(sometimes, I need to write about the things I want to write. Mostly it's a process for me to organize my thoughts and ideas before I sit down to do it... this post will be just this)
Bye Bye LA
Somebody's somebody is leaving in a few days. Back to a home that was thrust upon them rather than chosen (as most of ours are). He said to me: it's ok, she'll only be gone about two months... then she's coming back. The word back seemed heavy. I've made that promise too many times. To: _ _ _ _ _, China, Eman, my grandparents, and Martha, just in the last 6 months alone.
Walking a few hours ago, thinking of people graduating, of people leaving, coming...
on: going.leaving.left___(and being left)
It occurred to me to write a standard. One of those standard plotted things. Person, lost, arrives in place, lives in transition, finds him.herself, promises to return, knowing (sadly, too sadly) they will not. Then, being gone.
____I am counting my own days. Trying to decide if I am leaving, or if I am being left. I've done this for years, 9 month research-project. 30 month medium-term B. 'until you get back on your feet'.
My story is about moments spent in cars. __Slow walks to soothe agitations. __Fixing lives. __Palm trees. __Dreams of blindness. __Untold future creeping upon us, plane-ticket in hand.__ on: going.leaving.left___(and being left) ____on: the land between solar systems____(on being scared)
I won't write it till I'm leaving. Which is soon enough anyway. I can't really understand the tide in the ether that brought me here... all that's happened here... and the why of it, I don't know how to fill a story with a sense of moving-on-ness, when my character still isn't sure about hereness. Which is the point. Which is why people say back at the end of 'i'll be right'. Which is why my entire life I seem to scramble forward, one hand forward fumbling for light switches, the other held out behind me, hoping someone who I was just with will find my fingertips in the dark and hold me close and save me the blind-man's-quest.
Where the fu&* am I?
(if anyone knows... seriously, I can't work it out)
I can't understand if my character will leave victor or not. I can't understand how to measure those quantities anymore. My story has to be the destruction of a person. A complete absolution of self. An abandonment of direction. Perhaps I should turn my person into a leaf at the end.
A story about sitting by the pool besides beautiful women I never once spoke to. A story about too many nights sitting at the kitchen table at 4am writing run Orestes run! into my notebook (and already, there they are, can you hear them? The Erinyes- the Furies... Sartre thought they would sound like hordes of flies. To me, they sound like incessant: water running, people speaking, phones ringing, television, wheelchairs creeping laboriously across carpeted rooms, the banging of doors, the dropping of things, rummaging through handbags looking for pens, my name repeated all day long, keys jingling, tea kettles steaming, the workmen drilling, distant motorcycles.
Perhaps I ought to write the whole thing as a rendition of the myth. I've been meaning to write a version of the Orestia for years now. (I suppose that story depends on the end... to what do we leave to?) (and of course, no one ever knows) (even if they think that they do)
My end draws close.
*__*__*
I suddenly stop and think to myself: what is life that I should find myself walking at 1:11am on a friday morning down Santa Monica Blvd eating string cheese and listening to Russian rock music.
Where the fu&* am I?
(if anyone knows... seriously, I can't work it out)
I cannot win at this.
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