aphrodite's garden volume 20 part 5 - 1994 june-july

work & days: a lifetime journal project

22nd June 1994 Dear you, Not dear today, I'm annoyed. Why did you come after me last summer? You pressed. Why, if you didn't fancy me? What did you think you wanted, conversation? It was more urgent than that. You saw someone looking at you, who could perhaps be hurt? Someone to prove something on? And then you did two things at once, you seduced the little girl while insulting the woman. I don't mean your impotence, though you will want to jump to your conclusion. I mean small insults all along, bewildering. And now you're back and planning to evade me. That woman. And I'm planning to evade you too. Larger one - I was hurt when I heard his voice, just like that, tho' this morning I was fine - his not fancying me makes it too hard doesn't it - makes me want to try to change it - why did he come after me, if he didn't want me? - is this the sore place in it? - yeah? - what can you tell me - is it only cos he doesn't want me that I want him? - is it something that's happening to balance Louie? And then, I wrote, I talked, I plotted. Shannon said she was grateful and loved me. Love woman gave me advice. I'm thinking of a hillside somewhere. Roads and cafés. I could fast. 23 There's an emergency. All the birds have gathered in the barn. The one is speaking to me from inside, I only hear a voice. "Are you wondering why it's so quiet?" "I was wondering, yes, why there were no little cheeps." "We did what we had to do." I knew they'd killed all their babies because they'd make noise. I was wondering how they did it. "There are some birds leaving with peas." I see a few little grey birds flutter just outside the door. "With peas." Maybe I see a dried peapod. I know the peas are the emergency store of food and these birds are jeopardizing the group's survival plan. What is it about this dream. I come into the middle of the story. I know the story and am learning details. It is a technical dream - I feel - I'm on the outside and different things happen. A voice is talking to me unseen. When I wonder what they did with the babies I vaguely see birds pecking baby birds' heads. When he says ( - see, I didn't know I thought it was he) there are birds leaving with stored food, I see them in the ordinary way. All this seeing takes place outside a door I'm not looking into. It's like "vacuuming up a mouse's nest" - I just saw that it's like in more than one way, eliminated babies - in being a certain kind of sentence. The emergency is not felt, it isn't part of the sentence. So the sentence goes hiding birds / killed babies / a leak of birds and food. What I am thinking about is the way he bleeds me every time he speaks to me. I expect harm and am hiding as soon as I hear his voice. I kill the voices of the babies that are hurt. Is there a social leak? Various leaks always - a tone - a weak defense that isn't direct enough to cut to where we are behind the conversations. You - you did it again - you have no idea do you - you do, somewhere - but I want to get to the bottom of this - vacuum up the mouse's nest. Why do you go for the jugular every time, as if you know my weak spot and can't resist the fun of seeing blood. Is it spite? You say: you're not a woman, you're ugly, you're mannish - those forearms, shoulders to kill for, your handsomeness; and you're a person who so much likes and needs to have your own gender supported. I want to know - is that the truth? Do you find me unlovely in the ways women are lovely? Am I outside the category? What were you after, then? What did you want? Do you think of me as a man? Do you think of me as a freak? You bewilder me. I know I'm not mannish. I've seen myself. I'm different ages of girl. You're lying in some way. Why? You're protecting yourself at my expense. Maybe when you feel the woman in somebody you feel it too much? I know that one - a helplessness. Maybe you don't want to feel it where you know there are other things too - heart and mind and depth and bravery - because then you'll feel a woman who's quite wantable. Thoroughly wantable. And not only that, but possibly larger than you. Is it that? Do you need to denature me so you'll not be a little spirit worried at its imperfection? Make sure the other person is that. Stave it off. Well, humans do that. I do that. Now the question is - how I should defend myself. I know when I've been stung and I know how to sting back, but if I do, two people are hurt and nobody is fixed. If you knew you were stinging, when I stung back you could say Oh fair enough, now we're even. But if you don't admit you're stinging then when you're stung you're confused too and it gets