up north 5 part 2 - 1980 august-september

work & days: a lifetime journal project

[alternative unedited version] August 1 1980 Going to sleep outside in the caragana's darkness thinking of learning to make self the other - watching what she does, what she's like, from a transparent position outside.   Like the separation of history from belief, or physics, etc, experience felt as experience of world. Being made able to lend, go into, take the form and print of something felt as other. 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.   What I want to do, go on making a state of language that's sensitive, in love, clean, airy, learned from any language, Elizabeth's. Put work in portfolios so I can send it to whoever might know more, and for thanks. Set out films in the same way as samples and queries. Essay. Practice religion in the other times. Money - find a way to have enough for Luke, to finish projects, to mend the car. Love without refusing.   An immediate form. The expressive dancing singing and music.   Sam'a became his religion.   element - stretch a full frame self-reference as doubling at times an exact self ref or intimate intimacy with who sees direct w/o allusion setting up the conflict to work between in writing type space to set the meter detail just enough to constitute a problem and eventually give a certain conclusion   the most subtle and intricate narrative art thru a scale single lines   small very precise statements complex, subordinate clauses   The spoken word represents the act of becoming or remaining conscious.   in film the subliminal pulse an image can come up slowly surge up and out fast be recalled less naming inner movie they supply a picture, you another   structure of remarkable fluidity with natural and supernatural seeming continually to commingle   single images must be full the furthest developed hold immediately detail impeccable   by transforming a surface into a tissue of colors or a vibration of light and shadows, stops fixing into a particular form of I as an image says I   images in thought one frame yeats' experiments on images using people as amplifiers   devata the secure partner in such a state universal trust appears he becomes the mirror of all   the acceptance gesture   making tension like tantric waiting   imagining a space and using it to sense   an unusual quality of certainty   in the middle of nowhere traveling as fast as a light wave   the ghost is seen as having access to the other side of the birdcall labyrinthine confusions   sound listening birds' speech listening - the female power of mind and memory - "the outward form of which is sound"   the search for the simultaneous spatial and musical   movement surround express mimic trance flight   UNDERSTANDING RESISTANCE vocal control of resonance filtering and envelope shape sound study   a coding of zones and trajectories of performance space, based on a complex set of variables he calls time/space coordinates - a particular information line of notes would come in this direction many of his compositions concerned with space and time the music of north india the water gardens rhythm which changes relation to ordinary time   the moment when any sound becomes loving   the distinction between object and idea if I want the work of obedience and directness   [tech notes on sound recording]   birefringence - interference colors - thin films - diffraction by straight edge - overlapping of light from two secondary sources   -   [I go to Valhalla Lutheran church for a talk by Chester Ronning about his visit to China]   Nervous, going into social life, the church seen from miles away on the road, white church in the green plain, touching.   I go too early and have to drive around, scared, dressed in Chinese clothes no one saw except the fat daughter and curious son.   When they sang a hymn, I was watching the children's mouths singing their indoctrination. At first I was too embarrassed to look, then looked everywhere, at their pleasure in singing. Those pretty young ones knew the words. The old ones singing their fright. Mrs Larson, Lena. Children in best clothes for a party.   He was proud the young men he'd trained in Christian idealism had become leaders among communists. A woman with the squeezed face of queer people, "I'd like to take up writing. I like to read about doctrine. I think a person can read that without being influenced."   -   That Roy refuses coldly.   August 2   Her sickness that made her a writer, I envied, until lonely in the laundromat - because I like someone but am strange to speak to her, I remembered - I've had that sickness too. Is it so if it happens so young. It was the beginning of separation. I don't think more of it can be found.   Writing leaving marks. I stopped writing my own story because I knew almost none of it. She thought to make it fabulous because it was, her grandmother's silver chopsticks made a line. "I can write anywhere."   The trade of this curse for a skill. (I've paid.)   [transcription of tape recordings]   [beginning of notes on hearing #790487 concerning a sour gas processing plant proposed by Cheiftain Development Company]   August 6 [Peter Dyck visits.] It coincided twice. 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 Plautdeitch 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: a 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."   The yellow of violin. White sleep, when the thoughts are watched.   -   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 THAT, up to what I can bear, how much is that.   -   [letter]   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. His old face with a layer of flesh like mud laid over his features. 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. A spiral dream he's had many times, sometimes he gets off on another world, some days he can't get out of the movement. "I've never spiraled down." 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 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.   Lighting your [gas] lamp. Thinking of you here. An airplane singing. Swans beat their wings. - No it was the lamp.   A guest [Nelly Konrad], 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. [Photo of wood-chopping by Nellie]   Did you think the lamp's sound was like Tibetan monks. 7 And today - writing the sad dream uncomfortable, this isn't just right. Getting the car from out of the ditch, then the gas plant letters and taking them to Hythe, looking for Marty. I was lonely. 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. 8? Hello happiness tonight. Eye to the camera and magic becomes. It isolates as if I had seen.   The ducks in the hands of the banders.   Having a deadline. phonetic symbolic gestural syntactic displacements ellipsis pleonasm - extra syllepsis - making a word's meaning suddenly shift hyperbaton regression repetition apposition   semantic condensations metaphor catachresis - word used wrongly antonomasis - to name instead allegory metonymy synecdoche   the intentions out of which oneiric discourse is modulated ostentation demonstrative dissimulating persuasive retaliatory seductive   each dream requires to be interpreted as provocation, masked avowal, diversion parapraxis - mistake symptom - falling together   the sureness of combination in the completely unconscious systems   A nature, that never ceases to judge itself, exhausts personal emotion in action or desire so completely that something impersonal, that has nothing to do with action or desire, suddenly starts into its place, as unforeseen, completely organized, as unique as the images that pass before the mind between sleeping and waking.   The energy of all creative and joyous life is rebirth as something not oneself.   diminish the power of daily mood   rhythm - trance - in which liberation from the pressure of the will   the most precise report - 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 it is to hold it. If he isn't coming, how to live there, or why to. The Hotel Europe. 9 Saturday The 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 xeroxes go with it. After that slides, different pieces from here. Movie - I want it to summarize, and bring the most accurate next time. Newspaper. 10   Hello Sunday. Still lying down among the wood walls. Go 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, then the Lins' 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 the dark of the 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 my belly in the slough mosquitoes come to my face. The juicy green/yellow plants under, swans like big geese stand on the flats.   -   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.   Is writing true, necessary, is there time for it? Anything I do, my body learns to do better. It comes to: what do I want most: 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 real it wd be writing and loving and living, but what about the lonely singleminded gnostic tracking   Was it ever in the solution How could I tell it must be a personal answer Can I - and still feel faithful to the end With Jam I thought I'd die and didn't. But did I. Not answered yet.   Is this frivolous for me, at any moment Do I want to die. No. Does that mean I want to roam the intermediate. Yes but not usually, usually I'm in inner dislike then at those moments -   Where is it To be exact to conscience in detail and see Where does that put writing   13   What's stiff - left side, back of head.   On a stretch of time / your name / and mine Love 14 [Gas plant review meeting] 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.   Feeling it slack when the speaker is weak & not regarded. Everyone sat up when a politician of their rank -   No, is there something to say not said by a machine. 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."   Artemis next to me: Athena next to me:     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."   And what about - meteors from Perseus quite north east people filled with environment the field on fire red messages in the night light comes on a stretch of time your name & mine   15 Spoke at the hearing.   16 Saturday   Wanted to tell about the hearing, went to see M. Read Jam's letter on the way, felt sick reading it. Feeling revenge. At M's her note saying Roy and Sara are 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 him 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 moon, 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 a motorcycle and two people. It 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's kerosene smell. 17 A country where travel finds beautiful stories, beautiful songs.   Freedom right here. "She's handling herself very well." 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, grimacing writhing. I look devoutly. She wipes its shanks and legs. Sits down and forward, her big nipple and she's stiff as if it hurts. Small girl with a 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. August 19, waxing half In the morning thinking is this what's meant, knower and known. I thought how it would be with Athena, first she taught me a motion, she could change, I could change. For joy, of the world lit the way Show me a motion could be a known song.   