think about direction

 

Dear World,

It's time, I think, the time that I said would come, when the string of pearls first broke.  The time I said would be looked back on, would be seen from a far distance forwards, but looking back.  (Stand in the place where you are).  

What is here, now?  I feel it, the presence of the huge impact of the Pandemic, but, I look around, standing in the place where I live, and I see that we don't talk about it.  (We have turned away?)  The emptiness, the slowness, the worry and the fear, the honesty.  I don't think they have exactly gone away.  I think they may be there, here, like huge thundercloud ghosts, ready, (raw, open, bleeding) to break open on some little party, some small hope.

I proceed now, cautiously.  Not only because of fear, that's the thing I wanted to tell you:  It's also because I liked the pure sharp edges of those days.  The rarefied air of loss and longing was like the thin atmosphere of a high peak- like, a smallness within a bigness, like an exposure to the elements and suffering and hope, too, that was so immediate.  It was just so much 'less' of everything.  

I believe that is why I have wanted to empty my living spaces; cupboards, drawers, closets, boxes, chests.  I want some empty space made for that high-pitched purity of purpose.  Very little of "You Should" crossed my mind then.  It was a vacation away from You Should, I think, because You Couldn't and maybe that is what I miss.

Tint, and roses and falling (and he fell).

 

Dear Inchoate,

Sharp definition shadows, above the valley's bowl of fog.  I catch my breath each time, then descend into the shadowless mist, the damp, under the quiet wholeness.

I have words.
I crossed out the hard, sharp poem.

The poem, the words, the story, of being, of Cleopatra, of waiting,
in museums, behind large urns, waiting to trap you.  To consume you.  To destroy you.

There was an exhilarating rush of sliding down sheet ice- it was fun, while it lasted.  But,
at the bottom of the mountain, after all the speed and the money was gone; I did not rail any longer.
I did not care to eat you up.
I did not need to hear these things.

I went home; drew a field of flowers.

at last

 

    Helen DeWitt's library.

Dear Readers,

At long last, I have found who I want to be; whom I would be, if I had a photographic memory, command of several languages, a huge library of read books, and a really big brain:  Helen DeWitt.  Oh, yes, you will want to be her, too!

I am going to be studying her hard.  What does she wear, what does she do, and, of course, I will read all her books and writings.  Because I Am a Fan.  Which reminds me of Carrie Brownstein's book, which you should read in between Helen DeWitt titles.  You should also take a minute and see what you think of Olivia Rodrigo.  (Because, if, you know, godforbid, I should fail at being Helen DeWitt, and I stumble at being Carrie Brownstein too, well, hotdamn, I still have Olivia to try for!). 

Until next time, I will be continuing to consider How to Become What I Want to Be. 

PS

Massive thanks to dear friend M, for giving me Some Trick sometime ago!

Watching Nothing.

 

Dear Cleaning Ladies (and Gentlemen),

I was cleaning today.  Y'all know I do not like cleaning, because it is never done, and it is never done well enough, and I do not like the world's gender fueled expectations of me to be a 'cleaner.'  

But, because someone is coming, and I want to sit leisurely paying attention to The Guest, and not to hear the following from my constantly babbling interior monologue voice (which should probably have a name; perhaps Hank?): "they are seeing the muddy paw prints, the myriad spider webs, the velvety dust, and the stains on the carpet and table" while we talk.

Another reason Hank and I fret over mess, is that people are not that comfortable in disarray- they feel like they should 'do' something; I don't like being around people who are antsy like that, even when the person is me (or, especially when the person is me, or Hank).

Conversely, and Hank might just be surprised to hear this, I have used these expectations as self-defense:  "What are you doing?" the world keeps asking, and I know I must answer that I am contributing to well being and my community:  I say, "Oh, you know, cleaning up some stuff- it's never ending!"  This often sounds a bit too cheerful, and I worry people will know I am fibbing.

What am I really doing?  Research, in my lab (I am doing it now).  How do I do it?  It involves a LOT of not-doing; and a lot of circular actions, and gazing.  Also, what you might call thinking, but of course, I do a lot of thinking when I am actually cleaning, too, so I am not sure that the 'thinking' counts.  It looks like me, in bed until noon.  It looks like me, partially dressed, poking through my books and notes.   It looks like me typing on the computer, writing to you here, and also sorting.  Sorting looks like me searching websites, or pages of on-sale shoes; rifling through my collection of hankies and taking some out to be given back to the thrift store.  Recompiling months of to do lists in yet another 'master list.'  

