RSSChapter 1: So Far…
Mar 28
420 Ramblings 5 America Lane, fiction No Comments
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If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for the Creator, there is no poverty. -Rainer Maria Rilke
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It’s important to realize when you are living through an era. I think that’s what has always made great authors great. For whatever reason—trauma, political upheaval, or just raw genius—they awaken to the fact that they are living in interesting times. The Civil War, the French and American Revolutions, the Great Depression, World War I & II, the Vietnamese and Korean invasions, all of these moments have produced authors. Their singular theme: a visceral record of living in that time.
My name is Sam Biancha. I am one of these people. I live in the United States. In my lifetimes, the Berlin Wall has fallen, the Cold War has ended, and Vietnam has been forgotten. My country is currently in the midst of an economic crisis that’s slowly improving — the politicians say — and a person with brown skin is running my country for the first time in history. [In my time, people still care about that shit. I know, future readers, we are still very ignorant.]
So, everyone I know is scared shitless. There is no other way to put that.
My city and state of residence are wholly irrelevant. I’ve been all over this homogenized union, and I can assure you, every place is basically the same. Everywhere I’ve been I have found: a Walmart, a Mini Mall, a TGI Fridays, and a Chilis, and a Houlihan’s. I’ve usually slept in one of the three giant hotel chains. Mom and pop motels are disappearing fast. Wherever I go, in all of the media I see, it’s just America—formulated, processed, manufactured, and consuming. Happy Holidays, everyone! Where I live is uninteresting.
So, I will tell you about me. I’m an expert on that subject. I am in my late thirties at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century. I am heterosexual man. I am a college professor. At least, I used to be. I have just ended my last semester. I quit professing to write and to try to be free. [Don’t I have some crazy goals? That's what my mother thinks.]
I just got a job working maintenance in a Catholic church, even though I’m a Buddhist.
And I’m in love with a former student. We met in a History class I was teaching. She was twenty-one. She is now twenty-five. She is the love of my life. That’s why I did it – slept with a student – she was just the one for me. The moment we talked we both knew it. We have been together ever since. We have lived together for years, but we aren’t married, and we aren’t planning to be. Well, maybe for the health insurance and tax incentives, so we’ll see.
Her name is Lucesita. She is a crazy Dominican. Don’t get offended. She knows who she is. She knows I am a crazy Italian street kid who loves the Sopranos for so many reasons, so many bad reasons. Her family calls her Lucy. She hates it, but she accepts it.
I call her Luce. It is my own private name for her – a one word poem, I told her. Luce is the homonym of Luz: the Spanish word for light. Her name is an announcement. It is a presence. It’s not “let there be light,” but the moment after: “light.” It exists.
Light is what I worship: in her eyes and in my life. The fact that light simply exists. I don’t think much about how it got here. I think that’s an uninteresting question. I prefer to wonder: What is it? Is it a part of me? Am I a part of it? What is its purpose and its nature. I will never answer these questions, but they are fun to toss around. Luce makes me think this way just by living with me. That’s why I love her. She inspires me.
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Possibly Related Posts:
- Poetic Aside
- Chapter 2: So Good
- I am so full of shit.
- America's Worst French Fries?
- Video Books, maybe?
