A Home for Expression

Week 29: Experimenting with Absurdism

I struggle to hit ‘publish’, but I feel a duty to do it. If existence in light of the Absurd is rebellion, and existence holds potential for expression, then expression has a high likelihood of serving that rebellion. So, I’m publishing something expressive today.

Every time I push something like this out, it hurts. When I publish, I use templates, scientific evidence, and other people’s logic rather than leaning on myself. I write every day, but what I write is self-soothing - largely journaling, which for most of us, is what John Dewey calls a “discharge” of emotion and impulse. Expression requires the holding of emotion. “Discharging,” be it screaming, crying, journaling, etc, is a way of getting something out and away from the experiencer. Expression, as Dewey says, is to “stay by to carry forward in development, to work out to completion.” It requires excitement and turmoil, a shaping of materials and disclosure of self. Journaling is a precursor to expression. It helps me purge immediate thoughts and feelings so that I might have the potential to publish something. Sort of a shedding of the womb prior to building up again in a useful way. Then the pain of gestation comes, followed by the pain of parturition.

I’ve been discharging emotion through journaling for over 30 years, never really gestating enough to full expression because a) it hurts, b) it’s difficult, and c) I’m unsure of myself as a guardian of these things. Over the past few years, I’ve been attempting little publications, but rarely do I feel that they contain expression. So, today, I reached back to a time expression seemed to pour through me, detached from any tangible discharge. Sure, I wanted to leave Portland when I wrote this, and I was sad about it, but I didn’t have anything in mind when I wrote this.

Looking back, maybe I felt homeless. Maybe, I still do sometimes. As if I don’t have a safe place to express things, but I’m out here trying. The day I wrote this, I sat in a cafeteria with a fancy iced latte and let a story develop without moralizing it or trying to communicate a specific message. I found a home in myself where the characters could develop and could see them clearly. It was wonderful. I hope to find this place again, but for now, I just needed to recall the time I felt at home with myself:

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Portland felt better than any of the cities she’d staggered through. She’d been here for a couple years, but she felt more at home than she ever had. Even though it was sweltering this morning, most days in Portland were beautiful. At least people give a shit here, Eleanor thought. There was nothing left of it, but she took a hard pull from her cigarette butt before smashing it into the hard dirt. Standing with a stretch before heading around the back of the tent she felt the button on her grayed white denim shorts hanging by a thread, but she was saving it for a special occasion. She rummaged through the tent for a braided belt that she knew wasn’t there and eventually waved it away.

“I’ll see you later, Jer.” She called as she stepped over the tall grass, climbing to the top of the on-ramp.

“You want this cookie or what?” She bounced back to snatch a crumbled Chips Ahoy.

“Thanks.”

She had Jer’s $20 bill in her pocket, but she was looking for the bus card she sucked some asshole off for a few weeks ago. She hobbled quickly to the stop as she saw the bus approaching.

The bus dropped a few folks near the fountain. There was a sea of foot traffic, and in the shuffle she spotted Damien rounding up bottles and cans from all the trash bins. Sheryl had her blanket laid out in front of a nice tree. Lucky bitch. Damien worked so she could sit. She wished she had a situation like that with Jerry, but once he got back on his feet, they’d be in a better spot.

Jerry had disability payments, something like $600 a month. He’d head down to his friend’s laundromat and collect his mail every Tuesday, and every few weeks, there’d be a check. When they first met he’d treat her to a feast (usually Jerry's favorite: fried Chicken from Safeway and some potato wedges) and some juice the night he cashed his check. He hadn’t been able to walk much lately so she’d been going by herself to pick it up. They wouldn’t let her cash it, so she worked out a deal with Sal at the liquor store to pick up Jerry and drive them to the check-cashing store. This morning Jerry palmed her his last 20-dollar bill and shoo’d her off.

Elle nodded to the cashier as she entered. He was checking out a man in a baby blue polo shirt, tucked neatly into khaki shorts, phone clipped at his waist. He looked over his shoulder cautiously, and Elle gave a slight bow before he grabbed his paper bag and skirted around her.

