| up north 5 part 2 - 1980 august-september | work & days: a lifetime journal project |
the stoned and happy consciousness which is interested in everything to do with being a consciousness, there's a fear of the other and is it a fear of regressing from self-consciousness to find a way to see act and describe according to the understanding that outside and inside are one thing experience that is to bring it all inside, make it meet halfway
setting up the conflict to work between
- [I go to Valhalla Lutheran church for a talk by Chester Ronning about his visit to China]
that roy refuses coldly August 2
the trade of this curse for a skill (I've paid) grandfather's orchard. should I be at the construction, building, I'm wandering among the rows, pears too ripe, he's died, can I buy his orchard, I don't know how to do it but he's laid it out, overhead huge rotting pears hanging in silver caskets the swamp, keith's yellow truck house, I turn it on its head, float, propel myself by leaning toward a corner moving fast do I know where I am, oranges and yellows, deep reds, I see a school of small fish underneath, I'm going to cross with it to near where the orchard is, and tip it right way up for a house more about a corridor [transcription of tape recordings] [beginning of notes on hearing #790487 concerning sour gas processing plant by Cheiftain Development Company] August 6 [Peter Dyck's visit] it coincided twice, at their house, he wanted it, I anticipated it, it's done I lapsed out doing none of it well, I mean not improvising well, going on 'belief', speaking like a premade personality, smiling agreeably that's not what I want to know - since roy's letter monday and today, hot body, legs and bum, talking fast, opinion hydrofoil, the fire of my fright, a metabolism switch I imagine his face, I don't understand the puffing out of 'aging' faces in plautdietch and laughing it's obvious it's him, and some other faces, the kid, glee, anger I couldn't want to know, he was suffering and fighting, humble, yes he's fine but he came seeing if I'm his new wife and I'd already said on the phone not you! I was trying to hold steady and look, small sad eyes, red, the interesting color of his hair, watching him able to make nothing of what I'd tell him no use - his letters - was that the transaction letter to roy: fighting rush it isn't moving, it's a show of energy? it was to ease me, I was writing it in a sensation of, in a dorothy richardson reference, making him understand realizing the ticket would take all my money has my car died? what's wrong with the wheel dear companion, it's wednesday night, upstairs, one candle I don't have to tell you any of what happened today, except to name the look feel and taste of young turnips raw his face was disordered like dug mud, his eyes are bad under his lip is a muscle shelf like helmer's his wife went away and fucked other people 'je ne sais pas' a spiral dream many times, sometimes he gets off on another world, some days he can't get out of the movement 'I've never spiraled down' the yellow of violin white sleep when the thoughts are watched - I've been talking to a woman who'd been with roy, fat and banal, I said I don't know why roy was with you you're so fat she said he loved her I remembered what his love was like and said it was religious a tall dark girl says I touched her teasingly much too soon I say I remember that little experiment she says she'll be the meanest of us I draw myself much taller there's a murmur about my son I feel how it would be if he came through the door he comes in with a supper tray for me, his face wet and streaked with crying he has rudy's little child face I jump to hold him luke oh luke in my arms he lies down on the rug and goes to sleep, a little puppy I woke in pain saying to myself I want to know, I only want to know, I must give up whatever isn't up to what I can bear, how much is that and today - writing the sad dream uncomfortable, this isn't just right getting car from out of the ditch then the gas plant letters and taking them to hythe, looking for marty I was lonely car wheel in valhalla peterson's young face having a reason to speak to me and I to be in their house the new baby and she has her rings and is thickened - [letter] There's a murmur about my son. I feel how it would be if he came through the door. He comes in with a supper tray for me, his face wet and streaked with crying. He has Rudy's little child's face. I jump to hold him. Luke oh, Luke in my arms. He lies down on the rug and goes to sleep, a little puppy. I woke from that hurting, saying I only want to know. Yesterday at Mary's breakfast table we argued, she that she would never, even in eternity, want