worse. It dépend de celui qui passe Que je sois tombe ou trésor Que je parle ou me taise Ceci ne tient qu'à toi Ami n'entre pas sans désir   A being breathing thoughtful breath, A traveler between life and death; The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength and skill; A perfect woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command; And yet a spirit still, and bright With something of angelic light. Oh hold me I've had such a hard time You are saying that too. Aren't you [Il dépend de celui -Valéry] 24 At what stage did I remember the dream. Page four. "He is an enforcer and I talk about marrying him - that doesn't make sense." A sailboat - a small sailboat - the wind has come up - I see it on the right breaking high on the coast - is it Rowen I am with - I'm talking about going to Toronto with him - if I had a larger sailboat I could handle winds like this wind - this choppy grey-green water would be speed. She says yes. 25th It's your arms I'm after - your wonderful arms - if you mean to keep them away from me forever you shd let me know, 'cos they're the hook. Them and the way I like to see your face. Dear larger one, what do you say to that. You know what you need, little one. What should I ask? Let's find something we don't expect. What am I expecting? You say. You're expecting to hear you can't have it, you shouldn't want it. Smell of lovage on my hands. I don't want psychology. That repulsive little man. Tell me. A miniature Nazi, would-be lederhosen. Slow English, the whole time trying to climb on top of me. He had a plan, wanted to suss me with secret psychological knowledge. We argue about color. "This is mov" he says. "No this is mauve." "For me this is violet, that is mov." "Mauve has more pink in it." "Do you like pink?" he says meaningly. "Do you own this?" "It's my project." "Why do you make this project." "It's obvious." I'm wondering why I'm irritated. "You make this project to realize yourself?" "Fuck OFF" I say. I look him in the face and see pleasantness fade. "Fuck OFF." "I think you are not prepared to speak with me" he says with little Nazi dignity. And leaves. "Not in this stupid way." "It is not stupid" from up the vinewalk. "It is stupid." Do you know what that was? A hideous reflection. Got it, sweetie. Goes with how I was with Shannon. And often. Oh yikes I'm a little Mennonite preacher-man. He's got to go. That's what you said. I think I'm not prepared to speak to him. - This is fun. Are you complacent? Will you teach me another way? Level - what's fun? To think of the garden as an arena. I go there early and am weeding, and an animus grotesque is sent to try me, and I fail the test. You don't want psychology. He was a remarkable angel, I owe him. Oh fuck off. You passed the test. Wanting to laugh. - Love woman how ya' doin'? Oh you know, waiting. What you waitin' for? To see his face. It won't be today. It could be. Soppy you are. You like me. I do - I like your fuzzy pink. You're patronizing me, what is this, you're the fuzzy one. Sorry. I'll say better. I do like you, you're a light. - That hummingbird. Vanity Fair magazine with Roseanne and Garbo. Looking up from peeling back its wet pages finding the garden glittering and full and perfect. - grave reports Of dire enchantments faced and overcome By the strong mind   and I grew up Fostered alike by beauty and by fear;   there is a dark Inscrutable workmanship   Impressed, upon all forms, the characters Of danger and desire; and thus did make The surface of the universal earth, With triumph and delight, with hope and fear, Work like a sea   These hallowed and pure motions of the sense Which seem, in their simplicity, to own An intellectual charm; that calm delight Which, if I err not, surely must belong To those first-born affinities that fit Our new existence to existing things   gathering as it seemed, Through every hair-breadth in that field of light, New pleasure   More worthy of a poet's love, a hut, Proud of its own bright fire   Working but in alliance with the works Which it beholds. - Such, verily, is the first Poetic spirit of our human life   Beginning not long after that first time In which, a Babe, by intercourse of touch I held mute dialogues with my Mother's heart   Pored, watched, expected, listened, spread my thought and spread them with a wider creeping;   Even the loosest stones that cover the highway I gave a moral life: I saw them feel. Wordsworth W 1979 The prelude 1799, 1805, 1850, J Wordsworth, M Abrams, S Gill eds W W Norton Sunday 26th What did I dream - photographing a woman, two women. A large camera on a heavy tripod, I can't move it around fast enough. There's a strong silver light behind her, I want