the golden west volume 21 part 1 - 2000 september

work & days: a lifetime journal project

Vancouver, 4th September 2000 I was at the west window talking to Tom on the phone, looking over the dark roofs to the fading brightness at the horizon. A silent line of geese came over five feet above my roof, flying northwest. A lot of them. Could I count them from memory, no, but let's try eleven or twelve, the right number. I'm not done but I will be, I'm calmed down. Marion Engle last night on Eleanor's show, archive tapes of her talking to Gzowski about Bear. Her voice - compare it to Atwood, Shields, Monroe - was round, clear and bright, like a hair in its roundness, not childish, not mannered, not light, not heavy, a beautiful self. They had excerpts of Bear read perfectly by someone else. The writing was wonderful. I must have rushed past it when I was thirty, thinking I knew everything in it. I didn't know how hard it is to write that well. I dreamed among many other things a car driving along a snowy street with its windshield still covered with snow. I don't like having said that now I know that writing is hard. Something else I don't like is that Tom likes me better since I am not surging and crashing. I say I used menopause as rocket fuel for emotional work and I did the work and that's why I'm steadier. I loved the surges and crashes. - Do you want to say anything about that     partial loss A loss of a day     It's not a small loss     Do you mean primarily that     More     strength in reserve, indecision, decision, rest Be reserved but let it go     People like that don't care if you are reserved     no Anything more to say     something is undecided What     shatter the structure I don't know what to do with the chagrin     YES They are nasty little people     I want to get even     You are saying don't     But then what     feel the defeat It feels like a sore heart     Is there a next step     no They've hurt my heart     They've hurt my energy     NO They've hurt my vitality     no It hurts my heart to be patronized and bullied     Will you lead me     something about beginning Feeling a hurt heart is the beginning     Other things follow from that     Tell Peter it hurts my feelings to be micromanaged and bullied and patronized     Tell Zimmerman that     no Would it make any difference to Peter     no But to me     For now I have to just take the hit     contemplate, not withdrawing, when you meet the child's losses Okay       Just go on feeling a hurt heart for weeks     And that is the beginning     Will you tell me of what     not withdrawing, rapid, balance, in betrayal If I don't withdraw I will be able rapidly to balance in betrayal     Do you mean in general     It didn't work in those days     no it did I took those hits in the T/R/C days     YES Do you mean I thrived     no But better than if I hadn't     Let it hurt because it does, though they are not worth it     Because I don't want to be on their side     So is revenge ever a good idea     oh yes Instead of withdrawing with Peter come on more     In his face     Really in his face     YES Challenging     That means     be a good TA     Now do you want to talk about Kathleen     Can I be straight up with her     There'll be lots she doesn't like     no Will she like the scope     YES Will she like the bravery     YES Will she like the writing     Will she want to be associated with it     Will she promote it     Will she edit it     Will she actually give it time     Will she tell the Churchlands about it     Will she be nice to me on account of it     Will she find me a job     YES Will she find me money     Are you pulling my leg     YES Do you want to tell me how     it will really be improvement and graduation if you come through processing I should concentrate on her ability to improve it and get me through     When     intersession before the exams After the art school thing     Am I going to have time with this stupid schedule     NO I'm not going to have time but I can do it     Anything you want to say about Kathleen     she is indecisive, about responsibility, in judgment, in teaching 6 Oily neurotic David Zimmerman on the phone laying down the law, I have to go to the lecture and spoil my Tuesday, rather than listen to the lecture on tape and have the day for real work. "I'm glad you understand." Then chilly robotic legalist Peter Horban makes us sit through every point on his list of fourteen things that should be discussed at the first TA meeting. Now I have to get focus back because I have Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Meeting Kathleen tomorrow will scramble me. What have I got to do. This section on the IPL and rep. Computer music, graphics, perspective, Liddell's sequence, Talmy, math notation. 7 The way my middle stiffens when I think of the department makes me see how sweet and easy the summer has been. I recoil even thinking of the students. I need to figure out how to be with it, since I'm wanting to shut down. Will you lead me     understand that they are men So they want to control me     Not only want but need     YES I detest being controlled but that is not helpful     Okay     look for, feeling, liberated, from illusion Find the feeling in me?     in them Ask what they are feeling     Ask them     Will they tell me     Does he feel we'll screw up and get him into trouble     He above all doesn't like trouble     Tell him what it feels like to me     More     come through, decision, to graduate, in writing Do you mean the thesis     no Write about them     Explain!     