to know everything, Peter that if he ever knew everything he would have to die, and I that I would be willing to know everything and then die. She said if she knew everything she would be responsible. He said I wanted to be god. Peter my grade nine teacher and old friend. I soon knew why he was there, his wife left a year ago, she was rising in the CBC and wanted to fuck around. His old face with a layer of flesh like mud laid over his features. I don't understand the way these faces age. His eyes red-rimmed peering from behind what is the mask made of. I liked him, he was still there, playing, full of life, quite fine and honest, but tired me out with not being able to see me. I tried to tell him about you but anything about either you or Luke, he wouldn't look at. Asked about my work but when I showed him some he didn't know, or thought he didn't. I showed him the most straightforward poem, in white sleep / I saw / your legal animals / etc. When we'd talked about it he said once in that light sleep he had been able to see his thoughts as if he were another thinker standing behind them. His recurring dream, he's traveling in a spiral, sometimes he can't stop moving, sometimes he gets off it into a place that's another world. He thinks of it as a nightmare. The dream about Luke, my fancy was that his spirit came from a long way like a homecoming dog, he was crying because it had taken a long time, then he was home and tired. I don't understand why he's taken Rudy's face. I remember him crying like that because he was strange in the world, at school and at home. Luke's ordeals with new schools. All my money's gone for his return ticket, if he doesn't come I think I must go and talk to them or my saving idea was that I would threaten to come live with them in Portugal if they don't send him to visit. The fortuneteller seems to be turning out wrong. I don't forget how bright his face was and how well he looked when he came from them last year. I think I have to find out how he is with them and then if it's true that he's radiant there I must think of another way to know him and have some control in the decisions about him. Reasonable. Maybe Portugal is really the way. It's beautiful, eucalyptus and cork trees, red soil. I mean only a few months at a time. Car stuck in the mud. Blackhead birds at the shithole, caraganas, saying dee dee deedeedee. Wet grass. Toast and poached egg. Her radio. Eleven o'clock mountain daylight. Sad and lonely. Going to work now. -
A guest, the tablecloth on the east porch, white plates, saki cups. We saw rainbow sections fading and coming back. She exclaimed at many changes in the clouds. Did you think the lamp's sound was like Tibetan monks. - August 8?
- I have enough money for him but not for me - he could be here a month luke - if what I want is to know - he seemed happy and light-hearted with them, his tired face, sadness with me in vancouver, but their denseness the house and how difficult to hold it if he isn't coming, how to live there or why to hotel europe - he was practicing in his loud voice I was ashamed wanted to talk to the little one 9 Saturday camera found the carragana color, house through them edmonton this morning, the peace, walking through grass with clouds high, does it mean something about luke, j, the many stories of frights we came through, this rich time, the odd clues horus was lying down from the dimness, it wasn't sleep, interested in the sense of wrack in abdomen forehead other, what's that, it feels as if something held out, the way when I lie on my back, ankles want to cross of all the possibilities to be in this one her letter, made me happy, 'supports,' but something in the voice, her pedantry, hear me write 'distanced' 'put leather over your vitals and go get him' liked that but it's her impersonating her idea of herself about work, I seem to be telling myself 'then' was the creation open, refusing, painful, and this is the time when what was made and then through three years (do I believe in years) revised, is accepted and this is the solidness useful for trading it out and can I - what - hurry to say go back to the fright of the other stage - but maybe not - how unthought I am - maybe the time to think it through however well that can be done the writing - there's a collection from woman with a hole in her head to housing - all about the same thing - the xerox go with it after that slides, different pieces from here movie - I want it to summarize, and bring the most accurate next time newspaper - [daily record] 10 Hello Sunday. Still lying down among the wood walls. Down to sit in the white room with the rug. Eyes open, the house piece. But I don't, I give the morning to typing