The Flood (III)

When a trickle begins to flow, we'll be ready. At least we'll be ready, you and I. I can tell in advance, because we are already friends, because we are already alright with one another, even in spite of the fact that I will say something and you will frown or vice versa. That is, those persistent preferences won't get in the way because we are committed to liking one another and this is what love is, I think. And we can prove this: if you disagree, nothing much changes because you and I are committed to liking irrespective of our passing whims. And this is why I'll pull you into the boat and help you roll up your pants and we can start our long conversations together and gather rain with one another.

Sweetness and You

The taste of things are good, especially when we're sweet.  And this means that we need to slip into sweetness whenever there is little prompting, from the world or from ourselves.  Should I say that we ought not be bitter at every other time, when our littlenesses take over and our preferences are frustrated?  What good would that do?  Better to have the bittersweet, I think.  After all, it only takes a little bit to enjoy our suffering when we can see clearly that it's transitive.

And when it's not transitive?  When it looks to be permanent, what then?  What do we, you and I, do when bitter remorse seems so pressing, so still and stable?  What can we do but wait, and listen, and taste with those parts best suited for tasting bitterness?

Maybe I can say that being sweet, not just to, but with one another is the most satisfying taste of all.  We can so easily fall into carping, about this or that or something that was said or some minor inadequacy.  But better to be sweet.  Or, just complain in sweetness and I'll listen close and we'll share that bittersweet moment, and I'll not tell you in shoulds, but smile at that sweetness.

References

So many references that we don't need (they sparkle our conversation but shine brighter than most truth, I think)_  And, for that matter, we ought to weigh things aside or not at all, so that our earnestness can come through and we are whole and happy.

Friends

Here's how we can be friends: You believe that I like you and I believe that you like me, and we'll ge along fine, sometimes well.  If we do this with everyone, everyone will be our friends, even those we hate or have pretended to hate.  This works well because even in the case where persons dislike us (in reality) that dislike can only be in - them and cannot be attached to us (nor will we naturally be inclined to think it so).

More plans

Sometimes, ok most times, I want to tell you to do something.  I'll say, "We should do this together" or, "You should really do this" but I'm afraid that these are not helpful forms of communication.  The problem is this: I say "do ___" and you think there's some thing that is wrong in the world, and that you're responsible, and that you need to fix it.  There are, of course, times when these sorts of suggestion are meaningless, like when I say "Oh, we should really go for a ten hour walk" and neither one of us thinks its a real suggestion.  You might follow it up with "No, we need to go for a ten hour run, and then begin writing a novel" and we plan and plan nothing for some time.  But meanwhile, it's you and me that form a friendship.  This is alright, we shouldn't try to fix it anyway.

Listening

Suppose everything is fine.  

What do we do next? Do we wait and listen for what's coming?  Or do we go ahead, only occasionally stopping to listen to the wind and rushing water and silence?  

Open Spaces

This is when our open spaces pay dividends, as it were, to our present selves: when only the meanest meanings are left present in our brains (minds) and we aren't caught and thrown into different directions by narrow and cluttered associations. This is what clarity is, (at least for human conversations), and when happiness is easy to our brains (minds) and we are relaxed.

Making Room

Clear some room, and we'll have a conversation about things. We need to make a little space, so the clutter of several years does not obfuscate our most precious interests and we can be alone, or almost alone, with one another. And you and I need to leave behind that clutter for other reasons too; it's not just so we can say the things we need to say now.

We all should try to make that space between our now present selves, and those past persons that we say are us, because sometimes they're not us, but nevertheless take up space that should be ours now, and in the present, as if they were us. Often, they make sure that our rooms are filled. But their decorations are not really the ones we want, desert landscapes would be better, I think. At least with empty sands (and a few cacti) we have room to breath the kind of life we want into rooms that are otherwise stale and cluttered.

The Flood (II)

Sometimes I sit in the bath and pretend the flood has already happened.  I read, and imagine reading in the midst of water: water that won't go away, even if I turn the plug.  I imagine no drain, and the peace of surrounding water.

I suppose that you and I would argue about which books would be best to read while surrounded by water.  If it's water we can drink, then we might as well make the best of wet times and drink in all we can, while we sip on books that are meant to be savoured.  If not, then we may want trash: anything quick to take our minds off of the effects of thirst (multiplied, of course, by all of the water around us.)  At least we won't feel bad when we start to dine on the pages, or dry out our clothes over their fire.  (I bet that the heat from fantasy feels nice on your face.)

But it's not the reading that I savour, so much as the island of water that separates our lives from the fiction that will come to make our lives.  This much is true: the fiction we will read will build our lives, moreso than it does now.  Because, when you are surrounded by water, or floating (or sinking), those words really make you, and you become them, and then the slow deciding waltz of your mind (and life) is tilted and sped to excitement; you get pushed quickly in new directions (a handy thing if you're looking for higher ground.)

