I feel this terrible weight over me. Stepping from the bath I almost fall, keeping myself steady only by two hands and the hope that later, I might write something beautiful for you. It is not accomplished. I read a book instead, listen to Brahms and try to find the algorithm within the piano concerto. It’s useless. Though numbers fall in love with me daily, and I with them. Perhaps there are a buckets of systems missing me.
And in come the knots again. Sly as they are, but kind -- hopeful as snails but turning up their noses at the idea that I might transcribe them. And so I go on reading. One more hour of chamomile tea and perhaps your belly will give me a poem. Remember how to sail the skin. Forget it. Go down for more chamomile tea. Learn how the cranium is a continuing system that learns on contact, not a fixed program. Insert a number for the feeling: one hundred and seventy eight.. Though the knots, which sit by my bed, wiggle their circular bodies at this. “Oh, no?” I ask. They silence themselves like tulips. Looking quite innocent, though I know otherwise.
I feel this terrible weight. Having read a whole novel, I nod off and slip into the evening of a dream where we are lying on our backs, counting the breaths between us. And I want all of mine to match yours. You laugh because that’s very naïve of me—don’t I know the best of compliments are two forces running headlong into each other? No, I said, and took note of the weight of your body—the displacement between us. You laugh and explain that the word algebra means “reunion.” Your hand passes over my body like a crop-plane and I awake, imagining myself in rows.
The knots cannot take the thought of rows, hobbling around like unlined messiahs. They spit at the thought where I curl round the image of your body and sway.
The chamomile tea has gone cold. I’ve read a novel, dreamed of you, and not accomplished any writing. The weight over me persists. The knots nod in unison, vibrate against one another, refuse to reveal their coordinates. I reheat the kettle, waiting for the weight to lift, for some snail to crawl out of the kitchen window and onto my arm, for my brain to contain itself, for the knots to uncurl their bodies, for something to let loose it’s numbers for my inspection.
Nine thousand, four hundred and eight six, I repeat, as I climb the stairs to bed: nine thousand, four hundred and eighty six. Perhaps I'll write something beautiful for you tomorrow. Right now, there's a jewel in my head: nine thousand, four hundred and eighty six--space between closest bodies, angles lying next to one another, unhinged, pressed into a long surprise.
15 December 2008
Letter Series, No. 6
It's been a while since I've thought to write. Some part of me feels cut off from receiving signs from you. Either I have not been paying attention or there is something in me that is closed off. My mind seems to drift, rummaging around in some mud-hole somewhere, trying to see what bubbles to the surface. I once thought I had a clear vision of this, but now I just stare out of windows and float, an anxiety balloon, waiting for its branch.
I miss conversing with you. How, when I'd be walking from the library, you'd present yourself in the widening sky. I once wrote that I imagined you reaching for a line, tugging for a boat to be anchored. The image of your sleeve dangling in the water--the silliest things which hold us here, remind us that we still occupy a space. And the line, perhaps I felt it. I cannot say. Or that I do feel it.
To occupy a space. And yours, how one walked by you, watched you enter a room, electricity around you like another god. But subtle, not for worship. Just aware of being alive.
How to tell one body from the next? Passions grow, regardless of topography.
I can't speak of him. You know this. And maybe that's why I've been left with silence. But I can't, I've tried. Something in me springs a trap. Because even now I'm betraying. How moments get fossilized, hardened in their dimensions. Though I can relive them, walk through the dendrite-web and into the occupied space, they refuse to be transcribed. I fear one word-splinter would untangle every association he and I ever had. As though languages have been lost, whole systems unwritten in order to preserve the offering. One moment can grow in the mind, a falling snow.
None of this matters. Your passion is residue, now. Every fear and joy evaporated when your mind unthread, as will mine. And two shared passions are never the same, but shared solitude, which finds, for a moment, another solitude with whom to dance.
You sit, patiently. I should be more like you.
I miss conversing with you. How, when I'd be walking from the library, you'd present yourself in the widening sky. I once wrote that I imagined you reaching for a line, tugging for a boat to be anchored. The image of your sleeve dangling in the water--the silliest things which hold us here, remind us that we still occupy a space. And the line, perhaps I felt it. I cannot say. Or that I do feel it.
To occupy a space. And yours, how one walked by you, watched you enter a room, electricity around you like another god. But subtle, not for worship. Just aware of being alive.
How to tell one body from the next? Passions grow, regardless of topography.