from the first book of the journey here, examining, satisfied in the language and can it be shown. When it's afternoon getting up and leaving. "Jam phoned." Leaning over the receiver, "It's me." It's made me faint, something uneasy. I went wanting to tell her the sense of love and thanks I had looking at our stories of doubt and fighting, because they were interesting and hadn't failed. But it seemed wrong to tell her, though I did. And she in the unusual mood of wanting to tell little things. The tree house that had a sleeping porch for me. Spring Lake Road flowers, color of dirt brown and the tall fireweed (bloomed out, maroon seed tubes), clover white and purple, moving past, accompanying. Nellie crying with wasp sting, "Verdomte Bieste," ugly. Mary Siebert in dress and jacket, small white sandals, worried saying something nice. Why walking around the lake so fast. Sitting in the chair by the fire, while they ate, like an old person looking at what's invisible to them, in my own collection. Maria's face. Abe's face. "Die Hingsten mussen gleich geschossen." Home. Fasting headache. Go to sleep. Whistling. More than once. Get up see Helmer's pickup leaving. Now it's night. Candles. Still headache. She said she hadn't written Luke because she thought he'd be here before the letter got to him. But Five and still dark. 11 Could do yoga first though it was shaky. And the fire outside, to have a bath, and then typed the house piece. Going to show M, going to show her - typing it feeling it as work done then, made, I won't change it now. Want to have it traded out. How. An editor. Laundry, the Lin's house, she with her wonderful body sits forward so we can't see her face, drawing the one child from memory, the parts I think are there. The little one brought out, her face never turned the same way, I start out and guess. It's wrong but looks like - M when she's here, silly, or what - Supper and write J in the marveling colour of fading white sky. Helmer against the rail looking at bats, leaving before I expected. Lying outside, the bed in the right place finally. 12 It must be dark moon. Yoga, the bathwater, drying on the porch, breakfast bread from the heater drum, poaching eggs in her steamer. Front porch to study for the hearing. No mail, I went holding my dungarees close to my sides, apprehensive without a shirt in the store. Read til' I couldn't - mice move and squeak under the grass. - Go somewhere, Rudy's to look at the wood. Imagining a supper terrace, stone, at his dugout. The forest burnt, light between poles, red of needles fallen. Restless, don't want to stay and look. Unfastened. Want to go home but try the carragana. Hungry. Potatoes. Yesterday the mint tea came right. [sketch of standing goose] Four in a line, when they moved I saw why dancers. On belly in slough mosquitoes come to my face, the juicy green/yellow plants under, swans like big geese stand on the flats. - [journal] writing - her letter, daphne's poems, dorothy's, my journals, I like them, but what does it make in the holy simplicity of task, to have multiplied access/excess balance, being strong enough to balance on all of it; alternative to the bad; needing to work; being assigned to it (but no); not being full like daphne, not being fine like j, c's letter at times like me writing from love and marvel as focus exercise I don't feel much about it except liking and accepting what I've written, wanting to publish it and having a balance on knowing that at other times I see it is wrong false trivial and unholy that is distracting from the simple hunger, assignment, to track what this being is for I think I have to find out what publishing would do or how could publishing be no money no fame but contact what kind of contact correction, verification, news, sense of writing and image making as essential service, I use it, but that's in the alleged world allegare to send a message become part of the machine the other way spiritually classy is to only live joyce: both I am often stupefied thankless that's wrong writing opens me that's right but often frivolously there isn't time but errors everywhere I see no one without it might be a setup best to try for perfect that means being sensitive to how everything is
1. everything that has happened to me has been wonderful 2. I am often vacant 3. if I give myself to writing I'll stay in a lower land and miss the best 4. I have to find a way to satisfy myself whether it's so or not, by observing 5. I think the conflict is part of the solution if it's re [?] it wd be writing and loving and living but what about the lonely singleminded gnostic tracking
where does that put writing - [daily record] 13 What's stiff - left side, back of head.