Detracting Distracting

I have things that I think about as I'm sure you have your things.  And we both need to tell someone (sometimes a journal, but this wouldn't be it).  And we both think that we need to think and then tell about what we thought.  And sometimes others listen and agree, or they don't listen, or they kinda listen, or a variety of other things.  And they tend to think thoughts about your and my thoughts and then they sometimes tell you or me or some variation on all of this.  And what it amounts to is almost always as good as it gets between persons with thoughts about things, at least when someone listens a little bit.

Would you keep reading if I told you opinions?  Then, you could say "Oh yes, I've had that thought," and "OK, but I have a right to disagree."  And then you might have thoughts about the things I tend to think about and try to tell.  But I haven't any opinions to have thoughts about anyway, I think. 

[("As if that were possible.")  <-  that's the kind of thought you could have.]  

Suppose now that we both listen, in spite of our having very little to say about our snail thoughts (little and slow, at least most of them.)  We could imagine having a conversation, it could even be about this very topic (boring, but distracting.)  And so long as we didn't disagree too much, we could say "Yes, but..." on and on, well into the later evening, when our snails can be found with a suitable flashlight.

Finding Time

I've finally found time to think about you, just you and no one else.  I wanted to make time, but all I could make was space, and then the obvious occured, and now everything is OK, just OK.  So I waited to say something sweet, but it was all wrong again, so I waited until time cleared up, and now it's still wrong, but nothing can be done and the space is there: so why not fill it?

When I think of you, I'm really think of me - let's face it.  I think, "Oh I could say that!" and she or he would reply "Hmmm."  but I'm not thinking of you, not really.  Everything centers around me; I am the sun of my own thoughts.  This would be just as well if you didn't matter, but YOU DO; you do matter, just not in the way that let's me think of you without thinking mostly of me and forgetting you instead of forgetting myself.  There's a song we know that goes something like "just a perfect day, you made me forget myself - I thought I was someone else, someone good."  and then it hits the chorus and so on, but that doesn't matter. 

What matters is the you part, the part that consumes my little sun, if only for a minute.  But you don't keep me hanging on, do you?   

Measuring Time in Sleeps

One student I marked this year seemed to have the following way of thinking about the future.  He measured his time in sleeps, which is to say that one week is seven sleeps.  Thus, when he thinks that Christmas is a long time away, he says that it is more than fourteen sleeps.  Consider thinking about time in this way.  You and I might think that it seems silly, almost infantile.  But really, it's quite sensible.  The student, here, has picked out the most salient of a very expansive set of facts about future thinking and planning and what needs to be done in the world.

Do we agree that sleep is probably the most necessary activity, or only necessary activity, that all persons will share in the future?  Of course, some will go without sleep, but on average, this would hold over most other activities, (including eating).

How To Be the Best (I)

Alden: I want to be the best at something.

Mike: What do you have in mind?

A: I'd like to be a proffessional athelete.

M: Like that's going to happen (sarcastic).

Laughter and general agreement. 

Nolan: You would at least have to already be playing a proffessional sport.

M: Ok, well lets think of things that you could be the best at.

N: I've got something.  You could be the best at fighting cats.

A: Like cougars or something.  I think I could fight tigers.

Laughter.

N: Nope, tigers would destroy you.  I mean that you could be the best at fighting domestic cats.  You could be the best in the world at fighting one hundred domesticated cats.

A: I'm not sure that I would want that.

N: Well, at least you're a contender for the longest running narrative in human history; you could apply for that right now.

E: Well, how could you get the cats to attack in the first place?

N: Part of the criteria for being the best cat fighter is being able to provoke them: you would have to punch them.

M: I guess we could just cover you in tuna.

Joanne: And starving the cats would help.

N: Yeah.  And I guess you could set the rules such that you must either destroy or subdue the cats.  You would be the best in the world a destroying or subduing one hundred cats.

E: We could also put you in a confined space to help.

A: I will be the cat champion.

Meaning

What if meaning makes us?  What if the words, when contextualized (just to make certain they mean), revise our thinking through their meaning such that our past directions of thoughts are lost, and with them part of our identity goes too?  Shall we worry about this too?  (As if the word-flood could sink more than water would.)  We can't be too alarmed, and shouldn't be so, for the meanings are not linked so close as to make meanings stick in spite of everything else.  I guess this means that we can remake meaning, or that meaning only gets remade.  

It's nice to think that meaning gets deferred; it lets us make space for ourselves in spite of what meanings surround us.  It would be nice to think that deferrance works before meaning gets made and remade.  But clealy this is not true.  Meaning reaches us with some shape (words reach us with shape too).

