in america volume 20 part 4 - 2010 april-may

work & days: a lifetime journal project

Borrego Springs Thurs 29 April I look nice in the mirror - pink, young, soft. It's not quite 7. Last night the wind swept up. This morning came on quietly - there two white egrets working west - white-sided doves, not my city doves, little jumpy birds. I notice there's a little thing in me looking around for a lover. Fantasies I know better than. But still, it knows it needs something. It's irrepressible. Is it the same one thinking of Tom with scorn, saying I don't like you and you don't like me either. Short conversation in the coffee shop. A 40-some man began it and abruptly stopped it. I had unthinkingly used an educated word. - Being - "openness of space, the lively, expressive quality of time, the clarity of knowledge, are being... . The tendency to look elsewhere, outside, or behind has died away, and has been replaced by an utterly complete and positive presence." He seems to be describing what it was like in acid. Senses intensified, body balanced, actions ritual gestures, light-hearted play, watching being arrive instant by instant with rapt pleasure. nurture the value represented by our own embodiment active commitment to our own being all being newly born within space and time, second by second We can decide and act with complete propriety and utter spontaneity ... acts naturally fulfilling both to ourselves and to others. Aspects of this way of being - my language is disgusting me - wondering whether what's next for the journal is that it shd stop - in childhood, for instance naturally considering what's best for everyone, being identified with the whole rather than the self. Am I so degenerated now that I can't do it any more   From age     So I wasted all those years with Tom   My brain is so far gone   NO Can I recover   compassion an all-encompassing perspective the embodiment of being, subtle fulfillment constantly going on Do you agree with suicide when there's too much pain and disability   Am I going to end up doing that   no But there is going to be too much pain and disability   no There's already quite a bit   YES Will you comment   recover action, look for generosity You're saying I can recover   If I find something good to do   no More about that?   balance, by processing, to gain, improvement Is there emotion to find   Can I stop being in muscular pain   Does it have an emotional cause   no I can find the physical cause   YES Is it cancer   no Am I ever going to get cancer   no Is it liver   no Kidney   no Digestive   no Postpolio   Neural   Use analgesics   no Some kind of neural correction   Slow breathing   no Just disregard it   no Some yoga thing   no Are my arteries okay   Shd I be a vegetarian   no Give up cream   no Live in the country   YES Does my blood pressure go down   More exercise   Twice as much   no More bike   no More yoga   Try to go down to 135   YES More you want to say   no [Opposite page: Electricity has a granular structure ratio of mass to charge Nucleus "positive charge and virtually all the mass" The atom was essentially just empty space. Nucleus occupies only about one millionth of a billionth (10-15) of the volume of an atom. Matter emits radiant energy only in discrete chunks Shorter wavelength of radiated energy, more energy per packet Planck's constant Granular character of exchanges of thermal and radiative energy Quantum jumps - there can't be transitions - there is nothing that actually jumps. - The Christian centuries - "the heart, corrupted by the senses" - "an omniscient cause directed the creation of the world." 15 centuries of refusal The Greek philosophy of nature - vs the gods Struggle since then, in monotheist religions, for belief in single male creator. - Gassendi 1600 Fr: Starting with atoms, certain molecules are first formed, different from one another, which are the seeds of different things; and each of these things is woven and constituted in such a way that they are not, indeed cannot be, constituted of any other. But soul infused. Valéry "Just as there are men of the world, there are also men of the universe." Galileo condemned June 22 1633, Florence. Bruno burned 1600 "astounding, powerful and prophetic intuitions" Newton "gravitation is God's spirit permeating matter," did not believe it immanent, like inertia. Elementary particles, gravity negligible - essentially electromagnetic "That an immaterial living mind does inform and actuate the dead matter and support the frame of the world" - Bentley De la Mettrie "There can be something else that is neither chance nor God; I am talking about Nature .... Causes hidden in its midst may have produced everything."] 