Research looks like sitting on the porch watching nothing/everything.  It looks a lot like living, except it is much more engaging, vital, and important.

Writer, indeed!

 

Untitled (Never Perfect Enough), Barbara Kruger, 2020.

Dear Writers,

Another little incident around the extended family table, another little day of hashing out what the hell all that could have meant.  

One thing I know, is that I was offended at the notion of not being noticed as a writer.  What, is there a minimum page requirement?  Psh.  Are people using words without a publisher exempt from this action, then, of putting down words on to a screen or page?  These ones are 'not-writers?'  Psh.

I guess what I am saying here, and I invite you to rise up with me and claim your place as a writer, is that I WRITE, therefore, I AM (A) WRITER.

PS

I know, it's pretty forceful, but, I am pretty sure that I have already pleaded with, permitted you, to claim your place as artist, and I believe that the saying it is what makes it true, not anything else really.  Let me try to give you an example...  How many words in a language constitute knowing how to speak it?  How many times do you need to pedal around your block before you are a bicycle rider?  How many hours do you need to play guitar to be a musician?  Of course I am aware of the fine points, of the tens of hours a week practicing, of the notion of some-  I know some Spanish, un poquito.  I play a few chords.  Et cetera.  If it makes you feel more confident, you can add the some:  I am a sometimes artist.  I do some writing.  I can live with that; but I cannot live with arbitrary gate-making and -keeping, or the false notion that unless you make money at it, you are not it.  The difference between you singing in your car and the singer in the band is that you are not in a band currently.  Period.

how it was

 Journal Dressing, Carol Ann Carter.  Burns, stitching, tea, mixed media on linen, 20 x 31".

Dear The Future,

I wrote all this out for you, so you'd know how it was back then.  But, it was lost, misplaced, and so it has remained, missing for three years.  I am going to start again, from the beginning.

Here is how it really was:  I was put into the care of two nice people, as a baby.  My real parents' were a raven and a rainstorm.  For a long time it confused me that the two nice people would tell me to 'be quiet' and not to be 'bossy,' because these words made no sense in my language.  Still, we got on well enough.  

I spent an enormous amount of time waiting; in cars, in parking lots.  It's funny though, because I like sitting in cars, and I like parking lots too; even though there was so much time spent in them.   I used to look up at the cream colored headliner of the car's backseat, and focus beyond it; the perforations in the vinyl would move towards me; I tried to get the pattern of dark holes to descend close enough to touch my nose.

When the car was moving, the moon was always with me, following for hours, never overtaking, never slipping behind, always right there.

When moving, in this way, there were so many wonderful intersections!  The airplane going crosswise, just over the tip of the pine, the train on the overpass just when I was under; all these amazing nodes of space and time.  Anyway, that's what I saw, and that is how I began to think.

OK

Dear Whomever & All,

How are you?  Take a few minutes to answer, or you can use these handy check boxes:

[]  Nothing nice to say, so saying nothing.

[]  I'm fine.

[]  I'm well.

[]  Could be worse, considering.

[]  I am too privileged to be entitled to be anything but guiltily fine.

I thank you for asking me, in kind; I am feeling surprised, at how low one can go.  Have this song, for today, and let's keep a good thought for tomorrow, as remote as that seems.

I was.

 

Dear Writers,

I was sorting through some papers, and found "I Was."  It's a little poem, and I am putting it here, for you, if you want it.  

I was.

I was going

To tell you

About how it is here, where I live.

About the beauty of it all.  

The branches, the breeze,

Even the chrome and the people;

But a man was walking 

Across the road and 

His shirt said, his chest read, in big, block letters:

BECAUSE I SAID SO.

Red Shoes

 

Dear Chance,

Pink & red?!  Yes, sometimes we just get lucky.  I guess that's what keeps us going on; getting out of bed and trying again: the hope that we might get lucky today.  

There's a heap of unlucky chance, too, of course, and that thought can keep you in your bed, hoping that it will pass you by, just this once.  It seems an odd sort of razor's edge to live on, and mostly we don't notice it and believe we are on a flat, smooth, level, un-cracked, surface. 

Let's talk about it some more; meet me at the drugstore, bring a raincoat and a suitcase, bring your dark eyes.

Perspectives are Numerous.

 

Distancing Bench, Kimberly A. Kelzner, 2020.

Dear Listener,

I want it now, and that must be being in the moment, musn't it?  

I worked many years to learn to say yes to things, and now I find it was the wrong answer, and I have to train myself to say the much more difficult, but shorter, 'no.'  

I made a great confession; and I told how it made a lie of so much I had done; and my confessor answered that 'we need an ego, too, you know.'  Did I know that?

