the golden west volume 12 part 4 - 1997-98 december-january

work & days: a lifetime journal project

11th December 1997 "I am on the planet earth circling a minor star in the outer arm of a spiral galaxy." - Luke visited tonight, there was a card from M that said best wishes to Tom, Dennis phoned to say I have a contract for next semester, $1000 check, Tom's doing sixteen hour days with no time off, I'm working through piles and have time to do it right. What Tom wants to do - take the bus with me, his route through family land, where he travels alone, so he can be there and not alone. Midnight mass, dinner out, an AA open house. What I want is to drive in the country, read you my journal and other things, work in a bed in a motel, eat in a simple place, lie in your arms, hear your voice, tell you stories. - Oh, just one thing, that I forgot I can have, maybe, to find the way there. 13 I was standing at night looking into a large empty intersection in a business district in a city I called Toronto. Two cars coming from behind me passed, one on either side, leaving tracks through the slush. A rumpled, furrowed, messy night. 14 Do cars in dreams have to do with drive? Woke thinking something about framing a new sail, some other way to catch drive. Working through notes and reading the journal from five years ago when I was writing my MA. What I notice is questions I'm done with - imagining as a topic, metaphor as a topic, language of thought as an opponent, connectionism. And where am I now, getting tired. I have got rid of a lot of paper in the last days but now I'm running into paper with earlier boiling-down on it and I'm jibbing. It's seven. I've been working since four this morning, that's why. Tom is wanting to buy me a Christmas card and a present and thought maybe it would be nice to move up a notch into a motel with a spa in the room. Why does all of that scare and hurt me. Because he'll spend money on useless stuff and then have none for a life with me. What would I want him to spend money on - to fix his teeth, to fix his bike, to get his truck on the road, to get his license, to rent a good place and keep it clean, to write anything that is felt and true. None of that is going to happen     YES He is never going to fix his teeth     YES The truck is going to sit there and he isn't going to get it on the road     YES He is always going to spill money     YES He's never going to fix his bike     no He is never going to write     YES This is very depressing     no It means I don't have a man I can live with     no You mean I can but I don't want to     YES I didn't want to believe he's wrecked but he is     no He isn't wrecked     YES Why isn't it depressing     partial loss Is there anything about him that makes it worthwhile     YES, success An illusion of success     no   It is humiliating to be with him     He is just a derelict     YES I didn't realize he was so much of a derelict     no you did I've felt maybe I could turn him into an okay man     YES I can't     YES Is there a reason I'm not with a skilled able man     YES conflict What and what     coming through and message I am with a derelict because I am one     YES In what sense am I a derelict     your conflict What do you mean message     womanhood, the work of not withdrawing from unconscious anger This romance is irrelevant to me     NO What is its relevance     loss Loss and deprivation     YES   I am too wrecked to be with a good man     YES Could Don see he's a derelict     YES Did he think I'm pitiful     In choosing such a man     YES Does Louie think that     YES Did Rowen     no Would Luke     YES My neighbours do     YES Please talk to me     something about love woman What     graduation She is in the process of     What next     she wants to break up with him She does?     YES Her womanly pride     YES Do you want me to     NO Why     to act in the truth of her loss Her incapability     YES To live punished for my weakness     You want to punish me for being what I am     no What I am is its own punishment     no 15 Feeling the work I am in matters, historically, politically, it matters how we think minds, it matters that it should be in accord with the facts. It matters because it could make thinking better. And at the same time trying to think what I'm doing with Tom. I'm next to heart-broken. There is something I want terribly, terribly, and need terribly, terribly. I don't have it. He gave me the experience of feeling I had it. It was an illusion but it was a beautiful gift. I am never going to have the real thing. My left eye is crying. Am I going to die still needing it terribly, terribly     no Should I think of this Christmas visit as goodbye     no as responsibility Responsibility to what     to love woman In what sense     to not exclude her Will you tell me what is needed to include her     heartbreak, anger, withdrawal, foolishness I need to be those things     YES Because she is those things     YES He will hate that     YES If I'm not love woman with him it's pointless     YES But he'll hate it     YES Will you comment     excluded child comes through if you stop withdrawing 16 For scientific epistemology, always ask what