30 Was it 1997 on this day I packed the Fairmont and left Eliz's cabin in agony because it was Tom's birthday and I was not going to call him. And then was here in the garden with roses reflected in the pool, quail roosting in the grapefruit tree, open sky above the fairway and desert nights on the bike, heart aching so much I couldn't write and nothing I could do for it but go home. And now, and now it aches remembering that ache, but it's not the same ache. In the mirror of that house, when I was 53, was the first time I noticed that my waist was shorter and broader, that my skeleton was getting old. But I could walk without thinking about it, my muscles didn't hurt. But I have enough money to spend $400 to be here, and I have a jeep, and I finished a work that was much better than I then imagined. And Tom did not as far as I know cheat on me in what would have been the most crushing way, although going back to meth out of weakness with Oscar did us in in the end. He was what he was, we didn't have a real chance. I was going to say we'd had a chance until then, but he was what he was and I loved an addict because that was what I had. He used me to get himself out of danger and didn't care enough about the chance to work for it. And I cared more about my work self, always, I loved him when I was compelled to but shaved the necessity when I could. And here we are, he in the wonderful house I found and furnished, with flattering Facebook photos I took and health I worked to save, a collection of my plants, all of it reflecting well on him in what matters most to him, the opinion of strangers. He has no one else to matter to, I understand that, and yet I was worth more than that, I always was worth more than that. When I have the good opinion of strangers I have earned it myself, and when I don't have it it's not because I don't deserve it. I have been longing for the company of someone I can admire - have I ever said that here - I've imagined a man with money and skill and accomplishment and curiosity and strenuous intelligence and will and rectitude and clear conscience - I say that trembling at heart - I settled for so vastly less because he was tall, had a good voice and good hands and a nice nose and Irish flights of fancy. I loved him with such fierce ethical strength, I fought for his spirit, I annealed my own. I'm crying that I was so wasted on a fool. I'm all I am and what he longed for was blow jobs and someone to join him in loving Neil Young. The book kept telling me to stay and I stayed - why is this so sad, so sad, so sad that it was all for nothing, that such strong love is for nothing, that I'm so mistaken in my core, so ruined that I give my best to trash. When I get here I want to console myself, I want to say love is mistaken in almost everyone, and look what admirable settled people have, it's not so much, and I have freedom instead, I have other things hardly anyone has. Those things are all true and yet I'm crying. It's a platform of truth and it's welcome and here I am with a white-wing dove on the snag. Its wings squeak too. These desert palo verdes are messy brooms with what look like clots of pollen all over them. There was movement all over this sand yard earlier, rabbits and squirrels, but they seem to have gone in now that the sun is higher. Hacienda del Sol, the yellowness everywhere. It's two hours away, I can come back. Something about just looking over an open field, light coming across an open field. - It's windy. I have a bed against a rock, the camp stove struggling at a little distance, low sun in my eyes, some man putting up his tent down the road. The brittlebush is vivid army green across the hills, all over. Backlit tufts. The sand has many () tracks I suppose of deer? It will be a long cold night with a strong moon rising maybe an hour after sundown. Colder already. My hand's shadow is quite dark violet on the page. Is that the sound of boiling - chicken rice with a tab-open tin of peas. [Opposite page: sketch of desert house and garden] 1 May Ah-ooo', oo-oo says one dove. Hummingbird over my chest woke me. From dreaming I asked my little boy whether Chris had touched his penis and he said, We were lovers. The moon didn't rise until far into the night. My bed was in the shadow of a big rock but I could see the hill lighter. The wind stopped, the Big Dipper rotated on its nail, Cygnus flew slowly west, and the crooked long belt that looked like a dragon was Draco. Early in the night I put out my hand to touch the granite boulder and saw car tracks in deep sand, rock molecules I thought. There is the Salton Sea shining under the sun in the east. It's so silent every bird has its own direction and flies make nearby fuzz. Two birds, one that chippy little kind to the southeast, and another larger rattling behind me on the slope. - Santa Ysabel. Coming through this country I was saying Fleurissante, the Republican month. Silvered green grass, pools of yellow