Hearing. [gas plant review meetings] - [journal] 14th examined being late because of not calculating that was alright, it was a way to be looked at 'thinking about what anyone's thinking of me': but not knowing what else to think about, I think I can see what they are, it stops there, the puzzle of how to be any different in it follow the argument, assess, see how anyone is taking it, see who's more visible who has charm who sits in the seat all other seats point toward the lobergs pale feeling the reputation feelings: this is the chance to use and be seen using, my --- they, dressed, styled, machines for delivering positions 'real' people those whose land is there and feel sick with dismay the stale smell from my jeans crotch, last blood smell, legs crossed to seal it down
the hitchhiker's luminous eyes, right eye alive the other not, I didn't understand his gaze over the table, is he wanting a contact because he has plans? I liked something of him but felt him dangerous too mouth muttering 'you seem a little lost, as if you've been away somewhere' 'no I've just been on the road for a while' hamburger, 'would you spot me a couple of dollars' 'I don't mean to be ignorant or nothing'
the inventions of her grammar, mine, what about them, I like it when I'm writing because they're better but in her letters I don't like it because there isn't heart or ground in them the times when I don't understand elegant "ear's so taken in the elements of the split, in being able to hear them so well"
15 Hearing, spoke. 16 Saturday Wanting to tell about the hearing, to M, [read] letter on the way, felt sick reading it. In the car, revenge, at M's her note saying they're [Roy and Sara] leaving on the 22nd for Portugal. Ed is rude and cranky, she partly disregards him. I keep trying to phone in a sick, injured way, feel I can't do anything before I've done that, the phone unanswered. And thinking of the Tiesenhausens, not surprised by the note folded into the keyhole, but that his name is Peter. Showing work, that he felt Luke's birth picture as heavy. How much he looks like Rudy. In the end I kick him out. What I want to know is what about her letter. "Strong and charismatic." "The evening light." He pushed in his cigarette backwards. 17 Rain fell down on my face, stars not to be seen, what time is it, three, the firm quarter, black nightdress and white jacket into the car, operator girl awake (lights in farmhouses), third ring, "Surely." Sometimes eyes closed her voice strong. I wasn't proud, a long time standing. One light of motorcycle and two people, rained on the box, blue night got lighter, must have been hours we kept the line. Moments remembering what it would be like to have an open heart, "if your mother died." She said she was ready to help, my belly burned, a little. She said she was angry I'd give up. "Instead of making me muster all my energies against you you could support me so I'd be able to do something!" shouted. Then it was time to go to sleep. "I know just how it would feel." Delight laugh. "So do I." In bed chilled through but satisfied, awake long until sleep. Then the spilt kerosene and the mouse in the honey washed and saved. Restless, Hanrahan, but it's different. Evening pictures. This room kerosene smell. - [journal] 17
18 Not sun, stay asleep, stay lying, have to do hearing work, fire, going to fast, yoga balance and headstand after brandy and coffee. Yesterday, I can eat if I want, glad breakfast, work, drink coffee, no mail, sun, wait for Mary, eat more, reading the Miss Holland time again, can't work more, waiting. She stops to pee behind the spruce, looks nice in green clothes, the Lins had a girl on Monday evening, he's mad, kicked the table. "I think he's going to be depressed again, he thinks that with all his trying ...." "He was rude, I was only irritated with him the way I'd be with anybody." "Rudy said something like that, 'I'm tired of hearing about that, if you don't like what he's doing why don't you talk to him about it. I'm talking to you like I talk to my friends, if they do something you don't like you give them shit,'" (she said without hesitating) "... 'and then you go on.'" Stamms good chocolate milk, lamplight, fast talk. 19 Tuesday Headstand. Morning outside [triangle] some multiple feeling sense. Fasted until afternoon. Work for hearing. Laundry. Mrs Lin smaller, paler. I have orange and blue flowers. "Can I see the baby?" She nods but I say it again, "Can I see the baby?" She nods again as if she's understood very well. Head on a folded blanket, long sloped forehead, in that grimacing writhing - I look devoutly - she wipes its shanks and legs, the two go behind on the television - on their knees - sits down and forward, her big nipple and she's stiff as if it hurts - small girl big fat sex. When I look at the mother's breast the oldest girl jumps between me and it. I say thank you, she says thank you back muffled but English. Feeling Roy and his family in these days. Escaping in National Geog's, the pictures felt as wonderful - this morning something like ecstasy - that feeling creative ecstasy that is jumpy and vague. Felt I could go to see Marty - or anyone - delicious vegetables cook while I study. - [journal] August 19 waxing half