persistence in the child's flow is how you graduate That's what I'm looking for     This has something to do with writing     Can you explain     processing defeat and betrayal is the work Write to process     no, for objectivity Objectivity and the child's flow are not the same thing     YES So what do you mean     graduate from loss by coming through excluded child The first thing is to feel the excluded child     Look at them as if I'm on acid     Can you show me what he really is     YES Would I be able to see it on the spot     Can you show me with one card     angry At what     loss of responsibility He was controlled     felt controlled Back off and let him feel in control but don't take it personally     I don't know how to tolerate it and still have childish flow     NO I do?     share it Just keep saying how it feels       - It's really bad     I'm terrified     Please lead me     it's deeply integrated I'm not going to get my doctorate     no I did true work     She's going to read it and say, this is terrible     no I'm being crucified, submitting to judgment     - I'm wonderful. I just went and revised the three chapters and I'll ship them to Kathleen tomorrow. It was a bad moment. Tom phoned out of turn. He was looking at the moon thinking he was triangulating maybe. I came home after the lecture and my scary meeting and understood what to do. Use this afternoon to get the chapters ready. Worked through to 9. Write tomorrow. 8 It's 7:30, a weak rainy light, a wee grainy light, on the asphalt shingles. There's the gravel truck squeaking in the alley. Sitting in bed stalling as the house warms. This and that. What to tell Kathleen when I mail the chapters. Tell her it's going to be a web site with a reader attached. Tell her about Colin and Barry. Suggest Lakoff as an external. Tell her how much she can help. Tell her my strategy for getting it published. Ask for help with my diffidence. She's a model of getting out there. Tell her I like the work and am happy with it and want it to be perfect in every possible way. ???     improve honesty to integrate and come through This is my exercise?     9 Very soon going to sit in the back room where it will be chilly and stark. This is a stressed passage. I'm pressed at heart, throat, brow. What am I doing in this fear zone, with these unpleasant people. I'm jangled by so small an amount of it. Can anything worth doing be done there, can anything worth having be found there? Yes, the afternoon in AQ4050, talking with Adam, Sean, Cindy, about Spinoza. Yes, the seminars with Kim [Sterelney]. Yes the moment hovering over Mary Tiles feeling comprehensive vision. Yes the moment coming through about perception not being representation. The vision I've made, altogether, the way I outgrew one collective cramp after another. There is also, however, the endless, endless unwelcome. When I was young I was welcome, I worked and succeeded, I took myself through three days of stress per exam and one day for papers, and was not at odds with the system. Being at odds began at the Slade and is getting worse. Does it get worse before it gets better? Is it my eternal nature? It says the institution is about control and has to be. I resist control and should. The institution is worth dealing with. So it is an endless tension. Everyone finds their own style in it. Evading it means living without influence. I have something I want to give. The question is, will the institution want it. Will it want it in the form I want to give it. I'm tired. My tongue and throat sting. I'm not finished the IPL chapter, even. I'm exhausted     And I'm not done     Can you help     complete it, by coming through, your quest, persistently Keep slogging     no I'm afraid I'm going to die of it     Am I killing myself     no Am I straining my heart     Will it recover     You're saying just keep going     Do you want to say more     the process, of searching, for honest, instruction Is there anyone who can teach me     no Go on searching for honest instruction     From you     I'm already so far outside     YES You will keep taking me farther and farther outside     Other people will be less and less able to value me     I am being punished and excluded for that     no They all hate and mistrust me     no They don't want me     no He didn't want me (crying)     NO The department doesn't want me     no She doesn't want me     no The better I get the less they like me     no I'm wanting to just lie down and die     no I am so tired     no Will you lead me     illusion Should I ask what is the truth     skill Something about skill - theirs?     