God bless us, every one

This is usually the hard part, coming home after celebrating with whoever has been kind enough to adopt us this year. All the anticipating, soaking up the lights and decorations everywhere, feeling God insidiously seeping into every little corner this time of year, even here in aloof, cynical New England. Jello Biafra is probably more liturgical than me, but I think I am starting to get this Advent thing more and more every year. The waiting, the anticipation, the yearning for all of this to well and truly change me forever, is as intoxicating as it is agonising. I savour and dread it all at once. Now it's over. There's a bit of anxiety at the prospect of the battles that loom ahead to keep the fragile little flame lit just a bit longer.

I don't give a toss if I sound cliche. I have the rest of the year to be hard-edged and hopeless, and I don't really want it. I want this. All the time. This is good. My God, I wish I could keep it forever. One day I will, but the waiting sucks.

Except there's always next year. Win. Epic win. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift. He has blessed us, every one. May you find that around the most unexpected corners.

something

I followed. There was nothing. I still followed. There was something, but I wasn't allowed to touch it. The Leader held my head under the water until I gurgled submissively and screamed in terror what He wanted to hear. That I wanted something, very badly. He smiled, and pointed to something ahead. I walked toward it with joy and passion. I felt an egg hatch in my ribcage.
Something is always out of reach. I wish I had been allowed to remember that. Nothing has moved in my ribcage for a long time now. All my shirts smell like rotting meat. No one asks why.
I followed because I loved. Now I follow because there is nothing else to do. And I am tired, and I am alone. There are others nearby, but they cannot hear me when I speak, because they are enveloped in something. And something is always out of reach.

running riot in a corner

I am listening to my iPod while making the next work-week's lunches and washing the dishes afterwards. The Ramones, the Pogues, Husker Du, R.E.M., Flatfoot 56. I'm not particularly stressed, depressed, or much of anything, unless it's possible to be such a thing as desperately content.
Discipline is up next, an Oi! band from Holland. They cover an old Cock Sparrer tune, Running Riot. I first heard it very nearly twenty-three years ago today, either just before or just after a charismaniacal hubbub in a Sheraton banquet hall slashed life into B.C. and A.D. Cock Sparrer had this and one other track on the Strength through Oi! compilation. There were a lot of great tunes on that slab of black vinyl, but that one more than any other turned my blood to boiling whiskey and made all my leukocytes and platelets grow fists and boots and and laugh and hug and bellow and brawl their way through my veins.
I remember looking at the photos on the back cover of the album, skinny British white kids with a smattering of other shades resplendent in ladder-laced Doc Martens and tight cuffed Levi's, pressed tight against each other in front of a cheap nightclub stage and leering at the camera with gleeful empty eyes, or swarming all over a busy street on the way to a gig or a football match, cars frozen on the pavement like clotting blood. There were arms around shoulders and pint glasses in fists and naked scalps and flighties and sideburns and stories and pride and pain.
I miss the boiling whiskey. I miss the brawling veins. I miss looking life in the face and flashing a crooked grin and knowing I had it sussed. Except I never did. I did, and do, know the One who does, but I wish I could hear Him like I used to. I wish it was easier to feel Him slap me on my flighty-encrusted back and hand me a jar and tell me all would be well. I wish remembering those days didn't feel so much like a taunt.
The boiling and brawling had enough power to propel me anywhere, anywhere at all, but it fizzled, and now the corner is scuffing my boots and bruising my knuckles. I'd back out of it if I knew where else to go.