My ramblings....

I Am Moby, Waiting for a Train

The train comes to a shuddering stop and I stumble back and forth, too eager to get out the door. I enter the land of white. White tile, white lamps, white posters. White people passing look yellow though, in the fluorescent light. I remember in Moby Dick, there's this entire chapter dedicated to the meaning of the whale's 'whiteness', like how frightening and deep it is. (chapter 42, if you have an inclination to study further) At the final summing up of his evidence Melville concludes,
"Is it, that as an essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color, and at the same time the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows- a colorless, all-color of atheism from which we shrink?"
And aside from the confirmation that Melville writes the longest sentences of any author I've ever read, the meaning and unsettling feeling I get from these words really sticks with me.

I'm at the end of the platform. I got off near the middle and then walked to my right to see if anything ingenious would catch my eye but there's nothing, just the platform and posters for Boston Pizza and voting. So now I'm at a wall. I always feel dumb when I don't actually achieve something when I walk one direction because then people realize I never really had a plan in the first place, I am just hoping something will come along.
Oh well, I turn around and walk back and find a bench and pull out a pen and an old envelope so it will at least look like I am preoccupied. See I don't really have the whole whale issue like Ahab did, just the whiteness issue. I'm not going on a crazy hell descent just to find that one thing that I can base my whole life off of, front and back. I don't think I've found it but I don't think I'm looking for it either. I'm more of a 'take what you get and do what you can with it' kind of person. So that's where the problem lies. I'm not really sure what I've got so knowing what to do with it is slightly more perplexing. Thus, my whiteness issue.

My envelope is blank. But my pen cap is off. That'll show the curious onlookers. I can't remember what card this is. I don't even know why I keep so many cards in my bag anyways. Oh right, because I always have serious intentions of writing the person back, at least to say thanks for whatever nice sentiment they tried to bestow upon me via hallmark. I don't recall having responded once to date. I shuffle the card out and flip it over. It's purple with yellow and black pansies waving around the stretchy cursive writing: "Granddaughter..." Dammit. This is from March. I haven't even talked to my gram on the phone since then. Another train screams up, slows down, opens wide, shuts tight, speeds off. The platform room returns to its dull hum.

See, the reason whiteness is so frustrating is because you know in your heart there's something there but it's practically impossible for your brain to find it. You know if you go deep enough or mix the right things in or shine the light at just the right angle, it'll emerge and BAM, you've got this super great, vibrant creation. The thing is, you can shine the light a million times and still not get the angle right, and if you mix the wrong things in you just get something that closely resembles a piece of shit. Though no one would say it in quite those words, you'd know that's what they mean, and even more, you'd be sure of it with your whole self.
So it's a little more than frustrating. It's closer to terrifying when I really let myself think about it. But it's the kind of terror like in those stupid horror movies where you can't look away. Ever. Because the whiteness isn't the whale, it's you. So how do you look away, right?

I'm staring blankly at the tiles now. I can't even pretend to convince people I'm doing something because I can't help but doing nothing. At least I'm still assuming people are looking at me. I look down to the other side of the platform, towards the wall I didn't end up at. There are three Korean students waiting for the next train, two talking back and forth in a gossipy sort of way and the other listening to huge headphones. I watch them until the train scoops them off to never land and I decide that my favorite thing about Koreans, in a purely shallow respect, is their posture. Their chins are always slightly higher than everyone elses, and some people hate them just for that but I think it's more out of defiance than pride. I mean eventually it turns into pride but first they're defying everyone else to think any different. Maybe even their own insecurities and self-hate that humans seem to be born with or at least be trained to accept by our parents by the time we're four. So they defy that genetic voice that reminds us we were made from dirt and to dirt we'll return, and for a while they convince it that it's wrong and that they've got some diamond in them. They lift their chin and they have everybody believing that they've got a bit of god in them and then voila, they are pretty much accepted and expected to act like god for the rest of their life.

Speaking of which, and back to my friend Herman; Ahab is ranting and raving and convincing his crew to go on this deadly search for the white whale which has become is life obsession. But even then, Ahab isn't convinced it's the whale alone that is to blame or if the whale is just a means to someone else's end. He says,
"But in each event- in the living act, the undoubted deed- there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask!"
So the thing that gets me here is that since I don't have a whale, just the whiteness, it actually makes me the whale. All poorly delivered jokes aside, that carrys a billion troublesome implications and maybe you can guess why I'm so torn up about the whole issue.
So what does this have to do with the Korean gods? Well it's more about the defiance. If I'm the whale then there is that 'thing' behind the whale telling me what to and what not to do and who I am and who I am not. The only way to fight back is to cut the whale wide open (metaphorically, stay with me) and shake my fist at the driving force that sent me swimming in the first place. Then in my defiance I have a little even ground with that force and I can throw out the whiteness and find something else. Purple or green or something cheesy like that.

And now you're probably confused because earlier I said there was something in the whiteness, something deep and powerful and worth something. But, I've learned it's actually more than a hell of a job to find, it's pretty much impossible for reasons I've already mentioned. Let me explain:

1) If the white whale is just a means to someone or something else's end, then that's all the whiteness is too. To try and explore and 'discover' (yea, like a safari) the depths of meaning the whiteness may or may not hold, you have to let the creature keep on swimming and living like it always did. So the mighty whale director can keep on directing the whale like it always did and nothing ever really changes. I can try to find the god in me, but it's still just a part of the whiteness, and the whiteness still belongs to the god out there. You have to kill the whale to even have a chance of getting away from it all and finding something new. Killing the whale is the only way to rebel. It's the only way to find whatever was wrong in the first place, before the whale was white.
2) That's the main point. This just adds to it, and that is that whiteness is always so damn detestable and horrifying. It's stark and empty while being infinitely loaded with the questions of the universe so no one even wants to get near it for fear of it spreading like a disease. That's why I hate it so much. I am the whiteness and it covers me like leprosy. Blank, restless, futile, always searching, ever unsatisfied.

I look down at my hand and notice a ton of paper strips. My envelope is no longer a functioning envelope. My eyes have counted almost every tile in this stop and I've been tearing my envelope to shreds but my brain hasn't registered any of this. The paper in my hand looks like extra long confetti. My butt hurts so I stand up. I figure I might as well leave now, and the fluorescent light is sending dull signals from the sides of my skull.
I'm standing near the edge of the platform and I can hear the distant squealing of the train and it makes me think, "damn, I was really hoping to find something at this station" But I guess it was too white to be conducive. Still, as the train pulls up I can't quite pull away so I figure maybe I still have something to write or something to do. It rushes away and I open my hand and a billion envelope shreds get tossed out from my hand by the wind and fill the wake of the train. I watch them collide and jump back up in the air and then finally fall to the metal tracks to be torn up by a billion more wheels.

In my other hand I'm still holding the purple pansy granddaughter card and I look at it for a long time, waiting for some sort of epiphany maybe. That's what I tell myself when I get staring and thinking for too long a time. But this time I'm just staring, tired of thinking. I figure I could stop by my gram's tonight, since that's the direction this train heads anyways. She'll probably make me freezer fresh fish and chips, which I'm okay with because I'm hungry enough and the batter they use at restaurants usually makes me sick. She always thinks that eating her homemade kind is a favorite childhood memory of mine so I might as well keep the dream alive. I can see the headlights of the next train getting larger in the tunnel. I put the purple card back in my bag, wait for the train to slow to a stop and slide its doors open, and get on.

posted by Unknown @ 7:54 PM