I can't speak of him. You know this. And maybe that's why I've been left with silence. But I can't, I've tried. Something in me springs a trap. Because even now I'm betraying. How moments get fossilized, hardened in their dimensions. Though I can relive them, walk through the dendrite-web and into the occupied space, they refuse to be transcribed. I fear one word-splinter would untangle every association he and I ever had. As though languages have been lost, whole systems unwritten in order to preserve the offering. One moment can grow in the mind, a falling snow.
None of this matters. Your passion is residue, now. Every fear and joy evaporated when your mind unthread, as will mine. And two shared passions are never the same, but shared solitude, which finds, for a moment, another solitude with whom to dance.
You sit, patiently. I should be more like you.
02 December 2008
What of 3 and 7? Ostrich Eggs and Number Patterns
So, I’m reading this wonderful book called Mind and Nature by Gregory Bateson (smart, smart man) and I came across a particularly beautiful statement (though I find his writing quite beautiful at times overall) that said: “The reader may find pleasure in collecting cases of rigidly controlled or patterned numbers in nature.” And I had to stop for a moment and smile, because I began to see this cute image unfold of Bateson, out in a field somewhere, bending low to study the lines on blades of grass. And the image of this anthropologist/psychologist/philosopher/son of a geneticist taking the time to closely observe the numerical patterns in nature just sent me over the edge of some pleasure hill, rolling down, giggling till my sides split open. How I wish I could be there with him, asking him questions about the exact difference between number and quantity, how the matrix variations alter the tautology of a system, and so on. Alas, I am confined to his words, his “metacommunication," via the symbols of the ink on the page. “The naming of a thing does not describe the thing” and “nothing will come of nothing.” Nothing, nothing, nothing. Nothing without context.
He goes on to explain that “For some reason, the larger numbers seem to be confined to linear series of segments, such as the vertebrae of mammals, the abdominal segments of insects, and the anterior segmentation of earthworms…[and an organism] will repeat that number in other parts. A lily has three sepals and then three petals and then six stamens and a trilocular ovary”
And I go off on this wandering imagining that perhaps Mr. Bateson gathered numbers in his head like finely painted ostrich eggs. As though his living room was full of imported and gorgeously detailed ostrich eggs. Where this comes from, I have no idea. But then I begin to focus on the eggs, their design, their pattern (keep in mind these are simply figments of my imagination) and I begin to see a correlation between Mr. Bateson’s imagined eggs and the lines on the leaves of grass. And then I see this as a prime example of metacommunication that he discussed in a previous chapter. Messages within text, within ideas themselves, presenting their information differently, tailored to each individual. Why, particularly, ostrich eggs became the venue through which I begin to see his personal ideas unfold, I have no clue. What neuron station held these masterpieces within their shop windows, I haven’t the slightest idea, but I am beginning to see just how complex, yet simple, not only my mind is but nature and the act of communications.
And so back to the patterns and that little field. Nothing without context. A map is not a territory. My ostrich eggs are not the content of his messages but inside their finely painted shells is the “pearl” of his message…
And then my mind sparks up again and I imagine rattling pearls within those gorgeous, delicate eggs.
I think to myself “what pearls of knowledge threaten to break my perceptions, and if so, when, and if not when, then how, and if not how, then why not?” And the answer?
Simply open doors. Simply observe. Simply take the time to bend down and see what others trample and ignore.
Because within the universal “truths” of science—the solidity of 7 and 3 is 10 and always will be, there is the imagination that dares to say: but what of 3 and 7? Gorgeous.
******** 7 AM--post posting:
Something bothered me as I woke up this morning. The whole "pearl inside the egg" image. Cliche?
What's the difference between staying true to the real image and altering it to avoid "cliche"? What's one to do to avoid, to actually TRAIN your brain, rewire, re-learn...to undo cliche...so that when you think, your don't think in cliche?
So let's say it wasn't a "pearl" in the egg...let's say I, instead, imagined an atom uranium. Because, as it splits, it gives off nuetrons that could smash together and cause fission, and perhaps this is a better analogy for the "explosiveness" of learning new ideas. This is a much more intense "breaking" of the "egg."
But it's less cliche, right?
Fuck it. I saw a pearl, not uranium atoms....
But perhaps I can retrain my brain to avoid cliche analogies.
