all about -- learning how to be in the world and not of it.

This explains, I suppose, how I can work in an industry that, for the most part, I loathe -- and still maintain my center and spirit. I've read of different Sufi sects, from previous centuries, who would set up their places of dance and discourse near junkyards and trash heaps -- literalizing that living in the world but not of it thang. Thank god for the internet!

I suppose because I was raised Catholic I've always felt sensitive towards the warped shadow of guilt that's laid upon S-E-X. And when you throw the word 'homosexual' atop the pile, well, you've got some incendiary shit to deal with. When I was fourteen I embraced my sexuality in one fell swoop -- it was a hot hot summer in Southern California and I remember being outside watering the begonia plants alongside my parent's balcony when the joyful notion of sucking cock descended, like Noah's dove, and swirled in a giddy froth through my imagination. "Hot shit!" I thought. Notice I didn't use the word 'accepted.' That implies some sort of 'issue' about my hormonal configuration, and for me that wasn't the case. I embraced my homo promptings with the same sort of lubricated, instinctual ease that a hetero teen boy feels towards the mystery of girls. I was just happy that a whole new world was opening up within me, clear as day -- and I felt zippy and loopy and horny horny horny.

But that was then, a simpler time -- at least within my life story. Now we're living in very "interesting times," to evoke that old Chinese curse. A euphemism for the hybrid sort of fascism that's effortlessly assembling, right before our eyes. My registration of the wackiness was particularly cogent after I left Maui this week -- while scanning newspaper articles, eavesdropping on conversations at coffee shops and channel surfing the TV. The message I got, over and over again? Fringe folks like you and me are in for a difficult challenge.

Doubt it? Well, consider the symbolic implications of Dubya's recent allocation of $73 million for a Special Projects of Regional and National Significance -- to be doled only to those educational programs that encourage abstinence and stipulate that "sexual activity outside the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects." Hmmm, last I checked gay marriage was still taboo within our 50 states -- guess that leaves all of us cocksuckers ailing -- and teetering on the verge of mental illness. Well, unless you're a priest -- that's an entirely different situation -- and at least someone'll be gettin' some.

My recommendation? Oscillation. Go in. Come out. Spirituality can help. Charity can help. Meditation can help. Conscious sexuality can help (meaning, if you're gay and living in the closet you've got to COME OUT and let all of that repressed libidinal energy free up your creative life, which will work wonders for you). When things are as fucked up and distorted and polarized as our current cultural and political predicament, it can help to establish a sort of inner order and sanity. With that in place it's not so hard to live in a world such as ours (that, remember, still contains art and friends and good food and cats and dogs and other lovely things) and not be of it. You can call this my Christmas wish for you.

For both of us, actually.

Love,

PS: No he's not, Virginia!
PPS: I swear I had nothing to do with this.