It’s 3:30 in the morning and I’ve been awake and tossing since at least 2.  A stream of thoughts come through my mind in pieces, almost at random.  Things about work, about people, about the upcoming vacation, things to do.  Nothing sticks there for long, mostly because I don’t want to start thinking about them too much.  Otherwise, I’ll be awake the rest of the night.  However, they keep coming up, like bubbles in a pool of molasses.  Reminds me of the tar pits I saw in La Brea, near Los Angeles.  Black, shiny pools of tar surrounded by grasses, shrubs and trees.  For millennia these pools have trapped animals and debris, collecting them and preserving them.  Occasionally, they bubble up, trapped gases products of decomposition or other nondescript chemical or organic process.  The bubbles rise slowly, like through thick honey.  I can imagine their shape (from seeing them in jars of honey) as miniature balloons, round at the top, pointed at the trailing edge, rising, rising.  They arrive at the upper edge, pushing the surface, struggling to break the tension, skins getting thinner and thinner.  Finally they pop and, if one was there, nose right at the spot, one could probably smell and capture the scents of decay, of past lives, of prehistoric and ancient animal spirits trapped within the depths of the pit and released like this, in bits and pieces, in bubbles, back to the air, to the primordial soup, to be recycled and reused and reincorporated into flesh and tissue by other living creatures, or to be part of the atmosphere.

My mind drifts into these areas, now corralled into an enclosure of writing.  While in bed, my brain was like that tar pit, thoughts bubbling up, most from recent “sinkings”, but sometimes, like tonight, from some deeper parts, hidden coves of memories that had laid undisturbed for years and suddenly something pokes at them and they are released.  Tonight I thought about the husband of one of my second cousins in Venezuela.  I know where those thoughts came from.  Last Thursday, one of his daughters lost her 6 year old little one in an accident, something that has been troubling me for almost a week now.  The tragedy had focused my thoughts on them, on her, on my cousin (her mother) and now, in the dark bedroom, tossing my sheet and blanket on and off in futile attempts at thermoregulation, my cousin’s husband surfaced like one of those tar bubbles.

Emilio died when I was a teenager.  I have few memories of him but one that came tonight was of his drawings.  Connections formed in my mind.  I have also started to draw again and, as I thought of what I wanted to draw (mostly images and pieces of my wife, close ups of her face, body, breasts, legs, hands), Emilio’s drawings bubbled up.  He used to draw and paint, still-lives I remember, but mostly I remember the naked women.  As a young kid, perhaps seven or eight years old, I looked with fascination through his drawing pad, which I had found sitting on an easel in his covered patio where he used to draw.  I had just that one glimpse of his art, one chance, almost 45 years ago, to fix the memories, and they have come back with the intensity and immediacy of that moment.  With the heart racing at doing something not allowed, I skimmed through the drawing pad, looking at his sketches, innocently—but with some level of morbidity—enjoying these forbidden fruits.  Breasts, naked torsos, whole bodies.  The shadows of darkness between the legs fascinated me.  I had never seen a naked woman in real life and the mystery was profound to me.  What was there, in these dark places that I didn’t know?  Full breasts with exposed nipples, textured and dark.  A long pencil-stroke that made a soft curve delineating a back that transformed into a hip and went on forever into a leg, resting finally on a foot.  A single trace of graphite on paper that came alive once the brain figured out what it represented, and the imagination put flesh and warmth to the black outline.  The power of those drawings was huge to me.  He also drew faces of women.  I hated the faces.  I didn’t want to see faces, perhaps because he wasn’t quite so good at it and they didn’t look attractive to me. The bodies, though, fascinated me.

Emilio did other things, but my memories are few and skimpy.  I remember he made slingshots, some of which (surprise!) were shaped like naked women.  He used some type of resin to shape the handles, which he somehow colored and gave shape.  I have one of his slingshots, the rubber and pouch long rotted away.  The handle is intact, though, colorful, smooth and polished.  The thumb rests comfortably below the two little breasts, using them as leverage for a solid grip.  That Emilio!  Messing with little kid’s minds.