flowers in declivities. Golden-eyed blackbird in the sycamore puffing its little self up and letting out a hiss like an airbrake releasing. - Do you know what's up with Zach   YES Fear of success   no Wanting to impress his father   Success at something that won't impress his dad   - But it's Floreal 20 April - 20 May. - I came in off 163 and stopped at Tom's house. He was on the bench in his garden reading. I looked at the plants and talked fast and didn't look at him. He has the use of a white 98 Silverado and is working steady he says. Seemed to want me back but no no no. 2 Anne dutifully commented on the journal passage about Opa and Oma, realizing she'd neglected to. Her note was patronizing and defensive, oddly so, I'd had a better opinion of her. "Keep writing!" A paragraph of flatly-worded English teacher praise and then the parts that mattered to her, defending her dad and saying their religion wasn't infantile, it's okay to be comforted. Did she feel outclassed   no But she was   She won't like my reply   It burns a bridge   Oh well   YES Three ducks on the Martin House roof. It's because they swim in the pool. Back in town not wanting my routines though they work. There go the eight o'clock Sunday morning cathedral bells. In front of me the Padmasambhava tankha with offerings of nasturtiums and oranges, books, light and time. - This is three days I've avoided Tip's letter, I've been wayward and idle, rebellious, had a double Gold Bite bar today though I'm 149. Read the Times, read atomism, watched Brothers and sisters and a repeat of Grey's anatomy. Do you know why I'm evading   Something about Tom   no Something about not feeling   no Blocking something   no My brain wants to do better things   no Will you tell   (moon), act, excluded, completion Moon - something about cycle   I don't understand   Some emotional thing trying to complete itself   What I was feeling in the garden   no Did I finish that   YES Losing memory   no Losing health   no Servitude   no Will you lead me   shared pleasure, slow growth, partial, action Will you point this   processing I'm sick of working with mediocre students   I want to stop [my college]   NO I like the money   I'm mystified   Shared pleasure - is it about fun   no Friendship?   Needing friendship   Process longing for good company   My little efforts aren't working   They're being rejected   Or unsuitable   Is this about processing childhood   no Now   Do you want to advise me   yes, shared pleasure, organization, balance, coming through Find a group   no List?   Prepare by balancing and coming through?   Will there soon be a better group   Can I lose 9 pounds in 3 weeks   Good idea   Are there fine people who will want to know me   YES People I don't have to be a servant to   Susan's gone forever   More you want to say   no My waywardness is about loneliness   no Unfelt loneliness   YES   I'm wasting my time on Tip   Anything you can suggest   you can be responsible toward a child's illusions He's a child   Weak minded   [Opposite: particles corresponding to the forces regulating their interactions Matter and force are no longer distinct concepts. Energy transmitted in quanta. Energy of electromagnetic field - quanta are photons. Field exerts action by exchanging photons - mediating messenger particles. Ballet of virtual particles, brief, undetectable. Quantum electrodynamics. Our present corpuscular view of the universe is based on 12 elementary particles making ordinary matter and 12 elementary particles transmitting forces. The number jumps to 36 if one takes into account that each quark 'exists' with 3 different color properties, and to 60 when one includes the antiparticles. BUT what is considered today the most plausible picture of reality, which not only unifies the concepts of particles and fields, but even considers fields preeminent over particles relativity, fundamental law of equivalence between mass and energy relativistic quantum theory of fields - "fundamental and underlying relativity of the world a slew of fields and their interactions" In accordance with the rules of quantum theory, the field intensity at a given point in space is a measure of the probability of finding in that location the quanta associated with the field - in other worlds, the energy packets corresponding to the elementary particles that are observed by experimenters or postulated by theorists. Photons are the quanta of electromagnetic fields. Electrons are the quanta of electronic fields. Fields are the ultimate reality, and there are as many fundamental fields as elementary particles. an assortment of fields interacting with one another via their respective quanta particles energy turning into matter, matter into energy Modern theory holds that vacuum, no matter how 'empty', is never completely devoid of electromagnetic