no, yours I lack it     NO you have it I don't believe in it enough     Will you lead me     finish it Sunday 10th The IPL chapter is done! Yes! And I'm finally writing to my standard. Going into the music chapter. - Oh you are not answering the phone, are you sleeping, are you out? Looking at the moon listening to Willie Nelson by candlelight I have that achy breaky heart that's me with you, that's you sometimes, the moon riding high and alone, your hands when you were a young man playing guitar with that boy's light touch, lightness in the way you danced too. I haven't said it yet, something you are at the core, young grace, the flinching in your eyes and that light core. I never feel you this way now, you don't like it when I do, it's women pressing on you, but I think it's my soul seeing yours, I think the ache is true, I think it's one soul feeling beauty and death in another. 11 But then the question is - should I feel it for anyone? Does Peter Horban have a soul? Is everyone's soul good? I can know it of anyone by asking - I see and feel them in a certain posture. Peter's a straight perpendicularity radiating will. Kathleen is a sideways spreading oval at the height of the shoulders quite soft, slightly pulsing. These souls are separate from ego, which I'm thinking of as a calculating faculty. My soul is that listening elegance of the head and nose. Louie's soul is safe and merry and shines outward very stably. Rob's is a light quirky alertness, not blended. Is that right? Luke is a warm brown soul quite low in his chest. Rowen is an ironic soul with a backward tilt of the head. Michael, interestingly, is a cynical soul, a curl of the lip on the left. The least loving of the souls I've seen. Zimmerman's soul is a headlong rushing point entirely blind. Dennis is a sinking settling embarrassed soul, no, more like caught out. Ray is not what I would have thought - it's a solid soul, dense, but what's the tone - disappointed, is it? Nathalie is a thin anxious wavery soul. Mary is a heavy truculent soul, the heaviest so far. Ed is a compressed bright star inside the head, incandescent from compression. David is a kind of slant, higher on the right. I have trouble seeing David, is there a reason? Being hard to see is part of what he is, is that it? Tony Nesbit a kind of rubbery soul. Do people's souls change? It says no. Are they created by circumstance? No. Should one always speak directly to the soul? Personalities work at odds with souls. Some of these people don't have personalities. 12 Something you want to say     about going out: act, to come through, deep change in relation to childhood exclusion Peter's a childhood preacher     I know the defiance is childish     Could I be perfectly composed     By feeling the defiance and exclusion more     Something more I should do now     no Go back to that lovely work       Will you tell me how it's going to go     success, illusion, competition, quest Is that a list     About K?     no, about you 14 Was dreaming work. I was working on a section about tracking, was that the word? I had a sense there was a section missing. Was glad my brain is still set up for that though I've had a first tutorial, dealings with overbearing bosses and a meeting with the graduate dean who was lovely. He was wearing a beautiful shade of dark green, corduroy pants and a shirt and a dark red zippered vest, and had a long scholarly English face. I took command of the conversation. He liked me. Okay, now. I'm into the part of the writing I can like. I'm not done, but I can relax. Can I get eager? I'm in the computer music chapter. I'm in the computer music chapter with the whole body of the work supporting it. I'm saying here is a composition of acoustic events, I won't say 'of sounds,' here's a composition of an acoustic event that makes me hear, makes me seem to hear somethings (ie 'sounds') at locations. Take Peter Manning's concert. With the sense of hearing located somethings - the air around me is full of them, some are arcing through, some are standing in a quivering texture - there is the sense of being in a space that is and isn't the space of the hall. The quivering shivering somethings could be in the air of the hall but that bright small something fading over the horizon is miles away. Those are not exactly incommensurable spaces - depends what 'spaces' means. We imagine something when we talk about it. Transparent structure. What I'm sort of thinking is that space is known with an abstract parietal sense that is inherently multimodal. Is that correct? It says no. It's how we imagine it, but in fact it's more muscular than we think. The sense of reaching with the eyes and ears. Experiencing space and imagining it are different. Imagining it as token space. Imagining a diagram of it. Imagining being at the concert seeming to feel myself in a space. What it is about that example is that I want it as a template for the others, because it has in an obvious form the perceptual event that arranges simulation, plus a form of simulation as whole-body: presence simulation. The relation of perceiving and simulating is clear in it. Bodily involvement is clear - the way Körpertastbilder are used, somatic simulation, the body about a circumstance it isn't in. - Hey I have money, $100 from Louie. 