11,519. RUDIMENTS, pt. 586

RUDIMENTS, pt. 586

('you're on your own')

You know the thing about

sacred music and all that

chorale stuff and Gregorian

chant and all the the rest  -

I think what it was about

was  the simple majesty of

so many voices together,

a sort of unison, as one,

striving to a finish. The

vocal striving sometimes

seemed so strenuous and

reaching, that its small

private stress drew you

in. Up above Elmira, in

some hillside over at

what was called Pine City,

just a small ways off from

Elmira, there was a place

called Mount Saviour 

Monastery  -  it was a group

of Benedictine monks, some

in hermitage, living solitary

in small cabins and the like.

Completely a very strange 

place; odd in its commitment

and total dedication, in its 

silences, and atmospheres.

BUT, they did have a chapel

and church-services area, open

to visitors, etc. (Weird factoid:

it's still there and in operation,

though it also now advertises

itself as a bed & breakfast).

They would have the chanting 

services, I guess it was always

on Sundays. We'd occasionally

attend, more for the feeling it

gave than anything else. All

these monks in unison, the

chants and prayers, the 

isolation. The monks, of 

course, who were in their 

hermitage stages, one year

or many, we never saw. It

was like Tibet or something,

just as strange  -  to be up

in that location and aware of

all that had transpired from

the flood and the river and all

the ruination, and to think that

these people were untouched

yet pouring their souls out to

'God' for the repair of all the

hurt and damage which had

just gone down. I guess it 

was good, though I could 

never quite figure. Would it 

have been more powerful for

them to have quit their isolation

right then and come down with

their prayers and intentions to

walk among and work with

the people in need? Not as a

prayer-image, but as real and

tangible people and problems.

Religion's always been a strange

tactic to me, mixed up as it is

with the conflicts, always, of 

idealism up against getting 

your hands dirty. How real

does cloistering get?

-

The whole thing about Elmira

was historic. It was always easy

for me, because I walked in

history  -  and I still do now.

As I walk down a street, even 

this one right here where I'm 

living now, 'Dartmouth Avenue,'

I'm not walking the present day.

My house is along the end of a

dirt pathway that winds through

woods and shrubs, things growing

all around it, an isolated cottage

at the end of a path, on a meadow'd 

flat, at the end of a trail. There's

nothing else around it, and I can

take direction from the stars and 

moon and sun as I walk. It was

the same for me in Elmira  -  the

Civil War era cemetery out behind

the Sears Store in town was perhaps

my most vital and alive spot in

the town-center. As I've said

previously, 100 years before 

this, the Union sentiment was

strong in Elmira. Northern fire,

all those impassioned boys in

this or that Regiment, NYState

Volunteers, whatever  -  they'd

died and been brought back home,

most anyway, and buried in their

graves marked with words I hardly

understood  -  Antietam, Manassas.

Chancellorsville, Wilderness, Bull

Run, Gettysburg, Spotsylvania. All

that power and fury, and here they

rested, now, forever. The water

came pretty close to these guys,

but they stayed dry and in-place.

When I walked along there, I was

gone. Far up the hill, Woodlawn

Cemetery, where Twain and others

were buried, was probably, no

guessing, 150 times as large as 

this one-block sized graveyard,

but even it didn't quite have the

life-force and power that this

held. Or held over me anyway.

I could still hear the creaks and

the moans.

-

Watching the river blast through,

and all its aftermath, was like a real

reality check, a wake-up call for the

formidable realization of the many

of the obstacles of everyday life.

Beware the unexpected; don't 

become complacent. Most every

things that had previously been

well-defined in Elmira was gone.

My friend Jane Roberts, a writer,

and her husband, Rob (Butts), an

artist, lived in an large kind of

roofing/apartment home at the

river and Walnut Street (one

of the doomed bridges). They

were up high enough, not at

ground level, for their studio

and living spaces to not have

been ruined, though the lower

portions of the building were.

They did move, later, to  a 

much better situation  -  a

somewhat isolated single-family

home, small grounds, upland

of everything. But the experience

marred them too, as much as the

move itself proved beneficial.

We visited with them a few times.

Jane was something of a 'legendary'

and other-worldy writer  -  deep,

cosmic-identity stuff that almost

had to be experienced more than

merely read, but I always got a

chuckle out of the surroundings

inside the house : supermarket

tabloids, scandal magazines, 

TV Guides, all that weird stuff

just piled up. After the flood,

in the new place, it hit me one 

day why she was like that, or

made me wonder of it anyway.

To my mind, front and center

to me was always my own 

other-worldliness, yes, being 

able to leave and enter time and

other time-periods. In all of that,

I was affected by most everything.

As I've mentioned, and all those

places of time and the dead. I 

asked Jane about it all once, I

said, 'You surprise me, doing

all this writing, with very little

to show for it visually, I mean, 

in here (the house)  -  you've got

nothing much around -  TV stuff

and Hollywood scandal sheets.'

She  -  taking no offense  -  just

laughed me off, saying something

to the effect that 'That's me. I'm

just me; any writing I do isn't really

'me,' it all just comes through me

as and when it hits.' That was a

bit unsettling for me, I guess only

because I tend to go head-over-

heels with stuff I deem important,

and to me every living second was

immersed in the experience of

what I was living and creating.

But, I sort of knew what she

meant. Remember, after all,

she had the Prentice-Hall 

agent (Tom Mossman) and 

the publishing contract and 

the printed books. I didn't.

-

Even so, and in light of 

the flood, it bugged me. She 

apparently paid it little mind, 

a minor irritant; while to me

it had become a new dividing

line, a demarcation point to 

mark another aspect of my 

life. Everything I did WAS
me; no two ways about it, 
I never saw Elmira the same

again. All those Langdons 

and Beecehers, and Twains, 

and the college and the Arnots

and Ogdens, and the rest;

Twain's Quarry Farm and his

writing shed, etc., it was all 

somehow seen by me as now

betrayed by the cosmic 

elements, and the pain of 

it was that I had to realize 

that Life or God or whatever

that wrinkle in the ether is 

that pumps our hearts and

fires our minds, directed 

by God or not  -  it didn't 

give a shit about the elemental  

aspects of what I considered 

important to myself. I had

been way mistaken, and this

calamity suddenly brought

it home. 'You're on your own.'