[pages of hearing notes including notes on the language of the proceedings] - [daily record] 20 Weds Strong at hearing. M and he there. - [journal] 20 have been feeling interests or directions with an (emptiness after them), they're located back there in past time whether to work by their instruction because they came from a time whose work it was to lay the instructions or whether to stop moving until new instructions come - [daily record] 21 Exhausted at hearing. - [journal] 21 last dream a happy show, pink triangles, a glittering girl singer, another tall girl with guitar they had bigger bodies than I'd expect, saw them going close by, bodies like katryn's a small voice of another kind clearly said "hey guys it's seven o'clock"
[more notes on the hearings, which go on for several days] [daily record] 22 Friday Waking up, gathering papers, driving through oh fog, I have to get somewhere. The breakfast café, car docked outside. Oilmen moving rig. Go over my argument. Gloria Callihoo makes them laugh. I've decided to use my credentials. How it is. "We've been together such a long time." The way the first moment sitting there in the front row chair - it had begun to be a life - (not wanting to go home after, shaking hands, Richard Harpe the senator) (his colorless eyes in the new way of seeing his face). "Yours was one of the best presentations we've had," I don't understand Rodney's tone, "... don't you think, Richard?" Yvonne Macalister's pitiful story. "Hummingbird" and the certificate from the queen. Yvonne's country flowers. The chairman's face as at the same angle as mine when he listened. Mr Ingram tried to take me on. Mr Ingram stood in front and began a push that I blocked. "Do you know anything about me?" "Yes." The way it worked was not answering his question, jumping over it to block his intention. The smile that came surprised onto his face in the parking lot when I waved goodbye. "You're a lawyer, aren't you, you speak for whoever pays you." Stop began with "It's miss, or miz." "With considerable eloquence." Don Colley's eyes and how to note them and move over. The postures, felt spine, I was dancing in the front row (of the children's women's side) (right). 23 Saturday Drive home, mud, light, talked to own friend. - [journal] 23 his permission to camp on the east quarter I drive (description) there up the road is it grass goes to goats two tracks the stand between them I notice isn't tall enough to sound on the bottom of the car at the top 200 outlaws desperados wild men were the words that come but it was a sense of a band hired by him or loyal to him, who'd do me in if they got me I dreamed somewhat into hypothesis, how I'd knock one over? and speed away by the back road it was thinking how to get away but it got me away next it's night I'm in the long grass where the trucks were but behind some building, chicken barn, with a fat naked woman young and nice looking I'm thinking again of getting away but I know she wants to be caught and fucked, I tell her I'll just go a little way into the grass, was it to pee, and come back, then I abandon her, leave by the back field road, going to stop at voth's, through a ravine, I see pursuers, they were drunk and are still, I might have arranged that, when they're almost onto me I come into a town that's there because I need it, the first pursuer a young drunk man catches up, I handle him very easily as I know I will, some push against the stomach and a finger at the neck, he dies but so quietly no one on the busy outskirts will notice my companion, I think some sense of my real companion, I don't see, but know, is ten-twenty feet to my right