schema of practical life is structuring the talk. If those schemas are the engines of reason, then paradigm shift can be shift in what we're imagining. Then vis animation is for learning to think complex organismic function including mind. 18 In this work I'm a filter in a community of filters. The notion that has given me most trouble, how to think embodied abstract structure. The notion of abstraction has to be fanned first. I keep stumbling into fog. It is the paper I needed to write replying to Gilles. But does it make a pair with the paper about rep function and science. This week I have gone through pounds of paper, my note piles reducing in a satisfying way. I've come through a lot. I've got a lot of it so thoroughly sorted I don't need to see it again. There I was in the notes coming at something again and again. It is as if a lot is simpler, the questions have been dissolved. I've worked through a lot of the discourse community and defended my simple coherence point by point. I'm beginning to be something I now understand as ready. You can go into the world of the profession when you have built your coherent take on anything, your confidence. Reading Landscape and shadow yesterday. It's good. Nicole's edit and my defense of its sophistications were both correct. It is clear, female, young and sophisticated. Room 115 at the Shangri-la for a week, you for a week, that's good. 19 Have I got to the end of what I can do today - three more hours in this day. Two mornings here. I'm frightened. It's as if there are two papers, abstraction and the locus of order, representation and the locus of order. Bellingham, 21st Dec I'm here, I'm organized. There's a painting of Mount Baker in a blue and gilt old frame. If the painter had left out the half a tree in the foreground it would have been a better painting. He didn't understand the tree. What is it about the branches. They're meant to imply the trunk but their angle doesn't. I have had three slices of bread with Swiss cheese and a cup of tea, the tea from the blue enameled cup that has been everywhere with me, the bread and cheese from one of the new bowls, blue and black. The red table square with stars is over there under the primula, the bayberry candle and the white candle in San Diego thrift store crystal. Fires moving. My red vest and red sneakers by the door. Louie's boom box. I'm writing on the wicker lap desk. I like the mirror over by the counter where my camping hot plate is set up on a blue towel. It's six and dark. Quiet. Driving south in mid-afternoon sun I was frightened. It's the work. I knew I wasn't earthed enough to be driving when I started. Willed holding onto road attention. And then a quarter hour at the border creeping forward in a double row, baking under the windshield, with Blaine Bay showing glitter between boxcars and a soft blue tree drawn in shadow on the white wall of the Peace Arch. Peaceful. The countryside I haven't seen in a month, ditches full of water, twigs red. The sun had declined into a smudge of ocean haze when I got out of Cost Cutter with my plastic bags. A farm house for sale on the high crest that looks north to the Canadian mountains, east to Baker, south to the Olympics, west to the islands. A beautiful four-square two-storey house with a cow shed and the plainest of yards. Yeah. That one. Joyful coming into town. The sun setting into the bay. People at our little park stopped to watch it. Beautiful home-towny houses. There's the mission. See you soon. 22 Feels like I've got it. 25th We've been together forty-eight hours. You're at work. I'm listening to the silence, in which there is the high pulse of the refrigerator motor and behind it the faint cold moaning of wind around the corners of a farmhouse. I could go on and talk about the fir tree, the tree farm, the bald eagle you were glad you saw. What I need is this quiet. Alright, here I am. What happened. I like the tree and its small white lights. I love the silence. What happened. Can I know? Do I know what to ask? Oh this morning I saw you. You played me a song with tears in your eyes. The song said, A long December and there's reason to believe / Maybe this year will be better than the last / If you think that I could be forgiven / I wish you would. I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself / To hold on to these moments as they pass. And here is another song: Toutes les femmes sont des reines / Cette chanson pour cette reine qui dit a son roi / Maintenant. All women are queens, tell this to the woman who loves you. You may not live up to her dreams, which even a king cannot always do.   Voila ce qu'a dit une reine a un bon roi vaincu sans haine   I am gone, gone with the wind The love that you would not defend with your life You cannot befriend now with tears in your eyes I am gone, gone with the wind, I am gone In search of a new king, I am gone. That anguish at the heart that is in the paper - "Without blame" Marianne Faithfull and Ismael Lo in Ismael Lo's Jammu Africa 1996. 