field. The random fluctuations of that field have the paradoxical effect of populating vacuum with particles that exist for only a short duration. More mass, shorter time. Energy borrowed from the vacuum, virtual particles. Far from being empty, it is actually continually filling with a host of virtual particles of all types, and even, in a manner of speaking, of various degrees of virtuality .... From this perspective, vacuum can be regarded as "the state of minimum energy of all fields stripped of any particle of real matter" or "space purged of all real particles," or even "an ocean of virtual particles."] Original copy of TSK falling apart - bought in that wide open time with Jam in 1977 - Arthur Probsthain Oriental Bookseller 41 Great Russell St £4.45 - with a sensation of finding an island of sanity to rest on - so I have in my hand a new copy from Amazon Used. Art practice has been part of the way to the vision he's suggesting - that there are different 'spaces' in the sense of 'frames,' 'focal settings' - that some are wider, better, 'higher,' than others ordinary awareness and its clumsy conceptual structures I keep wondering whether what's being critiqued is just theoretical mind, the models/ways things are imagined in theoretical discourse. This is related to the DR intro, the kind of time it was, more courageous, more confused, more essential, less competent because less complacent. This is the place to go on from if I can get there. Can I get there? Could I have gone on living there   Was all this time wasted   no I was sorting   Is the journal just junk   no And gaining credibility   YES It has been a marvelous life   YES But I haven't given it yet   Should I quit [my college]   NO Did I go on living there   Are you sure   Can I give it before I die   YES More pressure   6 Thank you a million times over for your understanding of who I am and what I am trying to do. I am running for the tissues. Can my thesis work meet the standards even as I challenge the current and acceptable ways of grounding oneself in academic work? I feel lost without you. On a brighter note, I am so infatuated with myself and my newly found freedom. I LOVE being able to define my own boundaries of time and space and knowing that no one has any claim on me. And I love the dragon power that arises in me when someone tries to challenge that. [Opposite: I'm gnawing ineffectually at matter and energy with TSK at the back of my head. It's a hole in my understanding. I can see that the language is bad but I don't know enough physics to know how to fix it. Isn't matter just a stable-ish pattern of energy? But what's energy - I imagine it as invisible - somehow dance-y motion? Or an invisible moving front, like a weather isobar? The Greeks' beginning image of particles in air, dust metaphysics. But solid isn't made of solids. Vacuum latency, matter actuality. Add energy and you get 'matter' Energy / excitation / heat Mass - what is mass?   What is space - ether - vacuum - 'consciousness,' 'spirit' The opaque and the transparent, closedness and openness, earth and sky   Topological features - continuity, dimensionality, connectedness, "space is curved" means something topological? Mathematical. Time. I don't think of it as a river, I think of it as change on site. physicist's description Buddhist cosmology daily life meditation experience neuroscience description   Gianfranco's boiling of time movie Qualities of time Space on acid 7 Was going to sit by the waves and write a list of things I hated about Tom. Then just sat and looked at the primal green and blue and silver and white climbing and crashing and tumbling and slipping forward and glittering in retreat. The air, the worshippers assembled. I can still write the list though. I hated his robot knock, always the same shave-and-a-haircut/ six bits loud and dumb - Or should I say despised I hated the way he never learned I didn't like Sobees and would buy me the large size whenever he bought one for him I hated that he'd have his shades down in daylight That he'd sometimes let his place get pig-dirty That he spoiled the fireplace cove with a wire candle contraption The way he'd buy the biggest size of popcorn, coffee, and then half finish them The way he always needed to impress strangers That he was so callous sexually That he lied and didn't know or didn't care what it cost me and us not to be able to trust his word That his writing was more for show than for truth That he was out of date in his books, had old junk That he identifies with the 60s still That he wanted me to be stupider That he'd repeat old saws whenever he could That I don't feel known after 14 years That he hated my letters That he wasn't fond, wasn't a fond person That he flattered by default That he couldn't stand me to be sexually hungry That he sleazes