Despite everything, and I mean everything, some part of me is happier than I’ve ever been before. This is hard to explain, and I won’t try, although it may have something to do with a singular event that occurred about three weeks ago.
About a week into my blogging hiatus, I wasn’t feeling good. Somewhat guilty and confused about the whole thing, actually, but at least there was some psychic space. Rather than castigate myself, I decided to walk down to the acequia, where we’ve made a private little hideaway under the aspens and apple trees by the flowing water, and just sit. Just do nothing (the hiatus again) and see if anything happens. It did.
Out of the blue, I suddenly realized that I had come to the useful end of life as I had lived it… All the beliefs, attitudes, lessons, schemes, and strategems I’d employed over the entire span of my life were, well, completely fucked. Finito. Devoid of purpose. Used up. Expired. If I were a locomotive, I had come to the end of the tracks—not to a siding, but to a lonely place where God had pulled up all the rails and everything just stopped with no way forward. It was like everything was over and I didn’t mind, or couldn’t. That would have been like feeling sad or guilty about the mountains!
Whoa. I didn’t know a goddamn thing, but this was new.
[That's me 35+ years ago w/ cat bones on my hat! Photo Credit: Ed Deasy]
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
That “lonely place where God has pulled up all the rails” might be an image from a dream or a phrase from a dream-like story of Kafka’s. The minting of such phrases is a pleasure in its own right. One of the best reasons for carrying on must surely be the joy to be had from the mind’s shaping of the unsatisfactory circumstances we all more or less find ourselves in. If this life were easy, simple, understandable, unfraught – well, it wouldn’t be life, would it? It certainly wouldn’t be worth writing about. I still like Keats’ immortal formulation of human life as “a vail of soul-making”. Hemingway’s “grace under pressure” isn’t bad, either.
Hey Ken, welcome back!
You’re right about that pleasure.
Not in “unsatisfactory circumstances,” however. Just… well, here, sorta, with everything all busted. I kinda like it.
-sounds like ‘riding the ox ‘
prof John
http://www.thebaptistshead.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=214&Itemid=31
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/mzb/oxherd.htm
cheers
Great links, dar! Love the ox analogy. Good stuff!
Oh blast! I closed the window without clicking ‘submit’ and now my eloquent response is gone forever and I’m left with one of those mental copies which is never as good as the first …
In my half-dream-state when I awoke this morning I felt a strong urge to start writing a book. Not a book for anyone else to read (though they could if they wanted), but a book to prove that I was real and to document where I am now (which has certain similarites to what you describe John), and where I am going (I don’t know where that is).
Then I came to the computer to check my mail, followed your link and … wonder of wonders! There I found the glorious beginning of a book (what a first line!). Different from anything you have written before – disguised as ‘fiction’ perhaps, for fiction allows so much more scope for telling the truth.
Now, alas, the words for my own book, which seemed so good in my half-dream-state, have evaporated. Curse you John Farr!
Hell, steal whatever you like! If it speaks to you, use it and pass it on.
I like your idea for a book. Ask me anything about digital books (as if I’m an authority). This lady knows a lot about formatting ePub using InDesign, BTW: http://www.pigsgourdsandwikis.com/
Oh no, I don’t want to steal anything! It wouldn’t be in my voice. Thanks for the link. I suppose I should learn something about ePub, but it all seems such a drag. When you’re accustomed to the sophistication and flexibility of InDesign it’s frustrating to be constrained by the ePub format. I like designing beautiful books, and ePub is like using MS Word … albeit without the silly arm-waving assistants.
CAT BONES?!?!?!?!
Carmel: I completely understand about ePub. Liz Castro is however an InDesign pro like you and doing some great work making good-looking ePub books for the Apple iBookstore. One would work directly with Apple that way. This kind of quality couldn’t be achieved with something like Smashwords, but they take care of Sony eReader and the Barnes & Noble Nook too. I’m going to go direct with Amazon Kindle and let Smashwords take care of Apple, B & N, and Sony, until my formatting skills are up to doing ePub the way Liz does it.
Chipper: Yes, cat bones.
From the foreleg, tibiae and fibulae. I don’t remember how I came by those, but that’s what they were, and eventually they turned e a nice shade of golden brown. I tied them together in a kind of necklace and then sewed it onto the brim of the old Stetson.
Wow. That hits me heavily. I look forward to the sequel.
“I got a black cat bone… I got a mojo too… I got the John the Conquerer root… I’m gonna mess with you…”