Join me, if you like, in asking yourself these questions, or, just play this song for the day, and read about the musical genre of the Murder Ballad.  Next week, we shall write our own Murder Ballads and put them in a safe place, like the Smithsonian, to be examined by the enlightened folks of the future!

Secret Messages

Hand of Buddha in Mudra Abhaya, 

between 17th and 18th century, copper alloy, Thai, 

in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Dear Many,

I send you your song for today.  This is a beautiful piece of music; the kind that seems to be beyond words.  Maybe you will want to play it, while you read on.  Or, maybe you are in a hurry, and you will not stop for song or story; I hold my hand up to you in a mudra that signifies you go on with my encouragement and well-wishes.


I have been thinking of words and in words a lot, even though you haven't heard from me lately.  The thing you must remember is that I think of you at least once a day, but I don't always compose myself and address you.  I ask myself why not; and the answer is sometimes this:  I don't have anything good enough to give right now; it's just fog and murk and low-level complaining.  Or this:  I cannot pretend that I believe things are okay, and that isn't a nice rumor to spread. 

I dreamed that I stopped staying at a particular hotel, because every time I stayed there, in its beautiful old rooms with views, I was harangued by ghosts- they turned the light on and off all night; they opened and shut doors; they tried to get into the bed. 

I dreamed that I had a very lovely studio, a huge space, and for some reason, I had hung up three or four large signs in the middle of the wall.  In the course of showing someone my studio, I saw how stupid it was to put these big signs in the middle of the wall; the walls ought to be filled with visual information, with paintings:  I had wasted all these years and this space on three big signs that were just some kind of didactic information that had been on walls in exhibits of my work; they were an explanation, the written validation of the works having been shown; just artifacts and evidence, a shred of paper streamer left after a parade.




Back in the world of thinking again, now, I ask you, if we decide to eschew even more of these absurd values that press down like billowing choking clouds of smoky obligation; if we aren't trying to be good, or right, or smarter, or better, or faster, or richer, just what are we going to be doing with our days?

A Bottle of Look Like Her.

Dearest,

Come a little closer; I don't want everyone to hear.  It feels a little confessional, and I am sorry to burden you, because our love is so pure, our relationship is on a high plane of enlightenment looking down at these earthly concerns.  Ours is une affaire d'esprit.

I was maybe 5, or even 4, when I first realized I wasn't what I was supposed to be.  It seems ludicrous to me now that as a sub-six year old I would have any notion of what to be.  By 'be' I mean the specifically female awareness of 'what you are supposed to look like.' 

There were ways I was supposed to behave, too, of course, but those were more direct expectations;  Be seen and not heard.  Sit quietly.  Don't run around in here.  These directives were mostly spoken, and they mostly had to do with not making noise, now that I consider it.  So, here was what I had for tools at age six:  Shut Up, Now!; and, You Are All Wrong. 

My hair was wrong, my body was way wrong, and my face was wrong, too; I needed glasses.  Oh, and did I mention my feet?  Well, they were so wrong that only one kind of shoe would fit them.  I feel terrible guilt about this, because now I love saddle shoes in tan and navy.  But this comes from a mature eye- it took me 20 years to learn to love those dorky, clunky, über cool shoes.  When it was all I could get, I hated them.  They were not lovely, girly, princessy, shoes.  They were boyish and drab.  They had stupid laces, instead of patent leather straps and buckles.  There was a lot of self-loathing in those days.

It's all a continuum.  My awareness that I was not right visually is nothing compared to a woman born with three elbows, or 7 toes.  Or whatever else it is that makes a person think they should buy a bottle, tube, or jar of "Look Like Her."  I have hundreds of these bottles, and I still don't look like Her.  I wonder if anything can be done for us, in our self-made hell of in-adequacy?  I mean, of course, that a million things can be done, but is there a universally useful change that could be made in the way we peddle images pretending to be products?

Your Role for Today

Dear Sir,

I find myself in a jam.  Miss Otis regrets.  I am terribly sad and afraid that I do not want to attend your invitation.  I do not want to wear the mask.  I do not want to shoulder the conversation.  I do not want to mentor.  Or to be witty for you, like the trained seals barking for their fishes.  Yes, Miss Otis regrets.