and evades by default, isn't upright Hatred about not wanting to pack the oranges Johnny Cool on and on Not supporting love woman, not feeling or liking her When he used the jeep not fixing what went wrong Many pigheaded prejudices His humped spine and mangy ass He lost the kick out the slats note under his bed The limitedness of what I can be with him   Good moments:   Vulnerable in the bathtub, in the heat, on the floor Cemetery goodnight Christmas butterfly pussy Colored wakes behind cars High old presence in Mexico Breakthrough in the Maryland How I looked in January 1995 Phoning just as I was saying goodbye to 824 Taught me freeway driving "You're so beautiful" maybe twice That he hung on for years His basic kindness to people, feeling for people "You hate me" Short fights Crying when he read my dad's obit and heard the Tischlied tape Knowing I'm courageous and heroic His strong energy matching me   Is Lise basically freaking out because I'm smarter than she is   She has to feel her mediocrity   Am I as deluded as she is   no She wants the status of embodiment studies   Without actually having learned it   no She has learned an aspect   Does she have any idea how tactful I am with her   no Is Deidre going to win this   8 Saturday morning before the fan comes on, door open, fresh warm chill, a little bird yelling with his feet in the food, her feet in the food, excited about something, yelling at the male I think. The Saturday morning feel of no one in the building, open field. Next week: next phase of Sean's garden Deidre publishing application money stuff bike carrier! bike carrier! 8 am Tuesday fix jeep radio At the ocean I was looking at the cosmic tumble and dimly wishing for a video camera so I could see it better. Oh I'm free to go places now. Thinking of Andrew Harvey ecstatic by the sea. - Sheer happiness of buying salvias and seeing them together in a box: blepharophylla - red - part shade discolor Indigo Spires waverley Van Houttei Purple Majesty There's the sun setting north of the apartment block, I haven't seen that this year, it's golden orange behind the eucalyptus in the cul de sac on 3rd. Window wide open. [Opposite: The sky inside a stone, a metaphysics of dust Looking for matter - it recedes into mass and mass recedes into ? - into 'force particles' But what are particles - defined by actions / laws of action within a 'field' - I'm mystified by that chapter (2)   YES It's attractive   Do you agree with it   Is it worth doing the giant body exercises   no It agrees with physics   Does he live it   I do have a sense of the consolidating he may be talking about. It happens with writing, which feels as if it freezes a version arbitrarily. The moment is open, compared to that freezing, yes. So does he just mean conceptual freezing   no Does he mean I could look into this room and window and see it coming into being   no I could see it as something I'm making   The way I saw the grass on the hill   That would be impractical   But interesting   [area and linear foot calculations for turf in Sean's garden] 9 Sunday morning Tom shouting up. It's Mother's Day, is his reason given. "I know Ellie hates Mother's Day but ..." "But I'm the only mother you have." "It isn't that." Sure it is, I don't say. "I don't want to institute the phenomenon of craving." His language. I'm dead cold with him. 10 Shinzen Young Subtle processing - too fleeting to notice content but you can notice it speeding up, slowing down, more and less intense. "Deep levels of processing become energized and undulatory." Thought - see its elements - "experienced more as releases from the deep mind" Equanimity - noninterference with the natural flow of sensation - "radical permission to feel" Compulsive behavior: subliminal pain subject to immense subliminal resistance Similarly pleasure and subliminal grasping Not only the pain, but the whole sense of a suffering self, becomes part of the flow of nature. Impermanence, "all seemingly solid experiences are, in fact, elastic, vibratory, porous and transparent." Body experienced as field of energy. Pain opening back to earlier pain. Subtle memories. Carry focus into the day by how you transition. 