14 Was that note a good sign     no She is going to say no     Do you want to comment     come through Do I feel something     Fear     If she says no it's a very bad sign     no She feels she can't take that kind of risk     Will I have to leave without the degree     no Did I mis-step in some way     no She isn't good enough to like it     no Do you have a sense of what else I should do     no She thinks it's too bold     I won't find anyone who likes it     no Would Ray like it     no Should I conduct myself proudly     If she says no, take it she means no     Can you think of anyone who'd like it     no So I'll have to quit without the doc     no Barry wouldn't stick his neck out     no Ask Barry     Ask Kath for an explanation     YES What exactly wouldn't fly     Would Barry have any idea who'd like it     It looks bad     no Will you comment     no Will you tell me what she's going to say     she's going to say you will have to struggle and should wait to leave Is that good advice     NO I'm not very alarmed     YES I'll still web publish it     YES I'm not even wedded to having a doctorate     I'm wedded to finishing it     YES I'm wedded to defending it     Do you still want me to get the doc    I'm wedded to perfecting it     If I don't have academic credibility it won't have credibility     You're sure I can still get the doc     YES Isn't there something you'd like to tell me     it's honest I test people against it not vice versa     It's bold, deep, honest work, say that to her     Ask her if she knows anyone of that bent     Does she     Get it up on the web and find my allies     Dreamed my parents were living in a house that had surprisingly large rooms, a couple of them still under construction, one with a fireplace. A lot of cars coming past on a dirt track out of the back country, surprised there were so many people living back there. Will you tell me what my parent's house is     action and feeling betrayed and coming through Will you tell me where the cars are coming from     art, writing Where they come from     It's telling me there's more to come     If my parents are action and feeling, then I am creation     I am larger than K and should be responsible for her    her withdrawal shatters the structure of research and responsibility She has no spiritual discipline     But she's so successful she doesn't care     There's nothing I can do at this point but I should know that     I should meet her as her superior     Do you promise me there's a way     If she joins the committee she's implicitly agreeing to my schedule     Understand that she's orthodox     Understand that her power depends on orthodoxy     Anything else you want to say to me about this meeting     no About anything else     control She will want to control     - Did I do that well     Will she say yes to being on the committee     Did she feel I'd stolen her work     Should I tell her I didn't     YES I got her to admit something     YES Konishi is in Gallistel and in PSC     Her claiming it is a good sign     What she said about Lev was to tell me something     That she was miffed when I said no     And that she likes my independence     YES What I said about how it's done in art she understood     YES She was saying I should go home and die but I called her on it and she changed, that was when she thought of someone who would like it     Can I outplay her     With your help thank you thank you       The conversation interested her     16 Do you understand what she says about expanding time? "Regard all time as infinite. Whatever time you're in, think of it as going on forever. The time you're in suddenly becomes huge and you do a huge thing very fast." I've done my project wrong     It's way too academic     The papers are better     no For the web site it needs to be rewritten    no It's unreadable    no It's badly written     Because of the slog     no Because it's not honest     YES Did I get stopped     Can I get unstopped     Tell me what it would take    finish the struggle to have the child come through It's not finished     no it is and you don't realize it I could step out     YES - An unpleasant state, speedy and argumentative. But I found an ally, Noë in Santa Cruz. Have I wasted the day? I'm sore and sad and anxious. Didn't want to write this morning, didn't like any of what I have in this chapter. Read all day, the Tucson [consciousness conference] abstracts and Noë this morning, newspapers all afternoon. David Adams Richards in the Globe book review section. I liked his books before I heard him on radio and then liked him more, and then there in the Globe is his face staring out of a life entirely his own. He decided to write with Oliver Twist at 14, he said. He has been with Peg since he was 17. He didn't go to university. He had four books by the time he was 31. He wouldn't take welfare or UI. He is loyal to the people he grew up with and makes us love them. And then there was the sentence that said his mother fell on her belly and he was born with his left arm and leg deformed. A crack of tears. I am crying still. Fellow feeling, but more than that, shame. I tried to pass. What should I do. I am still trying to pass. What should I do. There is something wrong with what I have been trying to do, if it takes me to wrestling with Kathleen to get a stamp for what I've done in such good faith. What should I do. Will you lead me     Was that a crack of truth     He chose the better part     I've taken this road and I have neither success nor meaning     It's not well written     YES I don't want to live with those people     no They don't want me (crying)     For whatever reason     And they wouldn't have wanted me if it had been well written     YES Was that elation