then the real pursuer is in front of me, the leader, romanchuk, I won't kill him we speak, I don't remember what we say we're glad to see each other he's real-looking, dark hair, warm eyes her body oh in the back row dressed oh how I began resisting: she's showing she has nothing else, dressed like that and she didn't have presence, her face with a smear mouth, but the width of the eyes, she wasn't erotic, after days I was able to speak to her, I think she's like her face, talking to her I was caught in the outer edge of her right eye, how far the lash line extended, I don't know what that is worship: how fine, perfect, the lines of her haunch under a knit dress no one seemed to look at her the way I did when she was standing at the corner of a junior ERCB man's desk, arm straight down into the desk hip slightly pushed sideways by the corner of the desk, outlines of her wide square shoulders and broad ribcase, and her breasts' slightly flat circles widely spaced on her chest yes partly my shape if it were right something with colley, I didn't like his jowl but I could like something the clarity of his answers their suits making them without body how solterman and even doctor klemm by dressing close to the body had more reality the harpers choosing to wear their work clothes t-shirts, I'm proud to be a canadian farmer young women dressed for a party their consultant, a farming man, who looked out of their back row with a different sort of face than any of theirs radiant what was it about colley and orr and their young man, pale some thing in the eyes, mild, their agriculture man gave out liveliness, they are waxy faces, mary said as soon as they'd moved they looked different, chewed gum, looked around, orr wasn't overfed, benign, could I imagine him personal, they're success people and attractive for that, "I'm too old for that", they seem healthy without giving off any heat, what sort of health is that, I think that's my puzzle, what is in their bodies, they'll have heart attacks, sludge, and yet they seem in a successful chemical balance. hibernating below the eyes, but no, their voices are balanced too and orr's hands worried what does suave mean smoothly pleasant and ingratiating in manner, blandly polite, urbane richard harpe emerging, beef, his arms and chest, face, bulked, I don't remember seeing below his chest, I suppose it means that's where he lives, what does it mean, can see him lifting machines, he wasn't animal, of the farmers he was most logical, strong, a senior when he stood in front of me and I was with the smallness colorlessness of his eyes, I felt him differently, as a clear intelligence, integrity, someone who'd found or never left his ground and lives quite a depth back in his body bunkered he and the gas men understanding each other, having brought the occasion to surround their confrontation 'give me a guarantee and I'll go home, you'll never see me again' and I found out my job! the landscape and logic consultant of the local body how many motives mixing to show within this place, to personally test against the powers of outside, to have fun, to understand the event, eat the attractions, learn a form and new language in a hurry, find ways to resist the stupors of confrontation, curiosity on the couch mozart north cloud marvel and I'm slowly bringing you back to live - [daily record] 24 Sunday [triangle] Fast, tea. Mrs Crow and other crow. Excited didn't know it was full moon. Clear cold after rain air bright autumn, loving to be alone. A sense of 'the East Place'. Yeats. The heart of the spring. Do you want to be here if I can have the front room. Dark under eyes, pale. Eat supper. Autumn light on wall. Can I start to shoot now. - [journal] 24
if I quit the attachment clearminded what would be next nyingma, cheryl, making money for studying pain, work portugal vulnerably if I go forward to what she's preparing it'll be ugly unsure of myself at her house vancouver work with c on movies put out books maybe SCMP writing luke will visit [south china morning post - scheme for an arts broadsheet to publish my friends]
the endearments in her letters are all generic - images - distributing for any use - paper images - a set of what was seen - what anyone could see - feel something of what was behind that seeing - 'I saw something like that' - girls at the creek bank - what my mother says about - extra long frequency waves: took it personally = elf reda, reader a sensitive [looks like notes for a letter to Judy and Michael] 1. not doing what other people do, why don't you like it, 2. Akasha's sickly because you were irresponsible before he was born the interview with the man who learned something about cancer and images the opposition to anyone who innovates man who hung a waterfall from high level bridge man who led polish strike - [letter] August 28 By your lamp's light. Evening after town. From the college, Turner, Rembrandt, some Chinese painters, Portuguese guidebook and The structure of English.