1. focusing on pain, 2. focusing on reactions to pain.. Watch out for speed [*?] and focus there. Finding pleasure in breath 1. relaxing in out 2. oxygen in in 3. focus deliberately away from pain. Stick with it for hours if you have to. [Two pages garden design sketch and plant lists, plan for InDesign portfolio for the book design intensive] Sent the application - will they accept me   11 Hitch 51 series receiver $242, Yakima Doubledown 2 and Deadlock $242, ratchet and socket $18. Out at 7 for an appointment with San Diego Trailer far up El Cajon. Breakfast while they attached the hitch, 805 to Clairmont Mesa Boulevard, East to Rack-it, buy a rack and locks, then back up 805 to 163 to the start of El Cajon again, driving slowly looking for the auto stereo place, realizing El Cajon is crossed with Hastings in my head, the one-story car shops, workshops. Handsome Korean owner pokes buttons on my stereo, says come back tomorrow early. Come home on University, stop for gas. That's the summary but what about it. Being out in the town, being at home in the town, moving, on and off a couple of freeways, being a grey-haired woman in a periwinkle sweater and sandals and jeans, something like entitled and effective, money enough to spend $500 without thinking about it. The solid feeling of getting it done after years of thinking I will. A moment passing the University Ave exit when a car dived across my nose into the off ramp and as I was moving left to avoid it - was it that? I'm not sure - suddenly another car shooting forward about to intersect with my driver side flank. As I was slipping just enough to the right I saw through the open passenger side window the driver holding out his arm toward me palm up, a warding gesture. Then ACE hardware to buy a ratchet and sprocket, more birdseed. It was all Tom territory, and the kind of adventure he would be able to like hearing, man's world adventure. Obama's third woman nominated to the Supreme Court in the papers this morning. - Email from T saying he's gathering all my stuff - books, I suppose, mostly - a hard pang as if somewhere I'd hoped he'd refuse to quit. Tried making a list of wonderful moments with him or moments when he was wonderful, don't have many to hand, what I miss most is what I felt for him years back. I've been so shut down with him that I don't remember feeling it, I don't remember who I loved. Will you talk to me   subtle intelligence, action, balance, together Is that an instruction   Do it with him   no Will you tell me why it's over   improvement, by shattering, the structure of delusion and delays We were deluded   no he was So is this for him   no for you Will it be good for him   no Now I can keep going   See him again before I leave for the summer   no When I come back   But we're not ever getting together again   YES How will I love now   by sharing practical ways of coming through illusion/addiction More of what I do now   no Will you explain   balance oppression of love woman's defeat Can love woman come back   We both defeated her   Will you tell me what I can do for her   be a friend to the child's crisis of exclusion 12 Clare de Lune Wednesday morning North Park. Talking to myself about T - we didn't go for broke, far from it. He doesn't have the strength of character and I have eternal ambivalence. Aiee - I'm feeling the pull to try again. What should I tell myself: I don't want to be tethered to another person or to a place or tethered in my time. In the Times science section yesterday a piece saying couples get faith in their connection when they expand together, achieve hard things. Was I mistaken in my hope that we could go for broke together   YES Because of his limitations   YES Also because of mine   YES Without my limitations could we do it   no But if I hadn't been limited could I have pushed him through   no For a while we kept coming through   Could I do it with someone who didn't have his limitations   So it was my limitations with him   The hope was very beautiful   But it was ill-founded from the beginning   If I'd had Joyce could we ?   no Wd she agree that we should stop   If I'd held out wd there have been someone I cd do it with   no He was all I was going to get   YES So was it better to go for it than not   Why?!   strong anger writing energy His strong energy matching me   Yes   YES But was that the most important thing   YES But was he strong enough for me in the end   no Because he doesn't look after himself well   Did we fail because I held back   no Because he did   no Did I hold back for good reasons   Did I have to hold back to preserve myself   YES Did he   If he were strong ethically as he was in energy it would have been perfect   YES His core limitation is his choice of evasion / the low road   YES Which is a lack of faith in the justice of life   And in oneself   Do I have a core limitation as important   YES Do I know what it is   Contempt   Which is a form of blindness   YES Did I have it when I was young   no Did it come at a particular time   In Vancouver   With Jam   It's a hardness   Tom's evasion called up my contempt   Did I have to go there with Jam   no, chose it Was it her contempt   Was there somewhere I could have gone instead   crisis, of practical, withdrawal, of womanhood I had to shut down womanhood because she was contemptuous of it   Will you explain   contempt improvement, shared balance, in losses Wanting to recoup something in a loss?   