(no subject)
I'm at the end of two weeks in the Green Kingdom. Times moves so smoothly here, like water over stone. Outside the wind is high in the trees, the air is dry and clear, the sun sits in its blue blanket overall, but it is humming gently to itself, gathering its resources so it can blast us later in the year. We get cold and call for it and then it comes too heavily, too ardently. The day is bright but bleached with bare trees amongst the green, a dry brown grey day. Those that have leaves are dancing them in the wind, like huge formal skirts swaying this way and that, a little coyly, excited at the band striking up. Ribbon of river just dipping over the edge of sight. And the twigs we planted in their metal barricades, waiting for their time. Beyond, out of sight just now, those bastard horses that have me wild with rage and throwing oranges as ammunition. As well I don’t have a gun.
Mad goings on out there, like bush fires that will not stop while there is fuel put in their way.
Anyway. Writing exercise, ten mins, 'I remember'...whose voice? S's to her father?
I remember the way you looked at me when I came into the room without announcing myself, the way your eyes swivelled unwillingly in your stiff head, and they way you threw their cold beams across the room at me, standing there on the threshold, as always on the threshold, waiting to know your verdict, though I knew already. It was as it always was, that I should make myself small and come in under your sufferance with gratitude for the space allotted. I remember that way your shoulders rose up against my entrance, as if girding themselves for some onslaught, though it was rarely mine. I remember the cold rise up in me like a stiff tide as I walked those measureless acres of carpet towards you and I remember hwo I would stand just beyond your sight, waiting, for your head to turn and take me in, welcome me. I've waited a long time to feel welcomed, and the feeling is more familiar to me now than any other in relation to you.
I remember once approaching you and waiting and you turned your head and smiled and it was terrifying. You couldn’t have known the effect of that smile, but the ground was no longer under my feet, the sun no longer coming in low through the afternoon window, the world no longer predictably turning on its tired old axis. I was thrown into the air of confusion, landing in many unrelated pieces and fearful of what might come next. I remember the way you turned back to your paper, your book, and it was as if nothing had happened. It was as if I had not come into the room, as if I was not there at all. You did not speak and I remember wondering if you even knew I was there,or if you had turned, wrapped in something you were reading, and smiled at that, smiled at the echo of the small black typeface on your retina, smiled at that, not seeing me,and turned away. I remember, I contemplated creeping out as if I had never come, and in the end just standing there fully clothed but naked. It seemed the only thing to do. Your hand came out, I remember, and grabbed my wrist tightly as I turned to go. You asked had you given me permission to leave, or something like that and in a corner of my mind I wondered why you would ask such a thing of me, and whether you were truly mad that you pretended not to know. But I did not say this. I remember I bowed my head in some stupid simulacrum of a meek person and waited for you to speak again. It was our way, as smooth in its runnels of custom, as predictable and familiar as anything in my life. I stood there, my wrist viced in your hand, and waited.
I am not free of that now, some thirty years later. Last night I dreamed there was a man in a suit, a man who had made it, whatever 'it' is, made something of himself in the world, and he said to me “I have wrapped some questions I want you to answer about yourself” He put his arms around me, he claimed me, we walked slowly down the corridor. I remember my shoe hovering, looking down at the round black tip of it as it came up and went down so slowly, and smiling, taking in the marvel of what had just happened and a recognition of something I couldn't name. I saw some of his questions. One was hard and I oculd not understand it. Another asked me to write him a poem. I baulked at that but I knew I wanted it, knew I would take it between my teeth and wrestle with it. Another asked me what my favourite colour was. They were good questions, I remember, and I wanted to answer them, wanted his strong attention on me. I woke then, and felt tipped out of some world I wanted to be in where I had a place and was claimed and my internal self was to be laid out and desired. I lay there trying to find a foothold back into the charmed circle of that dream, wanted to feel that strong curiosity on me again, remembering the close feel of it.
Mad goings on out there, like bush fires that will not stop while there is fuel put in their way.
Anyway. Writing exercise, ten mins, 'I remember'...whose voice? S's to her father?
I remember the way you looked at me when I came into the room without announcing myself, the way your eyes swivelled unwillingly in your stiff head, and they way you threw their cold beams across the room at me, standing there on the threshold, as always on the threshold, waiting to know your verdict, though I knew already. It was as it always was, that I should make myself small and come in under your sufferance with gratitude for the space allotted. I remember that way your shoulders rose up against my entrance, as if girding themselves for some onslaught, though it was rarely mine. I remember the cold rise up in me like a stiff tide as I walked those measureless acres of carpet towards you and I remember hwo I would stand just beyond your sight, waiting, for your head to turn and take me in, welcome me. I've waited a long time to feel welcomed, and the feeling is more familiar to me now than any other in relation to you.
I remember once approaching you and waiting and you turned your head and smiled and it was terrifying. You couldn’t have known the effect of that smile, but the ground was no longer under my feet, the sun no longer coming in low through the afternoon window, the world no longer predictably turning on its tired old axis. I was thrown into the air of confusion, landing in many unrelated pieces and fearful of what might come next. I remember the way you turned back to your paper, your book, and it was as if nothing had happened. It was as if I had not come into the room, as if I was not there at all. You did not speak and I remember wondering if you even knew I was there,or if you had turned, wrapped in something you were reading, and smiled at that, smiled at the echo of the small black typeface on your retina, smiled at that, not seeing me,and turned away. I remember, I contemplated creeping out as if I had never come, and in the end just standing there fully clothed but naked. It seemed the only thing to do. Your hand came out, I remember, and grabbed my wrist tightly as I turned to go. You asked had you given me permission to leave, or something like that and in a corner of my mind I wondered why you would ask such a thing of me, and whether you were truly mad that you pretended not to know. But I did not say this. I remember I bowed my head in some stupid simulacrum of a meek person and waited for you to speak again. It was our way, as smooth in its runnels of custom, as predictable and familiar as anything in my life. I stood there, my wrist viced in your hand, and waited.
I am not free of that now, some thirty years later. Last night I dreamed there was a man in a suit, a man who had made it, whatever 'it' is, made something of himself in the world, and he said to me “I have wrapped some questions I want you to answer about yourself” He put his arms around me, he claimed me, we walked slowly down the corridor. I remember my shoe hovering, looking down at the round black tip of it as it came up and went down so slowly, and smiling, taking in the marvel of what had just happened and a recognition of something I couldn't name. I saw some of his questions. One was hard and I oculd not understand it. Another asked me to write him a poem. I baulked at that but I knew I wanted it, knew I would take it between my teeth and wrestle with it. Another asked me what my favourite colour was. They were good questions, I remember, and I wanted to answer them, wanted his strong attention on me. I woke then, and felt tipped out of some world I wanted to be in where I had a place and was claimed and my internal self was to be laid out and desired. I lay there trying to find a foothold back into the charmed circle of that dream, wanted to feel that strong curiosity on me again, remembering the close feel of it.