On the other side of the lake some poplar stands yellow. The hot/cold clear time is coming. Alberta Culture to see someone about the picture portfolio. Instantly pleased when the door opened, she's that, very tall woman in closefit grey 3-piece suit silver shirt not wearing a jacket. Relief: this one will see me. It's her job to be affable, she has something warm in her, fifty, nice bum, no slack in her face, but there's that something else, brittle, I feel it in the tone that comes out of me toward her. We know something about each other and it's heading toward competition. The way she suddenly takes off her glasses. Quite beautiful. That brittleness is her generation, she's been hiding, I'd have to work against it because she's assuming I'm that too. Does she know photographs. The one on her wall is awful. But I think she knows her work. Hm. I'm inwardly laughing, after Rogers and Romanchuck to find this. Her ring's ugly and she's lonely. Has made next week's appointment for 3:30 so it will be quitting time after, and we can 'socialize.' But will I lie down on the casting couch? Oh no. Nadja Korpus. [Later note: This was mistake.] Dear dear, am I with you or wanting to be with you, tonight. It happens
that when I lie down to sleep I put out my right hand to hold yours. Did
you know that? The way you're there is similar to a transparent outline.
Always briefly. - [letter] August 29 [*This date must be wrong, the lake wouldn't have been frozen in August.] Windy sun. Squirrel was on the south porch bannister quite still like a weary old mother with his hands folded over his apron. When I saw the veins greens blowings of a nasturtium round leaf I flew to you. And back. Functional shift and Elizabethan English. How great is the power of sitting up at night! One should purify one's heart and sit alone, by the light of a newly trimmed, bright candle. Through this practice one can pursue the principles that underlie events and things, and the subtlest workings of one's own mind. I have composed this record of my night vigil in Hung-Chih era, Jen-Tzu year, fifteenth day of the seventh month. Shen Chou of Ch'ang-chou 1492 By candlelight - Friday - knew to make it person to person, why was it necessary to call when you weren't there. After ten and dark on the road, headlights saw 3 children with bikes at the side of the road. And at Loberg's road an ominous pickup with 5 orange parklights. Some fright going, coming back, even when I told the operator your number. How fragile connection. Was reading about English today to get a feel of its mutation. - Streaming point hisses field. Wind grass night south track makes me think of you. It's Wednesday. The car has ruptured its water hose. Maybe fortyfive dollars in the bank, owe Mary 200 and another 70 for phone. There's food for a while. Don't want to go anywhere, happy here. Or if I must go could I come back to you. $1500, maybe more. Here I am faithfully nonetheless. Seem to be packing. He doesn't know how to fix the tape recorder. It'll be a long time before you write here, and perhaps the strike is stopping letters to you. We won't speak on the phone. Your empty living room. Your freedom in the house like somebody moving out. Don't know what to do with your things here, for instance don't know how to get them to the bus, or which if any you need. Think the house should still be here for us or me if you don't want it. Some things left for refuse. Cooking things and bedding, tools, things that belong to it. Straight up to the Milky Way. That means in line with the plane of the galaxy etc. Haven't seen the field south of here since it was harvested, and it's moonless, dark underfoot. Walked out easily to the interior of the field until the light between the spruce was the size of the large ones above. I love you: to outside. Outside I love you. And you. What's it like. Vague. You're the point of orientation. There where you are and heartfelt events continue. - The silence. I don't understand. It's resistance. I don't yet want to see you. Have sometimes called it waiting for you to learn something. Have felt it as haughty. Well if that's what you want .... The land feels invisible and halted. A feeling of resolving work but is it stunned drunk. There has been slight line of happiness dancing behind the eyes on desk. Slight enough so I trust it when I feel it. Wonder and gratitude that we've worked together. When a person in a dark parka was walking this way on the other side of the now frozen lake, the first one I imagined coming to see me was you. There were three others. You're unusually in dreams. Helmer came suddenly. The saw and useful books weren't packed or the Valhalla Centre hat. I'll try for soon. August 31 a brown sleep helicopter comes down in