The forms of writing, the loveliness of tissue, tissue. That's how. I was lying in bed, in the sun, piles, dirty covers, if I brought Athena she'd see me here and come next to me. How would she. And I could touch her, for that she'd be a small Chinese girl.   Drawings of parts overfolded. Wanting to be able to watch every slight Knower and known because knowing if it can be done they can all be there. Is this another hope for something that exists already.   A gauzy diaphanous expansion "I respond and we make a photograph together"   a sign of excitement, lavender floods the normally blue eye [pages of hearing notes including notes on the language of the proceedings] 20 Weds Strong at the hearing. M and he there. 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. 21 Exhausted at the hearing. 21 In the last dream a happy show, pink triangles, a glittering girl singer, another tall girl with guitar. They had bigger bodies than I'd expect. A small voice of another kind clearly said "Hey guys it's seven o'clock" Alarm rang, 7:30. Anderson's tale about dream toys says the person at night's an empty room. [more notes on the hearings, which go on for several days] 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. "You're a lawyer, aren't you, you speak for whoever pays you." Stop began with "It's miss, or miz." The smile that came surprised onto his face in the parking lot when I waved goodbye. "With considerable eloquence." Don Colley's eyes and how to note them and move over. The postures, I felt my 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. 23 I like: the transparent beings, an air outline. J's size. Pretty writing today. 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, the 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 Dr 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, a pale something 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, beefy, 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, to eat the attractions, to learn a form and new language in a hurry, to 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.   24 Sunday [triangle] Fasting, tea. Mrs Crow and other crow. Excited, didn't know it was full moon. Clear cold after the 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. - Shock of the death card again for Luke. What can it mean, my picture of him so live, whether it means I'll lose him or die out of him or he out of me. It's a rough card, the roughest, the fear card.   Woman with lion and roses: strength: opening the mouth of the lion. That was for passage of firm and flimsy worlds.   Mercury the magician self trained in right observation, concentration, manipulation of subconscious.   In the stories of the Sidhe, they are the feel of the acute loveliness of the country.   focus to the air lines and past (to others) oh if it could be traveling like that   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 a scheme for an arts broadsheet to publish my friends.]   What would be best. Somewhere else, Portugal and Berkeley and other. Publish with Cheryl, open it, pain and struggle. Write SCMP.   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 the High Level Bridge. Man who led the Polish strike.   August 28 [letter] By your lamp's light. Evening after town. From the college, Turner, Rembrandt, some Chinese painters, Portuguese guidebook and The structure of English. I can't help it if I'm still in love with you - oo - oo - oo On the other side of the lake some poplar stands yellow. The hot/cold clear time is coming. Went to the Alberta Culture office to see someone about the picture portfolio. Instantly pleased when the door opened, she's that, very tall woman in close-fitted 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. August 29 [letter] 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 in the field. Wind grass night south track makes me think of you.   It's Wednesday. The car has ruptured its water hose. Maybe forty-five dollars in the bank, owe Mary 200 and another 70 for the 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 a slight line of happiness dancing behind the eyes on the 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   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." Wd like to act. Imagining shooting every day. What do I know about it. Bridgette.   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 transferable. 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 [ride to Edmonton with Judy and Akasha] Fighting with Michael, excuse was a hat. Wasn't a good fight, I'm disliking him now, found out what he thinks.   The beautiful trees, campus good-looking people sitting in the Hub, interested in them all. Book-buying day.   You. I want you to come. Careful, do I want you to come? September. Then it will have to be our work.   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 and look around as we turn into the terminal road at Grande Prairie. What woke me. Willful risk of allowing the 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, across 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.   The color in ditches, fields, ravine flanks, exciting mix, time to work. Down the Wembley road to the stretch that makes me another time. Love and plan. Post office, this envelope's from Jean-Vi, 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. part 3 up north volume 5: 1980 june-november work & days: a lifetime journal project