After The Explosion
After the explosion it’s quiet for awhile. More quiet than that. Everything holds its breath. The furniture. The books on their shelves. The photographs hanging on the walls. None of them move. Well. I suppose they never move, but now they move less. Everything holds its breath.
I just sweep up glass and fragments of plates and coffee mugs. Everything is broken. I have a feeling that might be guilt but it probably isn’t. I don’t have room for guilt. It’s more likely a residue of last night’s nightmares. I’m hiding in the closet from a drunk man with a knife and, sometimes, the fear for my life lingers past the dream and into the morning. But never for long.
Because after the explosion, I always feel better—eager—like something’s about to begin.
She said I threatened to burn the house down and it doesn’t surprise me. During the explosion, burning the house down always sounds like a great plan but I never do it. Sometimes I burn things like photo albums and chairs. But for the most part I just like smashing things. I love the sound of things coming apart. When a coffee cup hits a TV, it seems to me both things sigh with relief. Freed from their functional servitude, they shatter. The shadow of shattering is relief. Death, I bet, sounds like a window breaking.
We don’t honor Satan the way Hinduism honors Shiva. Destruction gets no love. But you should try it. You know you want to. Go break something. Tell someone to get fucked. Smack them in the face. Quit your job. Destroy your reputation. Light it on fire. Oh sure, creativity, right? Be creative. Create create create! But I don’t believe in creativity not made of broken things. Before creation begins, something’s got to give. Smash!
After the explosion the clocks slowly begin to tick again and things eventually start to breathe. I continue to sweep, assessing the damage. We will need to repaint the dining room. We can shave off the cat’s remaining fur. Front door’s are replaceable. Jenna is crying and I’ll need to tell her I’m sorry. But I’m not. I’m not sorry. Being sorry is an insult to morning. It’s a brand new day!
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Reader Comments (52)
You alright buddy?
Distinctions between facts and fictions are superfluous. The fictions only happen because of facts, right?
I agree there is no creativity not made of broken things. What a beautiful, disturbing way to say it.
"The shadow of shattering is relief."
Many, many times it is.
Woah.
Shiva. Destroying existence to pave the way for new beginning. Incredible the way you stated it. People with their attachments, not wanting to let things go, be destroyed, will never experience rebirth in any form. It's the natural and cosmic cycle of the universe. Creation, preservation, destruction and back again.
I hope the kids were at sleep overs.
"The shadow of shattering is relief."
That's so good.
I wish I had this in me. The explosion and the writing.
Sometime I'd like to hear about why and how you decided to press delete. When you're finished sweeping up.
This sort of explosion generally only happens in my mind. Your writing, at least, points out my mistake.
the act of shattering can be pretty brave
i hope you get as much support in the clean-up as you did in the shattering.
Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass John Steinbeck
Less a quote, more a question.
Good Morning.
I was much more destructive in my youth, but I always felt guilt. Always remorse. That's why I stopped.
This is a powerful piece, but then I seem to find all of your writing powerful. Thank you for sharing it.
Well done on the reconsidering.
I am not sorry. I like that line best.
Hum.
This makes me remember my screamy father screaming, 'why should I have to absorb everything??!!' when I once asked him to stop shouting at the dinner table.
I can understand what he meant, except we absorbed his endless explosions intead, took them into ourselves - he got to be the angry one, no one else did.
And now, I'm so irritable with my kids, lose my temper all the time, raise my voice all the time, and I hate it. It doesn't make me feel any better. Just kind of weak, and stupid. And a hypocrite for how I judged his behaviour. Now it's mine, but it doesn't feel like me.
I don't know. There must be better ways. I thought running was meant to be the cure-all...
I just love this.
"Everything holds its breath."
You should be a writer.
(That last part was a joke.)
I understand the not feeling bad about the breaking of the glass.
I just hope you have some guilt about the breaking of Jenna.
Of Jack.
Of Lucy.
When I was younger, I had the nasty little habit of exploding.
Inward.
Implode, if you will.