26 I'm confused. I was in your arms, panicking, saying to myself, I'm so confused, I'm worn out and confused in the struggle. Ambivalence never stops. I settle for a moment and then it's there again. We were at a moment where I accepted you wholly and then you said something and I didn't like it and the accepting was over. I am homeless again. I'm confused, I'm confused, I say. I want to be in pleasure and I am in disappointment. I can spend hours saying if you improve in these and these ways I will be able to accept you and be whole in love and pleasure. And now I am saying it's not you, it's me. It is my fault. And when I say that I lose my tone, my confidence. I collapse into helplessness and dejection. If it is my fault I am at the end of the road. I cast myself down dejected and say, help me, some larger power, help this conflicted structure that I am. Dear larger one     hello little I'm squalling and howling with frustration     alright, say I love to be in love and pleasure and whole heart, and I'm not. Is it my fault? If it's my fault is there something I'm supposed to do?     you are furious with yourself I am, I'm saying, I'm doing this for you, I'm doing this because you wanted it, I have worked hard for you, I've struggled, I've worked so you could have what you wanted, and now you don't want it, you just carp and criticize, you're not happy, you're not eager, you're cold and reserved and judgmental, I've compromised my work for you, I've spent time in emotional work that I should have spent on my real work, I'm under the gun having to write something that will satisfy the masters, with too little work and too little quality of work. I'm here instead of in quiet at home working well, doing what I'm good at, I'm risking my future for you, and here you are, you aren't doing your part, you're no good as a woman, you're a fucking nuisance, I'd like to just cut you off and live without you if you're going to be just hunger and no satisfaction. I really am fuckin' pissed off at you, you're a dud of a woman, you're no woman at all, you're some kind of zombie, you're hapless, you're incompetent, you're ugly, you're gullible, he has you hooked with fine words, you want his strong warm arms and his voice and his mouth, okay you've got them, so do your thing, but no, you are holding onto your little skirts saying no, no. I'm furious at you. Alright, what can I learn from that. Is that how he is secretly talking to me?     no Is it really how I talk to me     yes Is that the tyrant     yes Is that the tyrant I object to everywhere     yes Well I'm the one who makes our living and she's just fuckin' useless     yes I'm at the end of my rope, I want to know whether to cut her off for good. Could I do that?     yes Should I do that     no Then what     go do your work Is she okay with all the bad things I said about her     no But I should leave it be     yes Is it good to be this confused     YES I'm lost with this paper. I've picked it up and put it down so many times. I can't do it. I'm fuzzed over. I can't afford the time I'm spending here. I don't know what I'm going to write about, I'm coming from too many directions, I'm scared. I don't have focus, I'm tired, I'm worried. Crying, trying to surrender whatever illusion is stopping my heart and fogging me. I am willing to know. Really everything, I am willing to know. As for the paper, I have nothing. I'm here in a motel room. I don't care anything about any of those piles of notes. I'm sick of slaving among the men to no purpose and unwanted and mystified. When I get back I'll have Tuesday, W, Th, F, S, S, six days to write something from a standing start. Can I do that? It says yes. "the philosophers are crazy / there is nothing I need to buy" 27 I crashed and then relaxed. An unconscious conviction that I have to choose between intelligence and belonging, that was an intense fog of conflict and dejection. I said I would choose the intelligence of open heart. Last night Tom had relaxed too. When he flipped channels he decided to be funny and was. This morning we got there. I want to write a sign that says: Don't forget. Your faith wasn't a mistake. When he's closed he can open. When I am closed I can open, but maybe only by crashing, so what I have to remember is not to hold it at bay. It's the same for everyone. It's childhood coming through.   Did I do well     better than well Is there anything else you want to say     something about him, unconscious, feeling and intelligence, gain, excluded child He will gain them if he finds the child     YES Is there anything I should tell him     finish tempering unconscious love woman Do you mean unconscious feeling for women     YES He needs to say it's over     YES Because that's what unconscious feeling says     YES Will you tell me what unconscious feeling is saying     being happy in love and sex hinders what wants to come through What wants to come through is shattered grief     YES So will he need to sabotage     YES Should I tell him this     YES Do you have any advice for me in relation to this     get angry when it happens Vancouver, 28th Sunday five in the afternoon. It's night. I'm cooking spinach soup with mussels. The sound of the gas jet under the pot. I want fire, strong light. A new white bulb in the back room. White candle. I'm missing the tree, its small white lights back