false    no Will you lead me     you feel excluded I am excluded     I'm not welcome in that club     And the wrong people are     Is there something I should do     come through She didn't say one good thing about it     no What     change That it needs a lot of work, that's good     You're joking with me (laughing)     YES She did not acknowledge a single good thing about it     Lead me some more     about her decision Alright     it was a lie Dishonest of her     Should I quit     no If her decision was a lie I'm still outcast     Will you lead me some more    feeling What am I feeling     unwanted My beautiful spirit isn't wanted     And if it is not wanted it cannot be employed     Is it just always going to be my fate to be unwanted     no I am just baffled that what is beautiful isn't wanted    I have always been baffled about that     I want to withdraw     I'm baffled at my failure     YES Will you lead me     something about writing, in men's judgments sex is missing Are you talking about why I'm a failure     YES Because men think sex is missing in me     NO Because sex isn't missing in me     I feel defeated     I am defeated     Is something next     Will you lead me     friendship With myself     I don't know how I am going to make money, I am such a misfit (sobbing)     What I've written is too close to philosophy and not close enough     I'm always going to be a misfit    no Is there more you want to say     about exclusion Something?     it makes you strong Is it making me strong now     no Success would make me stronger now     Something     moving Will I go on having money     But I'll go on being poor     And unsuccessful     no I'm afraid of the future     Will you tell me something about the period after Christmas     struggle, deep change, balanced forces, foolishness Struggling against fools     YES There'll be opposition     no Did you know I wasn't going to understand that     YES Is there something I need to do to come through     Will you lead me     about success Okay     success is happiness Is that what you mean     The question is what would it take to make me happy about this project     Do you mean happy in the doing     no If it was better written     no It would make me happy to share it     So share it?     I'm not coming through     no Find my allies     YES Will it take a long time     no Should I stop now     18 I'm tired     no Can't write any more today     no Just want to be done     Bored     no Overwhelmed     Can you help    no I won't finish the pictures section before I have to teach and then there are two more sections after. I only have one more weekend before Tom and Rowen come, have to get this section done before I talk to Barry. Have to talk to Barry so he can read it. I've done five hours today but my brain wants to quit, none of it was writing and I have to go in to school tomorrow. Do you have any comment     no Pressure     YES And not even writing well     no - And afterwards sat down, began carelessly and wrote a few pages. Now I've washed my room: windows, wood, floor. Beginning washing the whole house. 20 A white bull walking (left to right) with a quality I couldn't describe in the dream - the greatest assurance. A white apartment door, on the right side of the corridor, a spyhole - might be number 334. I felt these as having something to do with my work. [Bookwork summary extracted up to here] Intense faith and intention Work that is creative enough of me So you live without reserve as a lame woman of 55 who was dealt a blow in childhood Fight for love woman without exploiting her Slowly get richer by integrating feeling Blazing banners Freedom itself is a high standard Practice going-after Rest and celebrate by looking for action, feeling and contemplation, not by zonking like someone who is in a prison or addicted They rummaged my unconscious and did damage to my loving spirit. Win love back from them. As if I were eighteen and full of hope Triumphant and nontriumphant have been separate in you, integrate them Child's explanations for being unloved - the truth is always incapacity in the adult Every time I shame myself I'm saying there is someone who can look after me Think of the use of the work, think of the way it would help those who oppose you My task isn't combat, it's inner motion Unconscious anger, malicious intent Here's a thing. when I think of Tom - this happens often - I break into a broad grin. I laugh. Tickled. - It's Wednesday evening. I marked after the two hours at school. Couldn't write, I thought. Read the autumn in San Diego two years ago. What do I notice - I was deep and happy alone living in the West. Tom's rage consumed me after he got there. Don't ever get consumed by anxiety about Tom, like that, again. 