Rage, frustation, lack of self esteem all added up to one big finale in my personna.
Lying, cheating, abuse, stealing, drug use, alcoholism.
Self destruction at its best.
Followed by an aftermath of loss.
Over and over I repeated this cycle.
Train rollin smoothly down the track.
Train mangled in a ditch.
Blood and carnage everywhere.
All of the people that loved me along for the ride.
Eventually I got tired of cleaning up the glass.
I hope you do too, one day.
If someone's crying, it isn't Shiva.
Crawl through the glass on your knees to say your sorry.
No matter how much you sweep up broken glass there will always be a shard, a sliver left on the floor,that will occasionally glint bright when the light hits it just right. That shard, in a few weeks when everyone is breathing fine, will find someway to embed itself into your foot. The pain and blood will remind you of why you broke the glass in the first place.
One of my favorite things about blogging --probably THE thing that has kept me doing so-- is the brilliance that sometimes breaks out in comments. Early on, it used to happen quite a bit over at my place. Even though it is fewer and further between in the here and now, it's still worth keeping a forum for reader discussion in place.
I say all this to say that on this post your comments received have exceeded the writing, at least in a small way....and that's something, because what you've written is as stellar as always.
Now to veer off in a totally different direction: I get it. Inside we keep breaking and breaking and breaking and sometimes the breaking travels outward from ourselves.
You know who I hope doesn't read this post? Your homeowner's insurance agent.
That fifth paragraph is going in my book of blog stuff. BlogBook.
You keep working it out, however, whenever. Glad I'm around.
Philosophically, I couldn't possibly come at things from a more different perspective. But man, do I love the way you write about it.
Am I the only one that read this as a follow up to the post about Jen Lancaster? Like, this part specifically "Quit your job. Destroy your reputation. Light it on fire. Oh sure, creativity"? Typically people don't talk about fucking up their house and hurting animals (the cats fur can be shaved) on public websites. I read this as BHJ using the idea of fucking up his house to represent the way he reacted to the whole Lancaster debacle. He attacked her, said how he felt, didn't mince any words... kind of like fucking up your house when you are so angry you need to explode. You attack the house, break shit, then realize what you did affected other people, and now you have to deal with the repercussions, but at the same time you feel better. A weight is lifted, and whatnot. I may be wrong though.
Your post - like the charred smell that stays in the drapes or the small shards of shattered glass that slip quietly into your foot long after the mess is gone - it lingered at the edges of my thoughts all day. Just now, it loosened another fragment, long lodged in my mind, from Margaret Atwood's poem Morning In The Burned House:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/morning-in-the-burned-house/
I think you'd like it. I think it might make some of your readers feel better. ( though something tells me you rather enjoy making them limp a little, that splinter of glass, that prick) I think what I came back to say is~ your words worked.
Is Jenna your WIFE?
Jenna: Run. Run run run. This guy is an asshole. And that is all he is. RUN.
"When there's nothing left to burn we have to set ourselves on fire." - Stars, Your Ex-Lover is Dead
Oh my god, Katherine, and others: it's a metaphor. Like how the internet makes my head explode. No really. It does. There are brains all over the wall, and hanging off the TV, and dripping on the floor. There is a stub where my head used to be. I walk around and bump into stuff. And people see me and they don't know what to say. Except I can't hear anything because one ear blew up onto the underside of a light fixture, and the other is wedged underneath the couch.
SweetSalty,
No matter how much you sweep up exploded head there will always be a shard, a sliver left on the floor, that will occasionally look like a dust bunny when the light hits it just right. That shard of grey matter, in a few weeks when everyone is breathing fine, will find someway to stick to the bottom of your foot. The smell and squishy sensation will remind you of why your head exploded in the first place.
Except you won't be able to smell it without a nose.
William's wife had better RUN. And run FAST. William enjoys the sensation of stepping on brain matter. This tells us all that he is DEMENTED.
William: CALL ME.
Blogging means never having to say you're sorry.
This is totally one of those things where the reader's reaction says as much, if not more, about them than what you've written says about you. Or maybe that's always the case.
