Saying goodbye to air with writer's block
Everybody already has this figured out, but I’ll say it again: I notice things here in Portland. Mostly things that contrast with what I’ve known for the last 20 years in Hawaii. Things that mainlanders take for granted. Things that Kama Aina take for granted.
I’m needing to take drastic action on a relationship that I can no longer avoid. It pains me greatly. It’s a problem in my love affair with St. john’s. It is the air.
Oregon air is good. clean ocean air meets big trees.
Hawaiian air is good. 100% purified by 2000 miles of Pacific Ocean. Unless you go one haoli building, you breathe good air. Except maybe no trades, and you gotta breathe Pele stink breath from Big Isle, den you go haoli building, OK.
But Hawaiian air is reliable. Your warmth is welcome in my bed nearly every day of the year: come caress me with your eyelash strokes at midnight. Hawaiian air is the Venus of climates.
Oregon air is too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry. It’s the Annie Hall of climates: seductive somehow while wearing an ill-fitting man’s suit.
Annie, I have to tell you this: It pains me greatly as our love affair rounds out the year: I feel you getting colder, Annie, and I’m sorry, but it’s late October and I’m just going to have to close the window at night. We’ll still have the daytime.
I close the window. A silent voice calls me from across the room: "Sweetie, come make love with me. We can be so sweeet together. I’ll get you started, and you can fill us both up with thrills."
It’s the Pen, my demon bitch goddess of prose, she has the curves of the St. John’s Bridge. I answer: "Not tonight, I’m empty of essence like the bull after the fight." She is insistent: "Come and hold me, I’m cold… Mmmm?"
I surrender. I hold her. I write. It is pablum. Passionless Drivel. I sob: "I want to, but I can’t. It’s just not there tonight, honey."
She responds: "It’s all right, you can do it. Soon. I know. Just hold me."
Just hold me.It starts all over again. I wonder why Selsun Blue is no longer blue. I wonder what the rumors about giant spiders mean.
And that’s writer’s block Sunday in St. John’s!