Tosh's Journal : December 8 (Tribute to the Bathtub and Izu Oshima Islan...

My job is to reflect on life, and unfortunately, it doesn’t pay. I have a deep interest in the world around me or how I see that world. To be perfectly honest, the world can easily exist without any input by yours truly. Yet, I have known people who wait to hear from me before they enter such a world. My problem (and it is mine alone) is that I can’t get a regular paycheck for my writings on such an interesting landscape as what is out there. “There” being whatever is not within my world.

My ‘world’ is one where I take long baths and focus my thoughts on the bathroom wall. I notice the cracks in the wall, and I immediately think of them as examples of deep distress that is around me, but quite honestly, not in the bath with me. The tub is a no-zone. My sense of being is how hot the water is, and is there enough shampoo in the bottle? Other than that, the crack on the tiled wall is my total concentration on what that scar means to me.

Due to my poor eyesight, the crack has many dimensions attached to it. I often think of it as an island among the blue sea, since my bathroom tiles are in that color. What is the consistency that makes such an image to be so profound? I imagined Commander Perry as he approached Japan’s little island, Izu Ōshima, in 1854, that is two hours away from Tokyo on a jet boat, but still, such a remote island. It has an active volcano and five restaurants on that island that is full of abandoned cats. What one would think of as a stalled car engine is a wave of the sound of cats’ purring in unison. Feline’s urine can be smelled in the exotic landscape on the island. Houses left abandoned, and the numerous monuments for people who had either died due to plane failure or landslides are scattered in the most remote and public areas on Ōshima. I loved the island because the heavy rains served my mood perfectly. Almost as good as being in my bathtub looking at the island of Izu Ōshima on my blue tile.

The words I write are as useless as the soap bubbles from my shampoo as it mixes in with the bathwater. They, too, become islands in the sea of Tosh’s bathwater. Real depression hits me when I undo the drain and watch the water empty into a pipe that leads to a filthy sewer. Whatever happens, there is always the sewer. No one can lie to that space, because I think the stink and filth is very much part of our DNA.

I dry myself, put some cream on my face (to even out the worry lines on my forehead and mouth area), and then I dress very carefully.  First the underwear, then the socks, a striped t-shirt (since it’s Sunday, I choose a navy blue strip against white) and a sensible pair of walking shoes. I then approach my MacBook Air and try to enter into the adventure.

December 8, 2014

December 8, 2014

I had a hard time sleeping last night.  “I woke up at 4 A.M. and start sneezing, sometimes for five hours.  I tried to find what sort of allergy I had but finally came to the conclusion that it must be an allergy to consciousness.” Not only that, but I keep hearing noises around the house.   I was deeply concerned about a noise coming from my bed last night, and I realized it was my stomach digesting the vegetarian sausage I had before I went to bed.  Which lead me to thoughts about why I ate such a thing before going to sleep.  It made me so angry, because I wasn’t really hungry at the time.  Why do I eat when I’m not hungry?  I remember many years ago, when I was having sex with a girl that I greatly desired in school, I started to think about having pasta.   That whole day was thinking of nothing but getting this girl in bed with me, and yet, when the moment arrives, I started to crave penne.   When I climaxed inside her, I thought of tomato sauce being spread all over the pasta.   That happened many years ago, and to this day I still think of it - but mostly when I’m in bed trying to fall asleep.

I got up in a rather bad mood and decided to start writing my daily post for the day.  Since John Lennon was killed on this date, I considered it would be appropriate to write a memorial of some sort.  Lennon was very much a figure of my generation, specifically my youth.   I loved him.   What I found the most disturbing about his death is that I was shocked when it happened, but also quite disturbed that I didn’t like the album he released that year.  For me, the Plastic Ono Band album was his masterpiece.  Also the singles he released before that specific album were magnificant.  “Imagine” I think is pretty dull and forever what reason, his music became a sort of wallpaper in my life.  After that, he disappeared in the city that one can disappear like Fantomas.  He avoided the spotlight for five years, not even a photograph of him was made available in the media, and then all of a sudden he came back.  My excitement to hear a new Solo Beatle song or album was pretty great.  Yet, when I heard it, it sounded dated, and someone just coasting on their talent.  I knew there must be a great album within him, and it will be the next one.  Then his death took place which robbed me the “in theory” the perfect Lennon album.   Since then, my life became an illusion of sorts.  Soon after December 8, 1980, I gave up pop music and listened to only classical music.  Since punk was turning into a product, I decided to jump into another decade of music, or something as far as I can get from my once favorite three words: Rock. N. Roll.

I’m attracted to Jean Sibelius’ music, because he once “justified the austerity of his old age by saying that while other composers were engaged in manufacturing cocktails he offered the public pure cold water.” I understand that.  Sometimes, even I, have a hard time to make something of value, or worth.  When I can’t sleep at night, I have a 16mm projector and the only film on a roll is a series of works by Georges Méliès.  I set the projector up in my bedroom to project the film on the white wall above my bed.  My favorite film of his is “The Impossible Voyage” which is about a group of scientists who go on a trip to the interior of the Sun.   The film was made in 1904, and I often play music by Sibelius as a soundtrack to the images projected on my bedroom wall.  Sibelius is from Finland, and I never been to Finland, but in my imagination I think of it as a magical part of the world.   I often lay on the corner of my bed and think of worlds that I have never been to, but imagined.

“Cold water” is not bullshit.  It is exactly what it is, and therefore I can’t worry what people will say about me or my writing.  I “pay no attention to what the critics say.  A statue had never been erected in honor of a critic.” The clarity that I desire in my life, is that I find that “the longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and ironically, the more real.” With that in mind, I face this afternoon with great delight for the adventure that surely will happen.