21st Tomorrow there'll be money. The milk is turning. Not sure I can drink this tea. Eating cold hard beef before I go to school. Won't be able to buy anything. Will there be enough gas? I think, just. Washed the kitchen walls and ceiling yesterday. The pictures had to come down. There was a greasy fur of dust above the stove. I'm discouraged     Do you want to comment    no She really hates it     Is it because of my limitations    YES Because of hers     no Is her attitude harming me     I should never have asked her     no She wants it trashed because it will obsolete her    YES Is that the true reason     Am I up the creek     no Is the doctorate up the creek     no Does Ray understand that she's nuts     YES Will you tell me how it will seem to him     quest, to balance, in writing, process The sense in which it's a real quest     Will you lead me     you have established strength Do you mean in the work     The work is strong     YES Think of myself as stronger     no She's very strong     YES But my work is strong     YES Stronger     YES Will I still be able to publish     YES Lead further     childhood Childhood rejection     YES Would Ray consider being the philosopher on the committee     Would that be a good idea     Then time it so K is out of town if poss     Don't believe it's implacable     YES Or inevitable     YES Anything else you want to lead me     to success Can you?     YES Will I know how to follow     no Can you do it anyway     22nd Nightmare. Sitting beside Kathleen at a seminar or evaluation. It has to do with a house with a view down onto the sea. A picture book. Tom wants to show off and does. He's bull-shitting. Louie and someone else in the back seat of a car afterward have a word for it. They crack up. I am at the railing of the house weeping, banging my head, wailing with failure. Is there something true about this dream     What     your terror My terror about my situation at school     Being outcast     Am I really outcast     no Something you want to say     shatter the structure Of the terror     Can I do that     I went out in my leopard skin jacket, though I had to take the bus after my license plate was stolen on Duthie yesterday, where I day-parked it at the bottom of the hill. And what effect did it have. Kathleen said, Nice top, and laughed when she saw me doing a chin-up to look into my mail box. Sam wanted to talk about roses. I had to remember not to bend forward over the desk during tutorials. When I was waiting to pay for lunch - because there was money in the bank - the young cashier was flirting with a girl he knew, and when he turned my way I said, Now you have to be nice to me too, and he said quite astringently, You've been told you're beautiful so often I'm not even going to go there. I was startled. I said, You have to ask for it. He said, I don't think so. It sounded like resentment. I think it was the jacket, which seems to say I think I'm beautiful - does it? And what else in the jacket's day. When I went to the insurance office an elderlyish man smiled as he passed through. In the motor vehicles branch where I slipped through the door a woman was standing ready to lock, I had my new driver's license photo taken wearing it. The office was dealing with its last two people for the week, a tall girl with flowers because it was her birthday, and me, laughing with the clerks, who were sweetly punch-drunk. As I drove around in my car, newly with money, newly re-licensed, there was a yellow yellow sun, thick traffic. Near the skytrain three cops had a young man in handcuffs sitting on the sidewalk with piss running off the pavement from under him. He had a ten-inch spiked blue mohawk and was bent forward sobbing and rocking. - And then Gloria when I bought feta cheese at Union Market said it too, Nice top, and it suits you. I said, It's been such a hard week that I .... You too? she said. I left out the wallet I saw sitting by itself on the bus seat opposite me. The bus was a 16 Arbutus waiting across Commercial from the express bus stop. I took the wallet to the driver, who opened it and looked for ID. When I saw an SFU card I knew it belonged to the dumpy girl who'd been opposite me wrapping a wrinkled scarf around her hair. I'd been looking at her wondering why. When I knew it was hers I got off the bus and went across to the other bus stop and spoke to her and she trotted away on her heavy post-legs and retrieved it from the driver. When she came back she said, It would have been the perfect end to a horrible week. 23 Crucified. Feeling if my thesis fails I'll die. Feeling there's no one who can help. No one willing. It's reactivation. Someone else wouldn't be feeling it like this, peril of death. Do you want to lead     ask about indecision about men in power Mine?    theirs Ask about their indecision in relation to this work     YES Why they don't accept me     YES I do want to know that     YES Ask why the men don't like my work     YES Because I don't like theirs?     Are you saying, what do you expect?     YES Are you saying, keep that in mind     Get under the wing of someone whose work I do like     no Meantime I have a sore heart     Do you have suggestions    no Are you abandoning me    no Is the rest of the term going to be just awful     NO   I'm writing badly because I'm not organizing as well as I did     no I am writing badly     no 25 Here's Monday. I worked yesterday. The perspective section needed to be redone. And then up to the end of the deixis section. Today and tomorrow the rest of the language section. After Tom leaves, go through it all quickly. Then the math section. Then give it to Barry. I'm stressed by the fear that it's bad - I'm very very stressed by that. Will you lead me     just write It's bad     NO Please help me (crying and rocking)     Please talk to me     graduation, community, love