Is it better to take the loss square   It's an emotional move   A firming   The pure loss is felt as the other's loss   no The pure loss is the pain of their failing to sustain the connection   When I was little did I feel contempt for my mother   Is contempt just anger   no You weren't worth having   You weren't worth wanting   It's self contempt in the end   That's what's worst about it   Is the other worthy just because I want them   no There's true recognition of unworthiness without anger   I would have seen that about Tom   I did see it but I didn't feel it   Jam was worthy   YES So the contempt was false   Losing her to them was too much for me   YES It was because of my leg   YES It was hugely traumatic   YES Is this important   Do you want to say anything about this   partial loss, withdrawal, betrayal, anger Partial loss from withdrawal of betrayal anger   I didn't fully feel the anger   And held it as contempt   Contempt is a way of holding anger   YES It's chosen   So I should let it go   By feeling it   YES Do you want to say more   no [Opposite: Murchie 1967 The music of the spheres Dover Atoms vibrate with almost perfect regularity - time standard? Space standard wavelength of a spectral line of Many of Nebraska's present atoms indeed had not then even arrived from the sun X Atoms aren't entities with identities. Each establishment of space or time is literally a separate function - an aspect that cannot be assumed to be part of the same system as any other space or time establishment. Velocity of light is the highest relative velocity of the transmission of influence. The constant c is a relative constant defined in miles and seconds that themselves vary with relative motion. ratio of the electromagnetic to the electrostatic unit of electricity mass and energy two aspects of one quantity relative speed at which the transformations of motion reach their natural limit - contraction of space and slowing of time = 0 mass = infinity Increase of mass with motion - fastest electrons 'most massive' because energy from motion is added. What is invariant across observers is interval. the sole objective physical relation between events the prime ingredient of world texture 4-dimensional world-point as the theoretical cornerstone 4-d electromagnetic tensor Entropy - tendency of large numbers of molecules or atoms to shuffle themselves into disarray Atoms themselves timeless in the sense of perpetual motion. There is no evidence that atomic states really are events ... exactly repeats itself. Time a relation between things and themselves Space between things and other things Is gravity another name for acceleration Proportional to masses Sensation of weight is earth's resistance to natural falling Mass / density / inertia universe where all bodies are of importance for law of inertia Inertia is the universal aspect of gravity, gravity is the local aspect of inertia. Earth could float in complete relaxation on her natural track. Energy it and matter are basically the same thing.] 14 Weeding Scott's gravel garden this afternoon feeling what perfect happiness is like. - There was a monarch at roof level, the palo verde was thick with flowers, a pile of blue-flowered salvia cacalifolia at its feet. The rabbitbush full on its other side, California poppies seeded out, silvered straw. Scrub oak prospering, toyon bright and big, Dark Star already twice the size, lysiloma embracing the fountain blooming delicate white puffs, sambucus nigra backing the athanasia outrageously decked in bright yellow, penstemons here and there on the sun side in gemstone red, wine, blue. Artemisia sending out silver arms by the silver of the athanasia, Baja snapdragon spread wide but not blooming yet. Down the far end little wildflowers I don't know - startling big cherry and white bowls. Bulbine blooming now only at its long tips. That short blue penstemon. St Catherine's buckwheat starting up in that thick end where I cut back that flopping what was it - shrubby ice plant. White sage reaching behind the fountain. Duddleya twice as wide, agave holding. A few California poppies still, a couple of lupin clumps. Salvias that aren't blooming yet. Mario likes me too. As they were packing up after laying the sod he said they were working at Balboa Avenue this morning and Art said would they come work with me. He showed how he pulled back his fist, yes. He likes my gardens is what it is. He knows I know what a good worker he is. He focuses totally. His simple brother is his left hand. There's something raw in his face, he's a bit gap-toothed and his eyes are shy, or hurt. I know he's a rare spirit someway, an artist I guess, someone who cares. He knows I can see him I think. He likes that an inch this way or that way matters to me.   part 5 in america volume 20: 2009 june - october work & days: a lifetime journal project