He goes on to explain that “For some reason, the larger numbers seem to be confined to linear series of segments, such as the vertebrae of mammals, the abdominal segments of insects, and the anterior segmentation of earthworms…[and an organism] will repeat that number in other parts. A lily has three sepals and then three petals and then six stamens and a trilocular ovary”
And I go off on this wandering imagining that perhaps Mr. Bateson gathered numbers in his head like finely painted ostrich eggs. As though his living room was full of imported and gorgeously detailed ostrich eggs. Where this comes from, I have no idea. But then I begin to focus on the eggs, their design, their pattern (keep in mind these are simply figments of my imagination) and I begin to see a correlation between Mr. Bateson’s imagined eggs and the lines on the leaves of grass. And then I see this as a prime example of metacommunication that he discussed in a previous chapter. Messages within text, within ideas themselves, presenting their information differently, tailored to each individual. Why, particularly, ostrich eggs became the venue through which I begin to see his personal ideas unfold, I have no clue. What neuron station held these masterpieces within their shop windows, I haven’t the slightest idea, but I am beginning to see just how complex, yet simple, not only my mind is but nature and the act of communications.
And so back to the patterns and that little field. Nothing without context. A map is not a territory. My ostrich eggs are not the content of his messages but inside their finely painted shells is the “pearl” of his message…
And then my mind sparks up again and I imagine rattling pearls within those gorgeous, delicate eggs.
I think to myself “what pearls of knowledge threaten to break my perceptions, and if so, when, and if not when, then how, and if not how, then why not?” And the answer?
Simply open doors. Simply observe. Simply take the time to bend down and see what others trample and ignore.
Because within the universal “truths” of science—the solidity of 7 and 3 is 10 and always will be, there is the imagination that dares to say: but what of 3 and 7? Gorgeous.
******** 7 AM--post posting:
Something bothered me as I woke up this morning. The whole "pearl inside the egg" image. Cliche?
What's the difference between staying true to the real image and altering it to avoid "cliche"? What's one to do to avoid, to actually TRAIN your brain, rewire, re-learn...to undo cliche...so that when you think, your don't think in cliche?
So let's say it wasn't a "pearl" in the egg...let's say I, instead, imagined an atom uranium. Because, as it splits, it gives off nuetrons that could smash together and cause fission, and perhaps this is a better analogy for the "explosiveness" of learning new ideas. This is a much more intense "breaking" of the "egg."
But it's less cliche, right?
Fuck it. I saw a pearl, not uranium atoms....
But perhaps I can retrain my brain to avoid cliche analogies.
01 December 2008
What Unsaids Undo
Advice Composed in the Mind While Observing a Choking Pedestrian, Wearing a Pencil Skirt and Looking Rather Upset, Leaving an Office Building:
Think nothing of them, of how Unsaids go about shifting, change their clothes, wear top hats, discover that they are two hours late for a meal when, in fact, they never bothered to look at the time. Unsaids are too busy shining their shoes to open doors and ordering another whore to see that you wore a new dress, new lace button-up blouse that is a half-size too small—they never notice these things but are sure to take care of their cuticles. That’s the most infuriating element. And Unsaids write brilliant cover-letters with gorgeous, specially ordered water-marked paper-- Montblanc pen, so smooth, so cool to the touch, but never jot something like “your legs looked especially delicious stepping out of the shower this morning” on the back of your checkbook. Unsaids, however, regain composure on some menial carpet somewhere while you’re scrubbing a stain, hand on the small of your back, suddenly, because they know how much pressure, and where, yields the maximum affect. You could be sweating, swearing, furious, unable to hold in boats or sails, yet Unsaids undo every nautical knot in your body. Do not think anything of their shifting between the line of the imagined, bordering dangerous Unfields. It is here, between X amount of need and Y amount of solitary that Unsaids fly in, dig their heads down, graveyard spin planes into you. Think nothing of them.
Think nothing of them, of how Unsaids go about shifting, change their clothes, wear top hats, discover that they are two hours late for a meal when, in fact, they never bothered to look at the time. Unsaids are too busy shining their shoes to open doors and ordering another whore to see that you wore a new dress, new lace button-up blouse that is a half-size too small—they never notice these things but are sure to take care of their cuticles. That’s the most infuriating element. And Unsaids write brilliant cover-letters with gorgeous, specially ordered water-marked paper-- Montblanc pen, so smooth, so cool to the touch, but never jot something like “your legs looked especially delicious stepping out of the shower this morning” on the back of your checkbook. Unsaids, however, regain composure on some menial carpet somewhere while you’re scrubbing a stain, hand on the small of your back, suddenly, because they know how much pressure, and where, yields the maximum affect. You could be sweating, swearing, furious, unable to hold in boats or sails, yet Unsaids undo every nautical knot in your body. Do not think anything of their shifting between the line of the imagined, bordering dangerous Unfields. It is here, between X amount of need and Y amount of solitary that Unsaids fly in, dig their heads down, graveyard spin planes into you. Think nothing of them.
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