in the branches shining out starry among the needles, throwing fir shadows on the ceiling. The tree was in the corner next to the window. The window would be dewed over behind the venetians. I'd look across you from the bed to that soft lovely interesting wall. When I closed my eyes I'd see horizontal stripes. I'm tired. That was a long week. Ismael Lo sang every day in our house. I'm almost at a stop. Falling asleep. So, Tom. Who were you this time. I see you coming from the Old Time Café this morning. I'm at the corner ahead of you, looking back. You're wearing your chinos, a wine-colored sweater, a black cap. You've grown your hair. The way you'd come to the car when I'd wait for you under the willow at eleven: windbreaker, cap, scarf, gloves, daypack. I'd be looking at orange lines moving, streetlight on the willow. Motor running for the heater, turn off the radio when I see you. Sunday, Monday, I was in 115 working. At nine I'd go sit with you for a quarter hour, but we were hard things, both. Tuesday you said come pick me up at the factory. Tuesday night is when you crashed. You'd worked sixteen hour days to have money to be with me over the holidays and I was nasty about Charles Grodin and spent half an hour reading you about ADD. That's it. I say I'll give you a lift. You leave money on the fridge and your watch on the table. We drive down through the lights on Holly. It's about midnight. I park at the mission door where you'd told me to. You say, Park in the back for a moment. The upshot is you don't get out of the car. We go back to the motel. You laugh and give me a real hug. When we get in bed your hand on my skin is phosphorescent. I'm more in feeling, different in feeling, than I ever have been. It is remarkable. My knees come up and stroke your flanks, my pussy wings are all colors. Your long strokes are perfectly beautiful. But next day I am not all the way turned around. I have a hard little heart. We're circling with hundreds in mall parking lots. The only tree we find is a thin dry thing. At the last moment we say no, we can do better. I don't have much grip. Where were we. Who was I with. What I said was I need him to have enough money and to find a way to live so he can have his lights on. Start at the end. Last night when he got in the car he was wired, shut down. What are you feeling, I said. I'm feeling fine he said. He was manic for the first time in months. I said, Think of it in Gendlin's way. What are you feeling? Insecure, he said. When he has a shift where he has to deal with drinking Indians in the parking lot he shuts down. Yesterday morning is when he got through. Thursday night he was playing with the TV, in the morning he was in the clear, innocent soft eyes, eyes that hadn't eaten lead, a young man's eyes. Why do I have so little memory? I remember the tree, the room. I remember the willow's lines next to the rain's lines under the light. I remember setting the table with the red table cloth, blue plates, new bowls. You said I'd made you feel at home. You said these days sometimes you have the feeling you had when you were a boy, that you couldn't imagine drugging yourself and losing clarity. Boxing Day you took me to an AA noon meeting. I said, "I'm not an alcoholic but I'm hooked on other things." What I was watching was what it was like to speak in public as if I'm in a couple. I was so startled by that and by being called on that I couldn't judge what you said. "And both shall row, my love and I" - another going down the river story. What drinking is like. A beer, a shot of Cuervo Sec - was that it? - half a joint, gets you to the state you want. More doesn't work, but there's another state where you're drunk but the higher mind kicks in and you can control so you don't seem drunk. There's some kind of vision. You aren't telling me everything yet, your conditions of life. You look at women and imagine the noises they'd make in bed. You hadn't told me that before. Why would anyone who can look as real as you do when your eyes soften and your face pinks up want to shut down ever? But I'll say a harder thought. There is that beautiful being in everyone, that state of love could be found in anyone. I find it with you and say I wasn't wrong, he is what he says he is, it's right to hang on with him. But our daily selves are uncomfortable with each other. 29 What you mean by the unbearable lightness of being is the unbearable transience of being. I hadn't understood that. 30 Nicole at the casino - inspiring - fat - beautiful - free - went right out into the middle of it and studied the games. So alert, so hungry. I felt my energylessness. I wasn't always hoarding energy the way I do now. I'd have been out in the middle of it asking questions the way she was. I saw how withdrawn I am, miserly, holed up, and that it's habitual. Maybe I don't eat enough. 6:30. Still dark. I was talking to the book. It says he cheated on me in the last couple of months, a woman from the widget factory. That puts me at odds. My body is saying yes but I don't believe it. "If you think that I could be forgiven / I wish you would." Was it about that? The unbearable instability of your being? You want to be firm and are a cloud. I don't know whether - I do know I'm less frightened - it does seem odd I imagine this guy a faithful mate because he says he is and I need one of those. 