“Hey Sal, gimmie the Crystal Palace.” Sal was leaning on one arm over the counter.

“Might as well get a handle.” He hadn’t seen her in over a week.

“Just give me the fifth,” he sighed, pushing up off of his arm.

“We go through this every week, Elle. If you got the handle, you wouldn’t have to waste your time coming in here every day, and you could focus on getting up out of this mess.”

“Sal, mind your goddamn business. Plus, then you wouldn’t see my beautiful face as much.” She smiled, and even though her teeth were jagged and yellow, Sal could always see the attractive woman underneath whatever the world had done to her.

“Got any boxes?” He always kept a couple for her. He handed her the flattened cardboard, precut into a rectangle just for her. Small things like this made Sal feel better about the world.

“Thanks, sugar. Can I borrow that sharpie?”

He passed it to her over the counter and watched her head outside to make her sign. Lay Lady Lay was softly ticking from the radio next to Sal’s cash register. He didn’t know if she’d ever escape this trap, but when he went home at night, he told his wife about Elle. He watched her move through the shopping center some days. He’d take a cigarette break out front, even though the owner strictly forbade it. He’d watch her maneuver in a spry, hobbled fashion, through the parking lot to the shady street corner, where she’d crack open the fifth and take a swig.

He assumed she lived nearby, but never saw where. There were quite a few encampments nearby, so it could have been anywhere. Sometimes, she’d meet up with Jerry outside the Safeway, sometimes, she’d meet him across the parking lot. She’d offer the plastic bottle, and he’d oblige. Jerry had a slight limp. Sometimes Jerry would have a fresh pack of cigarettes to hand over to Elle. Sal had seen her kiss him on the cheek only once.

They would sit in the shade for a good chunk of the day, (out of the rain in the winter) or until the fifth was gone. A few times, Elle had stumbled back in for another fifth in the same day. She screamed at him the first time he suggested she buy a handle on her second round, so he never commented again after that - not on the second fifth.

Sal’s wife didn’t like to hear about Elle or Jerry. It upset her, so Sal only told her upbeat stories about them, like the time Elle was dancing on the sidewalk in front of the store to Single Ladies. It drew quite a crowd, and one woman even put her grocery bags down to dance with her. It was the only time he’d seen Jerry laugh, let alone smile. He had seen Jerry around for a while before Elle, but since Elle, he was a different man.

She would flit around him with a youthful energy that seemed to invigorate him, although she was no girl herself.

Jerry resembled a small bear or perhaps a honey badger. He lumbered clumsily though life, taking small pleasures where he could find them. Gobbling up honey and ants, not worrying too much about the rest of the world with a come-what-may attitude.

Sal’s wife put her book down in bed one night and sighed. “I can barely figure out what’s going on my life, Sal. I don’t have the capacity for Elle’s bullshit. I know you care about her, but these people are like cats. You can feed and water them, give them love and a home and they just don’t give a fuck. They’ll piss on your couch.”

She wasn’t wrong. Elle was like a cat, slinky, injured, but still sly and alert. Some of the unhoused would take main roads, but Elle preferred alleys and parking lots. She walked with an air of confidence and youth. Somehow she escaped the usual frays amongst the encampments and could acquire beneficial items without anyone `noticing. She had always been quite thin, but her body felt wasted lately, and the skin fell loose on her bones as if it were starting to slide off. He omitted the deal he’d struck with Elle where he’d pick her and Jerry up once a month to get their check. It wasn’t much of a deal, he refused the cash every time. They’d put it on the dash, and he’d throw it out the window in a sort of ritual before driving off.

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Thought Experiment: What’s the difference between discharge and expression in your work? Spend some time thinking about it.

Feel free to join me of course, every day on TikTok LIVE (M-F 1600CST, SS 0900 CST), or check out Dewey on this concept for yourself. (p61-62)

I know it’s late in the month, but don’t forget to do your Reflections. Also, check out this midyear reset by Struthless if you’re so inclined. It helped me.