her to move into it. It is as if she doesn't speak English. I pull her into position and run my hand quickly down the centre of the front of her body, collarbone to belly, to say stand straight. They seem to be models, because I am giving them instructions confidently. But the silver light has gone, I wasn't fast enough. I need a camera assistant to have the camera moved so I'll be ready. I stroke her chest again. There is a fireplace on the left. The room opens behind it to an open door through which I can see into a kitchen where there is daylight from a long window. I want her to stand in relation to the mantle and the deep space behind her, the two kinds of light. The space I think is a bit elongated as if already the space of a certain length of lens. 27th Monday morning with my cup of tea - Here I am, there I was again. I was in his furry arms. I fought for it. I said no vertical hugging unless I can have horizontal hugging. "Alright." "Alright?! Alright which way?" Happy? Not only. He got out a photograph of a smiling woman with tits, whose hand he was kissing. I know how he feels about that woman. "She's the right size too." That cut, though I know that he knows he himself is not the right size. It was there when he woke and some other times. Big enough. When I woke I wanted it and he traveled away away from not being able to play musical instruments for other people. Dreaming of Fernanda the way I've dreamed of him. "She's tiny. You could put her in your pocket." He puts up with her bad breath. When we rolled into each other's arms it was the same and different. Retrospective. Not there yet. What was the undertone - that enquiry, what's this like, is this what I was wanting? His disjointedness that is out of his image - the way there was a dead white of fatigue down the centre of his face, where the red patches end. He looked unloved. The awkwardness of his body, the hard shield of breastbone he has. I kept saying inwardly I love you I love you, staying with his body. Barely following his excursions. There was the way he brightened when I told the story of the gypsy fortune teller. Tell this boy stories. Everyboy. I love you. I was valiant on the phone. Had to fight word by word until I'd got his official position out of him and then some concessions. He's attracted to me but not "that way." It's that my shoulders are fine not that they're big. "You're striking. I don't see people like you on the street." "When did you stop being attracted?" "When you wanted to wrestle with me. I didn't like that." "What would you have wanted?" "Something more romantic. When you know there are things unsaid." "Have you ever found that?" "A couple of times, two or three times." I thought I understood - he was talking about love. So when I touched him later I was wanting to touch him with the love I've been, but it's the wrong kind. The kind he means is what there was in Don's touch once - what I would have had for David - that stunned shocked love. Unutterable. He was closed, I think - that's what his physical disjointedness means - he was ugly even - that means next time he won't be - and I was too tho' referring to open times in absence; "I love you" was quoting and I knew it. That's what the writer has to say. Now you. Skammen. The moment next to the first shot when Liv Ulman comes toward us with her beautiful breasts. Her eyes. The way Jan stops being pathetic when he turns brutal, as if being weak was his only defense against being a killer. He turned his coat. The beautiful black-silver and white, every frame. When I lay in his arms quietened down and not in any need I saw ghosts of the day's little weeds. A catalog of their kinds. That faint silver white in porous black. The way he couldn't stand me to talk about my work. Not at all. "We are each other's ideal." "Ideal?!" laughing. "No my ideal is something else completely." - He'll have felt that. No? He doesn't imagine what I mean. Hi you - it's the next night. Night of a day I was contented in. Wasn't hustling; when I got behind a LaFarge's truck in a lane I'd just stay there. My body has been brewing you, so that when it came to be evening I remembered you rooting under my hair for the back of my neck. I remembered it achingly. Now I'm falling asleep but I want to say I know some things about you - for instance that when I said it was my elastic on your bedroom windowsill you were disappointed it wasn't your subtenant's girlfriend's, because you had liked thinking of a strange woman naked in your bed. 28 In the morning he'd wake if I moved, sleep again. Once when he had his back turned and I was lying against him, he took my arm and laid it across him, across his chest. That moved me: he asked for something. This morning - it's the quiet before work, sun on the yellow door - I'm noticing that I picture him handsomer and physically more substantial than he is - or maybe I remember one of his selves and the one who came to the door was the imp not the man - he was an imp in his shape and motion, an old imp, drawn, with a too-recent haircut that makes his head look skimpt - and yet I don't remove my eye the way I do when Rob is ugly. Dear you, We have further to go into the moment, slower and deeper, braver and realer, quieter, scared-er. 29 It was saying, I think, that I'm still wincing off moments with him not following them into the underground, which is black and porous and has him bare and true dissolved in them. Bring him out with me. He is freaked by not being touched for six months - his mouth jerks - he's starved for praise, hungry to hear himself described in any way. I was giving him that but the further thing, the real rescue, is that careful tracking behind, to where he is not presented but watching. Is it like touching? Like touching with the imagination. How did she do it? It's more than love though it is love. 1st July Friday, dark silver sky, rattle of rain. I have five days off. The hemlock is standing in water as if it were in a forest on the coast. I see it through drops on the window. Still aching after work. Rob is in his house, in his room like a burrow dark and littered, lying with his cat asleep next to his legs and a heart temporarily very sore - Go on, he says, giving me the gentlest push. Letter yesterday, the letter, from Toronto [from Dave C]. He threw himself into filling two pages anyhow, doesn't answer my letter, says nothing personal. "But the shelter goes up first. Then wait and see if a beaurocrat makes us take it down. I figured they'd just say no if we asked anyway." And then in the last paragraph his writing changes, blacker, clearer: "I'd thought about writing you many times this fall and winter. And thought of you more times than that." - That's the letter, the rest is shelter going up first. When you thought about writing, what did you want to say? I wanted to say I missed you. I wanted to say my feelings were hurt that you cut me off. I wanted to say don't forget me. - A cedar overhead, a holly on the far side. A very tall acacia against the blue up the street. He's building and I climb into his moment by climbing into his task. He wasn't ugly - I said he wdn't be, wearing what suits him - yellow boots, strap jeans, working man's thick checked shirt. Suits his big hands. Pretended not to see me arrive. I endured that panic by wandering in the alley. Hung on valiantly until we started to think together. I wasn't talking for some reason. He'd say anything he thought and I'd say mm cause I hadn't heard it. I was being a helper, feeling the two bodies' relation in the narrow spaces around the truck and on top of it. Yes that's what I was doing with my silence - I was engrossed. Climbing onto the roof of the cab holding the edge of the plywood flush while he nails from the tailgate, opening the cab door and standing with one foot on the seat and one on the armrest, bracing the corner, steadying the frame while he leans under my arm to put in a toenail, I'm looking at the top of his head six inches from my mouth. Did he know it was dancing? It sez he did. Blake now. Garden later. Oh Blake. He conjures what can hardly be seen, and that to him is vision. Gods and battles, nothing smaller than cosmic. Black winds in non-space, caverns, rocks, fire, flood, swift flight, sweet or evil gigantic women, and all these things to be read as something else, but what, if we are not to think of bodies as real? Like a sun or like a human form, a friend with whom he liv'd benevolent - What kind of simile can that be? This commentator is plainly wrong and yet useful. I think it is intuition's choice of citation that is rightness in the tissue of wrong = senseless explication. Where she writes 'symbolic' I think what's meant is meaning for being, being's story of itself. That's what Imagination means for B I think - something like the self-sense of being - it's unchosen self-expression in pictures from the life that feels itself material. Yeats sez this: I could find in some little wine-shop some philosophical worker in mosaic who could answer all my questions, the supernatural descending nearer to him than to Plotinus even, for the pride of his delicate skill would make what was an instrument of power to princes and clerics, a murderous madness in the mob, show as a lovely flexible presence like that of a perfect human body. Then I see who the philosophical worker in mosaic is, and why I love this