Heh, Ali, nice one.
I think most people who read his post about Jen Lancaster probably caught that this was metaphor. However, given the fact that the post has disappeared, it makes sense that anyone who missed it would be confused.
Ah, chaos! Crazy! Madness! Things exploding! Breaking, shattering, destroying, smashing...
Confusion from his readers? Misinterpretation, misconstruing, misleading? How HORRIBLE. I can't IMAGINE that BHJ would be enjoying this. AT ALL ;)
Nicely done, sir. I salute you.
Funnily, I just found the original in cache. You did burn a bridge and explode your world, didn't you?
This piece, though, is amazing. I have never commented here, because well, you are insulting and mean. But this is your space. You are free to be insulting and mean. And I am free not to read, which I don't usually. I still visit here and there because sometimes you have one of those lines that haunts me for days, like "We don’t honor Satan the way Hinduism honors Shiva. Destruction gets no love." Your writing is sometimes, well, incredible. Even though your need to put people down just seems so unnecessary and immature, especially for such an amazing writer. I disagree that being sorry insults the morning. That is what gets me about your writing, you do the craft justice then smash growth into a thousand shards and ruin your piece. No redemption, just you, standing in rubble, watching wisdom twist off into the distance. Since your original "fat people are gross" post, I have watched you insult and reinsult fat people, claim not to hate fat people, then do it all over again. I decided to catch up on all the sturm and drang with JL via cache. (Google is amazing.) I have to just say now after reading the tweets, and the sad piece you published and erased, schadenfreude really does taste so fucking sweet sometimes.
SLFB. I'm not an addict. I am an addict. When you see other people struggling with disorders of any kind, you judge. I was beaten and molested by a man. My step father. Now... after attempting (and successfully leading) a life after that, I judge others by their reactions to stress. I'm sure BHJ's reasons are different, but we all reserve the right to judge others. I judge anyone who I perceive to be weaker than me. I do this after many years of therapy. When I see other alchies, addicts, people that prefer over induldgement, people that enjoy plucking out arm pit hair one strand at a time, I judge and rejoice. We're all so fucked up. But the meanest of us all are the most fantastic.
I get like this. After my will to quiet has waned and something has to give. And at work, they let me wield big wrenches. I pity that fucking pole I walk past on the way to the break room . . .
this... is why i read you and why i respect you.
unapologetically.
restraint of pen, tongue and keyboard. or not.
"Freed from their functional servitude, they shatter. The shadow of shattering is relief." Wow. Just wow. Terrifying and true on so many levels.
i'm glad a few realized you are wonderful in the metaphor department. wonderful indeed.
sheesh...
I just read some of the comments to your deleted post. I didn't realize how ugly it got. I feel bad for referring to it. you can delete my above comment. I couldn't figure out how to do it myself.
So you don't like this post AND you're revoking your declaration of my victory? So to be clear: you have nothing positive to say about me? At all? Sarah. You're being awfully unsyncophantic. Or do you still approve of the obesity post? I can't keep track of your support.
Lol!
I only said this post was "mildy annoying."
And, no, I am not revoking your declaration of victory. I just wish I hadn't made it so public. I fully intend to put on a one-woman living demonstration of your victory over unfunniness, self-absorption and people-who-didn't-like-the-obesity post. Which is forever cemented as awesome.
I just realized you might have been hoping to let the whole thing die down. I didn't realize the entire freaking internet was astir with the BHJ/JL debate and "what it means" for blogging. Which, by the way, has actually for the first time in history made me interested in all that annoying meta-shit about the blogging community. I'm actually going to write a blog about it, which no one will read, because I have only three readers and they could not find anything less boring than that. HOWEVER, as a result of having only three readers, I can throw all the dishes I want and no one even notices.
And I find that interesting to think about...
The thing about the explosion is that, afterward, it's near to impossible to put it all back together the way it was.
This is why I love you. All of this bloggy goodness to imply, infer, engage, think and eventually give up trying to figure out.
For the help please use http://www.google.com