1st January 1998 Trying to fall asleep last night in heart ache - heart ache that had nothing to say for itself - it was just there on and on - a tear leaking onto the pillow. Friday 2nd Evening of the day I began writing. Dearest me, I guess we've shut down for today. I have been holding off pain because I don't think there's anything I can do about it. Yesterday, about noon, pain at the heart so strong I thought I might have a heart attack. Then I remembered Tom had probably just woken up and it could be him I was feeling, so I set a gold bubble around myself and cut my cord, and yes, I was better. But something is not right. I keep getting summoned by the not-rightness. There's something you're protecting me from. This morning I was feeling my difference from when I was thirty. I was full of love then, and so many loves are hates now. The book tonight said do the work to lose illusions of betrayal. I said I was willing to be willing. I'd like to be love again. I was this self, describing myself as a man. I said, I am brave, persistent, focused. I'm willing to think against everyone, I'm venturesome, I walked the roads of the world alone. I'm committed. I don't keep a reserve when I work. I felt myself a big spare strong light body as I said those things of myself. And then when I address love woman I become her, I well up, I'm smaller, a core of goldy light of feeling. As the valiant man I love the woman wholly. As the gold-hearted woman I adore the lion-hearted man. It said, to marry each other you must step into the same space. I was trying to feel it out - he is the spine behind me, I think, she is the light of heart I face into the world. I think that's right. I'll go to sleep soon. Louie in Africa said she made seven wishes. What will I do if this paper stays dead on me. Keep going until I find where life is. It's in that centre section - just start there? Yeah. Start with the magno-parietal system. Go to ASL and sign space. Graphic rep. Action in token space. Then Lakoff and schema theory. Then pull it together. 3rd Dreamed Leah with her hair dyed red. I was looking at her admiringly, trying to think what was different. She was freer, not doting and swarming the way she used to. I said, you used to be either ---- or ----, something like loving or angry, now you're between. What I'm saying is that I want to stop with Tom. I don't like him and he doesn't like me either. I thought we'd have writing together, by which I mean something like a love of saying things exactly. He has it in him but he doesn't give it to me or want to give it to me. Being with him is too much a struggle, I have been mostly unhappy for two years. He may or may not have emotional trust, but I don't. I hardly believe a word he says. He is massively irritated by me and trying to cover it most of the time. That makes me dull and stressed. I have worked hard but working hard doesn't work, I guess. I'm hurt that he doesn't like me. I'm fair; I say, why should he like me when I don't like him. But why should I like him when he gives me almost nothing but words he hopes are correct for the occasion. I hate the way he just wants to watch TV and tapes with me. I hate the way we hardly ever like the same things in those tapes. I loved that he liked Say amen somebody. And the Israel Lo tape. I liked that he liked my paragraph about Annie Dillard as a dazzle junkie. How come I'm liking him now? Those few things in six months are not enough good texture to run a life on. Why I feel better is I've said what is deadening me with him. It's his fleets of dead talk that I can have no reply to but protest. He is stonewalling majorly and I've had it. What do I want? I guess I'm done wanting a man. I want to live in a warm dry place. That's my first and strongest want. I want to live in love and connectedness again, I want to live as love woman everywhere, I want to get older in a way so I'm strong and beautiful all the way through. I want my kids to be well and to do what I can for them. I want consuming, creative, needed and valued work, and want to be good at it. I want freedom, free time, enough money to do these other things. I'd like to publish all my good work from earlier times, I'd like to publish my journals. I'd like to have a free and funny and fine honoured public presence. I really do not want to be tied to a man and especially not a man who confuses and dulls me. I like to touch down into people's beds and not be contained there. I want sexual freedom. Do you approve of that list     no Why not     it's angry At him?     no, at his evasion Should I be     You approve of all the items     But you don't approve of the spirit     no Is it true I'm done wanting a man     Is it true the conclusion is that I should ask for my freedom back     no Say I'm taking it back     no Then what     something about love woman She thinks I'm asking for my freedom from her     I'm asking for freedom for her     YES Love woman do you understand I want you to be free and happy     Do you want to