little passage. It's party-night next door. I am celebrating too. Quietly. They are giving music voices and a scent of cigarettes. If we are but just and true to our own Imaginations, those Worlds of Eternity in which we shall live forever I deliberately reshaped my style, deliberately sought out on impression as of cold light and tumbling clouds ... loosened my rhythm, and recognizing that all the criticism of life known to me was alien and English, ... become as emotional as possible but with an emotion I described to myself as cold. "And again and again they have insisted that the whole system is creation of my wife's Daimon and of mine. desiring cruelty he made you cruel. I shall embrace body and cruelty. Yeats when he says 'symbol' I think means something different - he was trained in magic, and so symbol for him means power of evocation. Empirical: say this word and something will happen that is an image and much more. Blake's vision is more like proprioception maybe. - As if he's in early prebirth and Yeats is well-born into a world where there are swans and other things. Childhood feeling both preborn and born into happy childhood safe to see world furnished amazingly. I'm saying, Tonight - tonight. There is so much he doesn't notice. I don't know what he notices. I didn't know this sadness was there. It's the sadness when I say you'll never want me the way I want you. We are going to end up separated. I am never going to want anyone this way and have it come out right. You are going to go away. I will have more months of pain. Oh larger one - No keep talking to him. You there - you - Then such a well of sorrow. What can I say - Have him answer. K: What do you want? E: I want you to adore me and accept me and want to know me and want to be with me and play with me and say to me, look, let's go on and take each other on and not stop 'til we die. K: (silent) Larger one: Does she want it too much? K: I don't want that with her. I'd know if I did. LO: Do you want it with someone? K: Yes, but I don't think I can have it. LO: She thinks she can't have it because of physical imperfectness, you think you can't have it because of physical imperfectness, there are people who've wanted both of you in spite of imperfectness. What holds all you people away from happiness? K and E: I don't want to want what I don't want. LO: Someone is trying to make you? K and E: Yes. The ones who want us. LO: Rob doesn't try to make you. E: No but I can't settle for him. I'd be stuck in power. LO: Is that your objection too? K: I want to win someone I'm mad about, a lovely little femme who enchants me with breasts and scents and legs and lace and a knowledge of her power over men. E: You see, there's nothing I can do. LO: Oh my dear. There is nothing you can do. You are smart and brave and beautiful and know construction and literature and much else, and it is not what he wants - do you hear her? K: It's true. I can't help it. E: Does it end in bitterness? LO: Oh loves how many times do you have to cover this ground? E: Was it you who made us like this? How would it be if we were you? Would we be free because we were too large to want to marry? LO: Yes. E: It wouldn't matter that he doesn't love me back. Would anything matter? LO: The struggle to get him to. E: The fight to get him to acknowledge something besides his image. K: What about me? LO: Do you have a struggle? K: The struggle to get to my struggle. LO: How's it going? K: Not well. I lie in bed. I don't know what's going on. I'm not who I was. I don't know where I'm going. LO: I love you. E: Is that what you want me to say? LO: Yes. E: He'll despise it. LO: No. E: I have to love him even if he doesn't love me back. LO: No. You can choose to. E: I do choose to. Again and again. I don't want him to mistake it for slavishness. LO: Do you? K: Yes. It is slavishness. E: Is it? LO: It is heroic. But sometimes you take it to slavishness. E: If I played hard to get he'd love me back. LO: Yes. E: So is that a correct way? LO: No. K: But my struggle - LO: What do you want? K: I want to make sense to myself. I want to stop throwing myself haphazardly into anything. I want to be a master of something, not this knocking-about waste of time. I want to be happy with a woman, I want to know what I'm doing. LO: Do something about sex. Everything else will follow. K: There's nothing I can do. LO: That's what you say to yourself. K: What should I say? LO: "I'm going to do something about it." - Love woman - will you come - I'm here, I'm smiling - are you simple? - I'm young - is it you the romantic poets were looking for? - everybody looks for me - we do too, will you come with me tonight? - trust me - I'm so frightened