woman, reverses Is that a sentence    no, a list It's what I'm feeling     Have T and R somehow spoiled my ability to write     YES They put a curse on me     YES By doing something I don't know about     Can I undo it     YES Will you tell me how in one sentence    art, struggle, to find, a change Something happened two years ago     They did something     YES Some sort of ritual     They meant to write me off as a rival     They crippled my brain     Do you mean Ed and Mary     no Is it love woman who is speaking     They did something to her     YES Will you make this plain to me     My ability to write has been damaged     no Will you explain     it's growing slowly Am I doing what will help it grow     Did I write better before     Will I write well again     Integration has set me back     An O Henry in the afternoon when my head wouldn't move gave me two hours more. I feel I'm writing at random, as if I have no sense of the whole work. It is very disconcerting, as if my brain has been damaged. The MA was less than half as long but I held an outline firm from beginning to end. This is inchoate. It's real work. It's trying to - what? - my metaphors aren't good - gel a whole field of intuition, I wanted to say. I found people saying something like what I think, I took those bits of them and stuck them together. It's not good but it's the only thing I could do. I'm fighting for my life, intellectually. I know they're wrong. I'm right, but I am not able to do what I need to do - is that correct? Yes. I can work from a coherent vision but I am not able to write it as a theory. Not about but from. Is there some other way I should have done it? I needed to try. I had breakthroughs. At that moment Rowen phones. He wants to come at the beginning of October. I say can he make it a week later, because I'll be overwhelmed. He wants a 3D program. Then he says he's been talking to a pendulum. It says it's the same entity that talks to me. I get my safety pin and ask it, and it says yes. Rowen is so fine a spirit, the tone of his voice when he says 'bye. I can hardly bear it. I feel I'm insufficient to it. Am I insufficient to it     Will you help me     26 Where am I. Tuesday morning. Isn't this a long birth. It seems to be my heart that is the orifice. Butala is being trashed by her neighbours for saying what she says about the land. Is there a similar motive in career philosophers? They want the use of something? They want to be justified in their abuse of something. They do not see they could have the use of something better. Cartesian separation, a prestige of denial. Very smart people who can separate enough to rise in those ranks. I'm less separated now; philosophy in me is not a completely isolated engine, but in transition still. The language section is done. Some pages into the math section. Might finish by Friday. Logic prepped for the week. 27 Analytic philosophy is a cult. It makes sense to insiders and resists contact with outsiders who'd import the counterevidence. It strokes believers and freezes out and punishes doubters. Large sections of branches heaped up blazing on the floor. The longest, maybe seven feet long and as thick as a man, with a crook at the center, heaves itself up and staggers across the floor to something against the wall - a door? A cupboard? Part of the dream is dynamic ad lib and part is rationalizing commentary, habitual dispersal. Colorado - for the next millennium - water protecting itself, she said - a bowl in the center of the continent - where silence is so intense it tests the visitor. Hanna Strang an unpleasant tough German voice, administrator to strange powers, as she believes. UFOs coming to the peak to refuel on emanation. Not one of the people interviewed sounded as if they were in touch with any sort of spirit. Only the artists sound that way. Oh only the artists; and the power they are in touch with is pain. Sharon Butala on the radio saying science irritates the heck out of her, also saying twenty-five years of suffering got her ready to see and know what she sees and knows. Women know it more than men, middle-aged women. She had a relaxed, not-trying sound. She says what she knows, what she's earned. I don't quite like her sound but I recognize my state in it. She didn't use to know any paleontologists but now she knows a lot of them, she said. I very soon must get up and launch into my long Thursday. Come home and do a few last things, clean the stove, wash the car, mop in here, shop some. Washed the windows yesterday, cleaned the stairs, took two years' dust off the pretty curves of the bathroom mirror frame. How would I really like to live - now that the possibilities are opening - I could live in the Peace River Country - now that there are web jobs - I could teach philosophy at the college in Grande Prairie - I could live in an Airstream in California - or Colorado - but first three or four years where I must help Rowen with access. There has been something very chilled about the last conversations with Tom. - That was harrowing     Is there anything you want to say about it     overview, their judgment, will change, if you persist, in art I'm failing in the one territory where I had success     no you're not failing I'm afraid my brain is going     no No that's not what I'm afraid of?     