More Commas

How many more commas do we need to make the reading of our stories clear?  A new book shuns the comma, because the author thinks that they stall the prose and he would rather get to the point (get to the meaning) quicker.  But he can't hurry the point, and neither can he hurry the meaning.  Sometimes meaning comes from waiting; the meaning is in the waiting, sometimes.  So, I think we need more commas, not less.  We need them to pause us, and force us to wait for what's important. 

Of course, it might not be worth it.  The waiting might retroactively annoy us when we find that the meaning is boring, and that the points are not moving, and that we have wasted those moments that may have spared time for more interesting thinking, or converse.  

Stories and more

Imagine that we wrote our story together and began today. I know that the beginning of the story would have to be important, very important, with lots of words that evoke a sense of awe. ("Awe," and "evoke" would be good for this.) Some of the sentences would have to force the reader into thinking deeper thoughts than she is, most often, used to thinking, and reflect on many things he's forgotten. And he, or she, matters to the beginning. Too much maybe for us to tiptoe by. We would have to work hard to make certain that there was no escape, for we can't write without our reader to narrate our busy words, and fussy sentences.

I can make it precise with "now." I say "now" and follow with a comma (for dramatic effect) and then finish the sentence with words like "awe" and "evoke" and other well chosen punctuation, so it seems that we have thought it through, and that you and I have figured exactly what needs to be said to force thinking. And then you and I could say "listen," well into the night, until we had figured exactly.

The Flood (I)

Sometimes I worry about the flood. I think "What would I do if the flood happened while I'm here?" And then, I think of all the ways to head to higher ground, and all those things and people I would have to leave behind out of necessity. And then, I think about higher ground, and the time spent waiting for the water to go down. And I hope the levels would drop.

"What would you do if the flood happened here? You would have to leave something behind, you know? What would you try to save? Who would you save it with?"

I suppose the worry isn't persistant; it's not that sort. And even if it were, what difference would its constant occurance mean to my mind, or yours for that matter? Would we sit together, with our pants rolled up, shivering, with wrinkled fingers? Would we lick the salt from our fingers, and jeans, and drink rain water for the first week? If we worry now, I think we can make it pleasant.

You Can See the Beat, While You're There

Here's the debate: 

The Littlest Hobo vs. Lassie

Nolan: Go.

Eve: Lassie would totally win.

Pat: No, it's not true, because the Littlest Hobo has lots of bum friends.

E: Lassie has lots of friends that he's rescued.

P: No, he's got Timmy, there's no one else, there's just Timmy.

N: First off, Lassie's a girl.

P: Are you saying that she's a bitch, and she's going to kick some ass.

E: I would totally agree with that.

N: No.  I think the Hobo's would murder Lassie, and then eat her.

E: I think its the other way around.

P: He would kill the bums.

E: She.  She would kill the bums.  We don't see her offscreen, we only see her running across the fields.  Do you know who she's running after? (Implication: the hobos.)

N: But the thing about lassie is everybody knows who lassie is so she can't creep up on anyone... The littles hobo, every episode, comes out of nowhere.  "Aw.. hey there boy."  And then he'd solve a crime, or get them out of drugs, or teach them how to swim.

P: He changed so many people's lives, but he always had to go.

N: And there was no need for Timmy.  There was no Timmy. 

E: Yeah, he was down the well.

N: But there's no ongoing character in the show excepting the dog.  And probably not the same dog in any two contiguous episodes.  (This is the best thing about the Littlest Hobo.)

E: You mean Lassie or the Littlest Hobo?

N:  The Littlest Hobo.  See, Lassie had Timmy and a whole family.

E: Wait, the Littlest Hobo has his own dog?

P: The Littlest Hobo is the dog!

E: Oh (despondent.)

Laughter ensues.

N: You thought we were talking about a midget hobo.

E: No I didn't.

N: You pictured Lassie fighting a midget hobo "put up your dukes style."

P: And you saw Lassie winning.  And maybe she would, but not against the Littlest Hobo.

...

E: That completely changes my view: it's not a little kid or a little hobo, its dog against dog.

P: Yeah, its dog against dog.  But let's not forget, he's a hobo right, he's been in his share of fights.  What's Lassie ever fought, a bear or something.

N: It's true.  How many times has Lassie had to defend her wine?  How many times has she had to defend that wine with a broken bottle and a toothpick?

E: And the Littlest Hobo does that?

Pat and Nolan: He's a friggin hobo!

E: But he's a dog.

N: Yeah, but he still has to battle over his newspaper and his bottle of wine and his his hat and his overcoat.

E: You have to explain why a dog would like that stuff; I haven't seen the show I don't know what you're talking about, you're talking shit.