correct what I said     (Kp) Are you telling me I have a husband     So I should want all those things with him     Sexual freedom     I will just note that it gave me an agreeable thrill to hear I have a husband. Okay, work. - "Next time we're together could we talk about how we want to live in the next couple of years?" "So long as I'm in the picture." "No, but don't you have anything you'd like to do, if you could do anything you want?" "Mick Jagger's already doing it. Oh Ellie, you do complicate things." Sunday 4th Four-thirty in the morning. January snow. Dropping through the cone of Koo's yardlight. Thickening the branches of the plum tree, thickening the stacked leaves of Bill and Nora's bay bush. Pinking the sky. One set of tire tracks through the alley. - The view of mathematical ability and of mathematical use of representational artifacts that forms in this way is a view that integrates it with other sorts of simulational ability and other kinds of uses of representational artifacts. ASL uses of token space, diagrammatic uses of pictorial space, action or imagined action with mathematical symbols on a page, the discourse-diagramming gestures of speakers, logical tracking of conditionals and other counterfactuals when we speak or read natural language, can all be seen as representation-supported uses of the magno system's basic spatiotemporal abilities. Is that the gist of it     (twirls) Do you want to add something     research, struggle, your catastrophe Ask what difference it makes to how I live     YES Have I been dissociating parvo and magno     Parvo is love     But I think magno is love     YES This is making me tremble     no, integration is Is parvo love woman     Magno is logical ability     YES When I love particular space am I integrated     no Will you point me     anxiety, slow growth, imagining, paper My worry about the paper     YES My worry about people understanding it     YES Is this work really for my talk at Presentation House     YES Shall I go through the slog and write it up correctly     no I have to finish this for Phil     NO   So what are you saying     something about your husband What about him     let him finish it I'm love woman you mean     YES Did love woman write the summary     YES She's the one who's bored     no We're both bored     YES Yesterday when you said I had a husband you meant me     NO You meant my work self     YES You want me to notice which me is speaking     YES Shall I call my work self to come and finish the paper     YES Shall I call her he     Do you want to say any more about this     no Do you want to say any more about the subject matter of the paper     YES it's about your father Magno separation     YES 5th 9 o'clock Monday night. Uh! 10-6, 7-9, that's ten hours with this paper today. It's not very well knit, and it's not done. Tomorrow morning. I'm saying things I want to say, I'm saying them my way, but I'm not patient, I don't have that exquisite patience I had. 6 Paper's done. Money in the bank, 1300 a month for 4 months. Students. Music in the car. Joyce. Web page. Office. Nathalie tonight, crystal lattices and consistency. Physics - she's the only person talking physics to me. And she's doing it like a girl - gorgeous leaps. Ah - I'm tired. Cleaned my house when I got home. Now I have to do something with body. I felt like a gnome today, broad, thick, crooked and stiff in pants too short and too tight, boots too heavy, lank hair. 7 I'm free. The sky has open streaks. I've had my heart shut against you but this morning I remembered you holding me, talking in my ear, when I burst into crying after five strokes. I cried hard and you encouraged me. It was after that I crashed and relaxed. Okay, I'm not done with you. - You have to earn his truth, it says. How? By your truth. What truth is that? Conflict. Tell him about conflict? No, tell him both truths. When I'm with him. Yes. That won't be for a while. Yes. He says he looks at skaters at CBC and when he sees their dedication he says, There's my Ellie. He says, as a child, You don't want to play with my playthings, you think you are too good for my playthings, I don't know how to play with you, it seems like if I want to play with you I have to play with your things. 10 It says, You are lazy. It takes me a long time to understand that. Lazy about what, for example? Preferring obsession to love, strength and temperance. What should I do? Find the child's decision. I used obsessing about boys to keep myself from feeling my father, because he was malicious and would have used it against me. Yes. Just stop and feel what it really is. - Oh large one - the shock and sore heart when I find out being what I am is not acceptable - not not not - don't be it, don't talk about it, don't protest - I don't have to do much and it is too much - you can't get used to the fact that I exist - even in so small a way as it is - you hate it - you go into a rage that you can't control me - I expect you to start getting used to it - either that or take responsibility for what you really want - there has been enough bullying. part 5 the golden west volume 12: 1997-98 september-january work & days: a lifetime journal project