I'm afraid I can't do it because I'm a woman     YES Is that right     no Will you tell me why I can't do it    no Do you want to say more     direct, deep change, child, reserve I don't understand     I'm not going to understand today     no I'm grieved and ashamed     And tired and hungry     Direct deep change has occurred to the child's reserve     It has ruined my intelligence?     NO I could never think in public     I'm not understanding, can I stop for now     Trudeau died this aft, while I was falling into shame at the tutorial Peter Horban was inspecting me at. Listening to people talk about Trudeau is like hearing them talk about me. 29 I had better talk about the humiliations of this life. When I was young at school there was never anything I couldn't do. I had to slog at math but I could get 90 on exams. Now I am getting caught frozen in front of eighteen-year-old boys. And when it goes analytic in papers I detest it, I don't want it, I don't engage with it. I am not in command of my field. That began at the Slade. I started to be an outsider at school when the postmodern stuff came in. I went from A's in general exams in three majors at once, and a philosophy medal and Woodrow Wilson nomination, to being insulted by Noel Burch and James Leahy at the Slade. What happened. Feminism. Or did I lose my edge when Roy clubbed me on the side of the head? The evidence sometimes is that I'm not smart anymore. The evidence sometimes is that I'm smarter and can go deeper than just about everybody working in philosophy now, but I'm smart in a groping integrated not-quick way. I don't know what to conclude. It's worrying. I wish there were a larger wiser person who could tell me. There's no one at school I can trust to ask. Should I get out of academics     no I don't have mastery of my field     So it's always humiliating     no Sometimes     I hate being humiliated     I shouldn't be in philosophy     I shouldn't be in film studies     Is there somewhere I should be     Can you tell me    integrating and changing the process of coming through in the research I have to go on and make a living     no Working on method     But will you tell me what department I should be in! (exasperated)     the department of crisis Crisis of apart-ment (laughing)    Do you want me to be tortured    no But I am being tortured (crying)     You're saying, just keep going     Please help me     vain regret I have lost capability but it's vain to regret it    no Something about regret     crisis coming through to balance in the community That's what's happening     no, what needs to happen Does the community need to have a crisis in relation to me    no I need to have a crisis in relation to it     I will always be in crisis in relation to the community     no Is it about taking me down a peg     no Do you mean this is historical     no Am I being set up to fail     no Does that mean there's something I'm supposed to learn     no There just needs to be a crash     Is it a psychological need     no Is it about being in truth     no Am I already in truth     Then can you tell me why    because they are in illusion The crisis will bring them out     So I'm going to be martyred     no Take them to the point of flunking me     no The defense is going to be a major ordeal     They are in illusion about the material     no About me     Will you tell me what their illusion is    no Am I better than they think     Anything more you want to say     losses, action, strength, deception Is this advice     action in losses makes strength against deception Think of myself as a warrior     Is this depression     no Grief    Grief at failure     no Old grief     no Is it about work     no Grief that he doesn't like me     He brushes off everything I say     Does he want out     no He wants to go on getting support     Is it because he's liking somebody else     no Will you lead me    delay My project is a failure     no Would you say it's a success     no Will you comment     a search Successful as a search     I feel like killing myself     so-so Should I quit at this point     Don't go for the doctorate     I don't need it     no The process of submitting it is too humiliating    no Quit now     Drop the TAing     no There's no way I'll get the doc     no The process is too harrowing     no No one is going to like it     no I'm in despair     no Is this hormonal     no It would make sense to drop the doc     I don't need the doc     NO Is there something else I should be doing     no Will you lead me    finish it Do you mean the last couple of pages     no Let them hunt me down (crying)     no They want to defeat me     no Nobody wishes me well     no I do not have permission to be myself     They want to fail me     no They hate me     no Will you tell me why finish it     to honor the work To defend the work I did     Can I defend it     I'm wanting to abandon it because it's leading me into shame     Have I been abandoning it     no Let it lead me further into shame     More     share your pleasure in it I was doing that and I got checked     More?     something about the writing, the first chapter shows indecision about its organization I'm exhausted     part 2 the golden west volume 21: 2000-2001 september-january work & days: a lifetime journal project