The stream of consciousness continues to flow unimpeded over the rocky terrain of half-lost memories, somewhat tamed now by the process of writing.  As I recall the last couple of hours, the act of writing puts shape, organizes and captures the random thoughts.  Most get filtered out and quickly forgotten, to resurface again when prodded a bit.  My hand resting on my wife’s hip while I listen to her measured, asleep breathing.  The smell of the pillow mixed with the smell of her hair and body.  I turned over before I started to stroke her and wake her up.  I imagine an entire life doing this, during the day at times, but mostly at night.  We think before we fall asleep and these last conscious thoughts often shape our dreams, or at least infuse them with flavors and details.  This way primed scenes become chaotic in their mixtures, but in the low-resistance and no censorship of the dreaming mind, perfectly logical and possible.  In that waken state, eyes closed in the dark room, I think about the dream I just had, driving through a familiar city that I can’t quite place, talking on the phone with my wife, telling her step by step where I am as I get closer to where she is.  I’m picking her up and I feel the need to tell her exactly where I am.  I approach the corner in my car and make a left at the light.  I look both ways, hoping there are no other cars coming because I can’t stop.  I make it up the hill.  “I’m approaching so-and-so street” I hear myself say to the unseen phone as I read the street sign that I have now forgotten.  A random pointless scene.  Ends there.  Next scene.

I’m now walking across a busy street.  Other people are there too, trying to cross the street between the passing cars.  They have motors on them, the people, not the cars, like built-in scooters that I can’t quite see, under their clothes.  They stop and hover in the middle while I wait anxious for a break in the traffic to cross myself.  I make it through and go down the hill on the sidewalk, walking, or am I rolling?  I am also wearing something, like a broad belt under my clothes and I press something to it and feel small electric charges go through my belly and my back.  It feels good, not painful.  I do it again.  The point?  Who knows!  I don’t seem to mind in the dream so why should I worry about it while I’m awake.  Dreaming is like a random mixing of thoughts, neurons firing out of our conscious control.  When awake, we string thoughts together, make arguments, compose sentences, filter the whole lot, control anger and make amends to people.  We write carefully crafted e-mails and notes hoping for clarity, maybe brilliancy.  I write small articles, letters and pieces and send them hoping to touch some nerve, to add some meaning to the topic and the effort.  I lie.  I hope for great writing and amazing meaning; I hope the receiver is so impressed that I get the Wow! response.  I don’t get it often, but I keep trying.  The need to be recognized, praised and liked is strong.  Some past dark room in there in my mind that may be worth exploring some day.

In this daily stream of consciousness, we are in control, most of the time at least, unless our emotions overpower the filters and yank the reins away from our hands.  Then we cry, we get angry and shout, we get obfuscated, frustrated and say things we really don’t mean.  Or perhaps we do mean, but should not say them in deference and consideration for the other person.  Anger infuses the brain with red colors, with chemicals that react with what’s in there in ways that are damaging.  There must have been a purpose somewhere in our evolutionary past for anger.  It must have been an important life-saving device for us naked monkeys.  Now, anger bugs me at inopportune times, makes me stupid, mean, and unproductive.  Leaves me exhausted and stops anything creative I was doing.  It takes an effort to recover from.  I hate getting angry.

At 2 a.m., lying in bed, the stream bubbled on, bringing out these thoughts.  It is now 4 a.m. and some of these thoughts have been tamed, have been captured.  They don’t make much sense still.  There is no lesson to be learned, there is no deep meaning.  I may have as well been thinking about sex, or naked ladies (I was in at some points of the mind dipping).  Yeap.  There they are in the above paragraphs.  Forty-some years thinking about naked ladies.  The fascination has never stopped.  Thanks, Emilio, for the priming.

Carlos