of being weak - I'm not weak - no you're irresistible - resistible but not weak - oh please be there. It's Sunday night. I thought - it said - he said - but I'm not - where am I - I was in pain all day - what happened - he didn't phone 'til 10 and then to say he's been drinking and doesn't want me to come - he doesn't want it like it was before - a routine - what do you mean - twice a week - you call that a routine? You complained it wasn't often enough. You do that, you complain on both sides, you are impossible to please you know that? - That's not true, it depends on the person, some people nothing they do pleases me, other people everything they do pleases me. That was definitive. "I didn't have an enthusiasm for it." "It's pleasant when I get it but -. " Oh all right. You're abusive. 2nd There are people further out in the water. I step into just the edge - it is quite dark, a darkness like afternoon darkness before a storm - and put my hand into the warm water directly onto a cooking pot without a lid but with handles on both sides, the handles of a different material than the pot. I have set it against a leg of the verandah. On the horizon I see a large wave approaching. I watch it arrive. It breaks before it reaches me but the edge of the spill washes over the floor of the verandah. Has it carried away my papers? Is the pot still there? At the foot of a young tree that has been splinted a long way up with metal. A book my father has written about another book. It's a very thick book. I've opened it to vivid passages. I want to write a book too. I am walking up the road toward that other crossroad. There is music. I see a formation of white horses. It's a parade. I'm involuntarily walking in it. I will have to cross it. - The hardest thing to burn was the two pages called How to love K. They are altogether gone. There's no copy in the love book. His letters, his books, his wind chimes. Margaret came while I was burning them. Then a man called Rocky and a child called Mathew. He was Cree métis from Ponoka. And then this amazing thing - I come home to my house and discover Trudy and Rhoda have moved to Toronto, they're gone. And then Tina says I have left my lights on. We restart the car but I don't drive around long enough and it's still flat. And then after speaking with her in the dark I come upstairs to a smell of interesting smoke and find two teabags charred in a blackened pot. My last letter to him, the one in an envelope in the hall, says Today I'm more sad than angry. You seem driven to refuse what you need most, but that's you and I'm sad I've put so much time into a madness. I hope I will not always be so wrong. But that's me. Your idea of friendship seems to be that you get completely selfless emotional support and give back as little as possible. When I'm all better I'll contact you. My experience is it takes a year. But I don't know. It depends what else happens. Will you tell me what my original and true goal is     to love a man Will you tell me what his original and true goal is     to be in power So he is not the man I shd fasten on       Can you tell me what sort of man I should look for     (silence) What should I be asking     (moon) Menopause     You mean I'm evading my destiny     It's too late     (silence) It's not too late to mourn     My honesty is in living as someone who's missed her destiny       But is there something I am in a positive way     no Are you speaking to the child in me     no, to love woman Is there anyone else in me who has a true destiny     Who?     (Kc) a male self What is his true destiny     victory after strife Is there something he strives for     no   She is a motive, he is not a motive, he's a competence at coming through   Are both of these unconscious     yes Does my Self have an inherent aim     no   It doesn't have a destiny because it's collective   But does it have a guiding principle     no Does larger self have a destiny     yes, to die. to lose everything.   What's the best thing love woman can do     survive What would happen if I sacrificed her     she'd be replaced by a child Is that what I'm supposed to do     yes And what wd be that child's natural destiny     vision I need to go back to find the root of vision     yes   And what is vision's work     wisdom, true knowledge Will you help me? I'm willing now     completed work Did I have to bring love woman out to get to the child       And these two men have helped me   Shall I fix up my house     yes Shall I work on health again     yes Do rapid writing in childhood Do yoga - dynamic yoga - circulate energy - open blocks - stop cleaning - go to Riske Creek - take pictures - live subtly - reclaim that sensitivity - speak directly - write poems - do academic work in small doses - make necessary phone calls - Dress more beautifully     no. Dress for action What does that look like     all the people in you expressed, mixed gender, don't dress as love woman   That grant, would it be damaging to my work     , pressures to work a certain way Should I offer to help them write it     Could I get a SSHRC for my own     Other money     CISR       What was the cooking pot I found in the sea     (chariot) A trophy?!     