the street, a woman with frizzed hair and a pinched nose jumps out to mail a letter, a woman who looks like her but either fatter or thinner to say another generation is still inside I'm going with them, they say they're traveling a carfull of different ages, all odd lively people making pictures and stories we arrive at their home, though I hadn't had the sense we were going there, old furniture, artists, their oddness is fruitful, they make constantly business men with fresh faces, pinker healthier gas plant men, taking to secretaries about work secretaries are full of spirits, resistance, cheers, mutual help dispute in the working place the worker decides to leave she will give up her good home and go on the road with a basket, like them there is the basket her nightgown I'm wearing her nightgown will wear my jeans change tampax a stir outside, peeper outside the curtains a jewish man with curly old-blond hair under a cap, he just wants to look what do you want to look at? anything I can see I shut the light am leaving my one room institutional shell with concrete block walls, sliding glass doors through a window from the corridor I see a-ha the man's boy in skullcap jump to the windows with a key a european voice, marytka's, explains they are attracted to the look of the room, its femin-in-it-y and taste, I confront them want to shout help! police! my voice is stuck and wake what I do with jamila is mist without depth in time to be sure of the inner friend: symbolic when I'm in the middle of my sensibility can't derive it from known laws how-things-are's 'a complicated structure of knowledge and perception, the paradise'
carmichael's on me, that's fine, he turns into roy, it's not fine, then someone else - I'm looking for j, her image, am thrilled how she looks, black shine the train, at the back end it's my friends? forward the real performers an italian woman with a baby, I walk to the head of the train, pass her twice, posing on the side, not exactly posing, she's elegant am in the underground station see the caboose pulling out slowly into a tunnel go to look for it, try one tunnel that gets too small, another passage brings me out through sandstone windows, rounded, in time to see the train just coming into the large open station hall wake, thinking it's like the other dream of dream performers yellow crumbly surface images are what are private images sent into public space because they're images from here that anyone could see that nobody talks about they have a feel at a rare moment a way of - 'a vision' - a person walking around looking whose vision is transferrable swim in the ocean of his thoughts notre dame de vie yet he constantly wonders if he is not defeated not only what he sees but what he thinks is present well I wasn't afraid I felt like a winner in the end, as you get older, your life is your life and you are alone in it - [undated - not sure this is here] [ride to Edmonton with Judy and Akasha]
September 4 bus done as dimly as it can be lie down without notice armrests and fitting between them, angle of pained neck getting on the bus going to bed without notice for whitecourt foxcreek valleyview but sit up look around as we turn into the terminal road at grande prairie what woke me willful risk of plywood suitcase to an earlier bus, there it is laugh, hello! in front of me when I step down walk out into a stinking back land night but not very dark, don't know if this is the direction to the city come out over streets without traffic opposite safeway and cross its parking lot the field try to find a way through it's a bog that wets my feet by the edges and my car in its safe neighbourhood noise of the effort to start it, drive the wrong way on a one-way street twice, circling in the wrong end of town a hospital bed in a well-made room curlers in her head, the sleeper, theology books farts I'm cold 'til I take off my wet leg pants dream angry shout, a man in the basement of the hostel that may be a ghost I can't verify the girls are curious and likeable white and yellow paint, axe handle red cotton for a coat saw green show her the slides, a different one of her leave doubting, helmer and bernice flank me he laughs I was deep in thought driving realize it was revenge that I hated her picture well the color in ditches fields ravine flanks exciting mix, time to work down the wembley road to the stretch that makes me another time fair view love and plan post office this envelope's from j-v, it's crossed one I sent her last week? could try to remember was it during the hearing the one I sent her, same size, saying, you've been away but now you're here again the shock of life in that picture of luke, no other slides near it
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