Try this on for size:  You are Joe Smith.  You bring your really excellent Julia Child's Jello mold in the elaborate shape of a squirrel holding a nut to the Big Party.  People love it, and they ask you to bring it again.  And again.  And it goes on for years, and it is now called Joe's Jello by everyone who knows you, and no one else even dares to bring a molded item of any kind, because it will never be as good as Joe's.  And even more time passes, and then Joe is gone, and his Jello lives on in that people make the recipe, and they meet and they say "it's just not as good as Joe's,' and "Joe always brought his Jello, how I miss him!' and "Can you give me Joe's recipe for Jello?"  This is all good and a very nice memory of Joe, dead and gone.  It's the kind of thing you might hope to elicit.  Which is maybe why you bring a pineapple upside down cake and hope, in your secret heart, that you will become Known For It.

Let's consider another aspic aspect:  Joe tires of making the damned Jello on the 8th time, but he doesn't want to disappoint, and he enjoys the notoriety.  He is slightly trapped by the success of his Jello.  He would like to try, just once, a Dobos Torte.  In fact, maybe he did, once, and all anyone could say was "what?  You didn't make your Jello??"  So, yes, he is quite trapped in the role of the One Who Makes Jello for The Party.*

Stay with me now, Sir, because I know you are thinking of turning on an interesting podcast made by hipsters in NYC about the ways in which we assume different identities all the time, everyday.  Stay with me, because I am going to nudge you, or to permit you, to abandon some of these roles.  We are not only the Jello we bring, we humans.  We are quite complicated beings with many, many interests, goals, and fantasies. 

But, you say, that's not right- making Jello is not role-playing!  It's making Jello.  Well, be that as it may, bringing Jello has become a role for Joe, and he might be tired of it.  Also, we are playing roles all the time.  Right now, I am playing the role of a writer of this letter to you, and you may or may not be playing the role of reader.  If the idea of a role is too much for you, consider it a mode of being.  You might be in the receiving mode when you read this and you might not.

Let me offer further example:  You go to the post office to return the vegetable spiralizer you got on the internet, because you realized, while watching a very old episode of Dr. Who (wherein the Doctor meets a computer that he gave his mind to upon its birth as a sentient new being, and it has been flailing along for years with this split personality, wreaking havoc on everyone around it), you realized, that you might be entering a trap.  You might end up being the one that everyone goes to for spiralized vegetables, and you decided, deep in the clarity of the night, that you did not want this role after all.  So, you are at the post office with the box to return this potential role.  You get in line and now you play the role of the person who is slightly annoyed at having to wait, but you don't take it out on the poor beleaguered postal worker, although, you do think to yourself "I am not paid to be on this side of the counter, and you, Postal Employee, however much you may hate your job, are being paid to do it."  And the other people playing the same role remark to you on how long the line is and how inconvenient it is and you agree, in your role as Postal Customer.  You might say now, to me, Sir, that that is that, and how else could one possibly behave waiting in line at the post office? 

How happy I am that you asked!  You could take the time while you wait in line, to compose a manifesto for avoiding impulse purchases online.  Which you could put to music and maybe even upload a video of you and Joe performing it to YouTube.  Or you could say, to the person who says this is a mighty long line and slow, too, that you enjoy lines like this, because of the way it requires you to examine the floor tiles to avoid making eye contact with people who are playing the role of slightly annoyed at waiting in line at the post office.  Because, you might explain to them, you don't really want to get stuck in the same role every time you come to the post office.

Well, I know your time is precious, Sir, so I guess I will say just once more:  Miss Otis regrets.








*  Joe's crisis deepens:  If he isn't The One Who Brings the Jello, just who is he?

The Temporal Lines.

Dear Stockinged,


They are making now, with their super-high-tech-plastic textile stuffs, stockings that do not run. The Brits call them ‘ladder resist,’ and I wonder if I will need to start to hoard the old kind, the kind that run, the kind that hold a record of wearing.  Of course hosiery is fragile, and short-lived, but isn't this part of what we love about it?  Would we have them 'wear like iron'?

The run in the stocking is the sexy near-end of a pair of hose- and let's pause here, to think of Lady Chatterley’s Lover’s vermillion hose....

A woman, a girl, always works a bit to hide the early runs- with a longer skirt or boots, and often just the tiniest section of a run will show as a person turns, or leans. The run is a line that leads someplace you cannot see, and it is the most titillating part of stockings, and it is also the very end of them, the most precious last wearings. The run is especially lovely in black stockings, because it is the most visible.  The wearer sometimes puts a daub of nail polish on the runs, the ladders, to stop them, and it might show as a red or pink dot on the stockings.

The thing I am considering here, as I so often do, are the traces of time's fleetness, the ineffable marks of wear, and the very nature of being.  May the mundane and short-lived continue to endure!







PS 
A place you can go to plan or make manifest your hoard.