no   (Qc) What she has. A receptiveness, a receptiveness I won. The wave that hit me when I said goodbye to him     What was the wave     unreality Unreality in respect to sex, romance not K Is it because I find the cooking pot it comes     The people further out are the figures     Does the cooking pot survive     Are the two handles important     Mutual nourishment     But is it related to saying goodbye to him     I was feeling mutual nourishment     yes Wanting?     NO mutual nourishment in me Is the uncon the enemy     yes Because it's unreality     Taking something out of the sea is making it con     I'm giving myself to the end of this book to mourn and hash over and then no more. He said in this morning's letter he doesn't want to be involved, he's fond of me believe him and remains my friend. What uninvolved friendship is good for is it's better than nothing, and I was a great help with the canopy, thank you again. Tina said in the alley, You're getting more beautiful as you get older, not less. 4th I wrote another version. One without edges. Mailed it. It said I want you, I'd marry you. I know you don't want it. I'm telling you so I can know I haven't hedged. I need to get used to feeling something else. Give me some time. Then I'll be friends. Not so nicely cut as the other one. A simple girl loyal to herself. Should I ask how he'll take it? It's passionate. It couldn't be nakeder. It doesn't accuse. It says, It's not a cuddle, it's not sex, it's not friendship, it's you. I want to take you on - body, mind, soul, history. As is. I was afraid to ask because I was afraid of hope, afraid in two ways. It might be so naked he's moved by it, and that possibility would drag me into suspense again. Or it might be so effectively calculated that I'd win what I hope I don't want to be a war. How will he take it - it says he won't want to have to stop playing cat and mouse. It will do him good and he will want to make bad use of it and I will have to trust my wits when that happens. Meantime I feel two ways, lighter, freer. A bit unreal, a bit real, and with a heart like a hard little chestnut I will have to dissolve again. There's a joy that I showed myself. I didn't hedge. I was myself. "Be well! Be you. XO" The record says he interested me really extraordinarily, from the first. - A book my father has written. What's it about?     (moon) What's the book he wrote his book about     (Qw) managing self Did my father write the book about me and K     yes I want to write my version     no Love woman wants to write her version     Is her version completely different     it has a happy ending but it's about losses   What's the parade     valor, a kind of high heart Where does the road I'm going to go     losses I still have to excavate losses     Does the road of loss go to her happy endings     YES Is the splinted tree a version of the nervous system     yes Spinal cord     What does metal mean     more conductive, another way of saying the cooking pot Does writing a book mean telling an experience     yes, a book in itself means record or history   What's the overall comment     the consequences of breaking with him Are the consequences the ones I want     yes What will be Joyce's evaluation     work on the mother now   What shd I do with the hard lump of heart     make it happy What will that do     pleasure Suggest what kind     some kind of doing So far it is easier than I thought     there's a cost - a delay What's delayed     work, emotional work Because I'm going into understanding     Would drugs help     Can I release that lump       Anything you want to say     controlling Pain?     yes What shd I do     (Qc) ask her What do you want me to do     start dealing with mother   Is that enough on (Kw)     yes Shouldn't I write abt my father now     no - still do Is that enough for now     no   What else     more about dreaming, dreams there are already Did I stay with K long enough     yes What do you say abt the forever after of that connection     justice, restraint It will never be easy     He'll always tempt me     More than David now     So I'll never be able to be friends with him     But will he move away     after his mum dies Take