⚡ March 6, 2015
Streams o Thought 🌈
I become deeply stressed for days when I have to interact with real people … people beyond Bill, that is. I’m not sure why this is a legitimate state of being. Why do I like to be alone when I’ve been alone for a while … and why do I like to be around people once I’m in that state? Who am I? Which is the real me?
Is there even such a things as the real me? Deep questions, which I will ponder as I pack. I’ve taken down the young-person’s backpack-on-wheels that I now use as my luggage. Inside of it is my danger backpack, an embroidered piece of swag from a dental conference in Israel which I found in a Free Box on a Venice sidewalk back in the last century.
That century is now around a whole n’other wall in time. We are ten years, plus five more, into the new century. I used to wonder how people must have felt back in 1899 when they found themselves entering the Twentieth Century. Now I know how they approached the new era crashing through the darkness. They were stressed and then numb with holding on to the sides of the ride. Keeping one’s equilibrium when the years are hurtling along at the pace dictated by the heavenly spheres is always difficult and sometimes nearly impossible. Everything that moves is out to get you and crush you and take your breath away. So yeah … I’m packing.
I am trying to solve the deepest problem: How do I keep writing when I’m not alone? And do not ponder that inconsistency: Why on the earth would I want to talk to the outside public in my head anyway? Why am I not content with just chatting to the one permanent domineering voice who keeps me feeling bad most of the time?
Why do I feel it necessary to write stuff down in some way or other and make sure that people outside myself read what I put down here on the screen or the page? On the particular screen I have open right now on my big main laptop I have an image of the old beloved HyperCard. Boy! Was that a writing machine, or so I thought.
I loved the interface as much as I loved the physical journals I have made and stacked in readiness for writing that may never come, even while the glue dries and curls into crumbs on a shelf. Some were already filled with inky handwriting and many more were decorated with pretty pictures I’d glued onto the pages, one per page. I liked to write all around the scraps in a primitive attempt at layout. Always, always, there is the layout. Down deep, I don’t think my words are good enough to go it alone.
Down deeper, I know they are. I pray they are. I trust they are. If you are reading them now: THEY ARE!!!!
I have edited so many other writers. So many. I feel like a used-up prostitute with a good heart and wrinkled old skin … I’ve given all the love I can to your various misshapen and embarrassing attempts to say something coherent. I’ve corrected your very lame mistakes: your too’s and there’s. Too lame to understand the differences, you just plow on with dulled blades into the chaos, hacking out a little clearing and hoping for the best.
I realize that sounds mean, and maybe down deep I am a mean person, as my brother seems to think. He’s a little bit afraid of me, as if I’m his mother. He was the first people-encounter outside of my parents, and that’s when I must have formed my original bridge – the one between me and other people – and that’s why I stress when it comes time to get out of my alone bubble.
So, I’m packing. Here’s what I’m planning to put into the backpack-on-wheels: my laptop, cushioned by my favorite pillow, which I also got from the streets. This time it was at the dump on Shelter Island at the end of the tourist season, and it was more like a store than a dump. Things would be neatly arranged and placed on a low wall and available for several hours each day. I imagine the maids and wives of rich guys were the elves and fairies who would put all the nice things there after their bosses and husbands were ready to make the long drive back up the island known locally as Long.
There would be beautiful brand-new feather pillows, used for one expensive season, probably fitfully; clothing of every size, usually better quality than you’d buy yourself; furniture that they didn’t need any more and appliances, sporting equipment, books … I really don’t remember all the nifty stuff I loaded into my son’s pristine truck-car, but it was enough to completely furnish the huge house we had bought on the island by mistake.
In order to keep this thread of true writing going, I’m going to list the next things I want to say and do in the next installment. See you there. 🐔