S with him     no And then     somewhat better   How will he go down in my record     as a fighter How will I go down in his record     as a cataclysm Will he be more real     yes He'll always tempt me because he could resist me     And will I always tempt him     like everybody he lost If he moves we could correspond     won't want to   I'm on my own for now   What will happen when Louie comes back     have to work on balance again   Does meanness turn me on for its own sake     no   I was turned on by Ed It got associated with his meanness And now meanness can turn me on I originally got turned on before he was mean He was seductive. Mary was jealous. Is that structure my doom       Are there other possibilities? Are they all weaker? Less energy?    no Name a stronger one    real self unity It's stronger     Dear you, I'm going to write a last complaint - The way you don't welcome me - the way you don't look glad to see me - the way you pretend not to see me - the way you look at me coldly - the way you don't give back - the way you withhold your feeling of admiration - the way you only talk about yourself - (this feels stupid) - the way you put everything out of your mind and don't think about it - the way I'm wasted on you - the way I should address this to my father, it was just a background - the lack of acknowledgement and feeling, the harshness - The way I could be there in my pretty dress and you wouldn't look at me with bright liking eyes, the way if I won something you would seem to be pleased with yourself as if you had won it. (10c) Am I that already    no Am I going to be     yes Will you tell me abt it    Qc Is that the whole answer     yes stay in touch with love woman I've taken receptivity out of the sea Do I have to do what she wants     no but love her The way my father didn't    treat her as absolutely precious, know her and look after her Will she keep falling in love with men who refuse her     yes What should I do when she does    feel her oppression Will she go on doing that forever     yes   What difference will it make to know and look after her     strength in reserve I'm trembling with worry     with pain I'm stuck     come through, controlling What am I afraid of     feeling loss Standing. Having them looming up there. My right hand. Someone I don't know holding it. I take it down and turn my head to the left. I'm little. I'm alone. I'm hardly breathing. I'm alone. What will I do. Am I alone forever. Don't look ahead. Don't look around. Inside I still have their picture. Hers and his. Their young heads. Her look of concern. His I don't have a name for. I saw him too. Heart. The cord between the hearts. Is there anything to say? Pain. This pain. Here. Is it yours or mine. I don't know. I'm going because you don't want me. You'd have to get that far. I'm not strong enough to do without it. Out. Here's your end, tuck it into your hand. I tuck mine back into my chest. Goodbye. We're separate now. Sorry, sorry. The place in the spine. The right breast. More of the chest. Loving love woman means loving, right    yes So loving love woman means letting myself be that structure again and again     yes Does that mean I'll now find somebody new to do it on     no Then what     valor I'm worried about pain being endless     there are rests David was beauty, Ken was rejection What's the next movement     fun Fun?! I don't believe it     balance in the midst of change I got right to the edge of something and then fell for him again. Was that inevitable     no It set me back 7th And then I walk into the library and put my hand on Living with the passive-aggressive man. I was a mark. I wasn't clear. I was often helpless. But I learned one thing, I learned how to fight with love, when I did fight - I learned to not escalate. The key to him is helplessness with mother and institutions, no help with oedipal worry about challenging other men. An intense dependency, hasn't got real autonomy. A furious resentment of dependency and fear that it will be abused. Will not give either dependency or anger openly. Misdirection. Charms. Decoys with neediness. Denies anger, affection. Self-sabotages. Refusal not construction. Lies. Withholds. Evades. Victim stories. Can't organize. Twits, excuses. Gets you to be responsible. Blames. Ambiguity. Faultfinding, negative. Insults, teases sexually, no fighting skills, seduces, promises, mixed messages, doesn't thank, grudges, stubbornness, impotence, classic double-binder, confuses, deflects, goes away. Scott Wetzler 1992 Living with the passive-aggressive man Simon & Schuster next section - the golden west aphrodite's garden volume 20: 1994 march-july work & days: a lifetime journal project