RUDIMENTS, pt. 790
(hey, don't tell them I said that)
This world sure is a funny one.
On balance, as I look back
on that I was doing, I see
now it was part mad-escape
and another part almost a
biblical sort of casting out
from my personal equivalent
of a bondage in Egypt, to a
sad, nutso, chase following
something into a hoped-for
Promised Land of only a
personal reckoning. The fact
that it all ended in failure,
although disconcerting, does
not invalidate what I did, or
the doing of it. It all was
like a self-doctoring, without
prescription, to a progressive
wound that just kept growing
instead of healing. (I want here
to imitate a parent, and say,
'Don't pick at the scab! It will
never heal!').
-
I view life, I think, as a
descending pallor - nothing
ever gets better, rather
viewpoints change to the
accommodate the descending
order and the degenerating
format and context. It can
never but be that way.
Consider the local folk
here - including me, I
suppose - always going
on about taxes, expenses,
congestion, home prices,
and all the rest. Ending up,
most often, moving away
to somewhere distant.
What then happens? To
the person from Staten
Island or NY, this all
looks, by comparison,
to be a paradise. Rentable,
affordable, green and roomy.
So they move here, filling
the void. That's where we
get the slow transference,
downward, I'd say, while
complacency and passivity
set in and the new people
plop down here right into
the manipulative soirees
of those hosting this
authoritarian toastfest.
-
I saw right through that game,
long back ago. When I left
town, I'd figured I'd left for
good; doing all that Thomas
Wolfe stuff - you can't go
home again. That's really all
backwards anyway. It should
be 'You can't really ever leave
home.' In the same way those
are both true statements, so
what's then the difference?
-
All those farmers, and their
wives and kids too, I got on
surprisingly well with. I've
already written about the
compromises I agreed to -
those barber-shop porch nights,
the guys endlessly jabbering
about crap, men standing
around drinking hard cider
like it was their own personal
gold, (which it was). Everyone
was sort of accepting, after
maybe a first-blush of cold
hard anathema. It went away,
usually, as soon as I began
talking; I'd find the simplest
subject, and go from there:
Nails used in the old barns, say.
Then some fool would start
going on about 'Daddy Hardwick,
and how he'd forged his own
nails, and had a count on how
many it all took, and if it was
7,000, well, he'd made them all.
They weren't nails anyway, so
much as endless spikes, to grab
the wood....' Blah, blah. The
prevalent eccentricity here was
that these guys could go on
about most anything. Cow teats,
the mailman's daughter, Alton
Ford's new gravestone, their own
wives' grunts and groans. Nothing
ever stopped them; they talked
while they milked, or shoveled,
or hammered. Now, I could be
belittling all that, but I'm not,
because to me that was all free
schooling about old stuff I'd
otherwise never know anything
about. Suburban living cuts
you out of Americana, for sure.
All the stories of the great, old
country that ever were, they
all came out of places like this
here one, in Pennsylvania - as
I'm writing of it. This was 1740,
western frontier stuff; all those
restless 1st and 2nd generated
Americans pushing off into Ohio
and the hinterlands, the 'Northwest
Territories.' Injuns on the run too.
These old lands were still forming
societies; everything in flux, no
fast rules or laws about anything.
Mostly the rudest or nastiest guy
hiding out, he's the one who
eventually got into town, as
it came to be, and took over.
Post-facto lawman, enforcer,
even executioner. Start fires with
his spit, he would, if he had to.
Everyone else - those who stopped
their moving on anyway - they
stayed into place until it all
congealed. Like Jello, it might
have been wiggly and jiggly, but
it had form and shape, and
had 'congealed!'
-
Seems like whenever something or
some group leaves, there's always
something coming in from behind
to fill the gap, like the Staten Island
escapees I mentioned, to here. They
arrive here when something costs
2,000 dollars. They've been paying
3,800. It sure looks like a bargain
to them. Alas, we still recall when
it was 900; so we're the stuck
ones - grunting and groaning
like one of those farm-wives
the guys talk about. Hey. Don't
tell them I said that.
-
Conflict was always just a stone's
throw away - if I had sought it.
But I certainly did not feel it to be
my place. There was something
tangible, to be felt, about being an
outsider there, and I felt it. It was
a boat I didn't wish to be rocking.
Family and bloodlines ran back
through generations there, and it
wasn't often that totally new blood
was entered into that stream. When
that old blowhard started talking
about barns, names, and 'Daddy
Hardwick,' more people than not,
within earshot, knew exactly of
whom he spoke. I had no clue.
Something in the air there kept
people together : There's an old
story, one of those zen-type
things, about an old monk who
long had lived alone, going about
his tasks...having dug an irrigation
ditch, he would go fetch water,
and pour that water bucket by
bucket into the new ditch, to
water and reach his vegetable
garden below. His efforts were
tremendous, though the results
appeared as meager. A passing
traveler, seeing this, stopped and
told him another method for all
this, to lessen greatly the load and
improve the sequence. 'Take a wooden
lever, weighted at the back, light in
the front; it dips, brings up water,
and dispenses it. It's called a
'draw-well' and will almost gush,
saving you all this tedium.' Anger
rose up in the old monk's face, and
he said, 'I have heard my teacher
say that whoever uses machines
does all his work like a machine.
He who does work like a machine
grows a heart like a machine; and
he who carries the heart of a
machine in his breast loses his
simplicity. He who has lost
his simplicity becomes unsure
in the strivings of his soul.
Uncertainty in the strivings of
the soul is something that does
not agree with honest sense.
It is not that I do not know of
such things; I am ashamed
to use them.'
-
For me, it was all
something like that.
-
Conflict was always just a stone's
throw away - if I had sought it.
But I certainly did not feel it to be
my place. There was something
tangible, to be felt, about being an
outsider there, and I felt it. It was
a boat I didn't wish to be rocking.
Family and bloodlines ran back
through generations there, and it
wasn't often that totally new blood
was entered into that stream. When
that old blowhard started talking
about barns, names, and 'Daddy
Hardwick,' more people than not,
within earshot, knew exactly of
whom he spoke. I had no clue.
Something in the air there kept
people together : There's an old
story, one of those zen-type
things, about an old monk who
long had lived alone, going about
his tasks...having dug an irrigation
ditch, he would go fetch water,
and pour that water bucket by
bucket into the new ditch, to
water and reach his vegetable
garden below. His efforts were
tremendous, though the results
appeared as meager. A passing
traveler, seeing this, stopped and
told him another method for all
this, to lessen greatly the load and
improve the sequence. 'Take a wooden
lever, weighted at the back, light in
the front; it dips, brings up water,
and dispenses it. It's called a
'draw-well' and will almost gush,
saving you all this tedium.' Anger
rose up in the old monk's face, and
he said, 'I have heard my teacher
say that whoever uses machines
does all his work like a machine.
He who does work like a machine
grows a heart like a machine; and
he who carries the heart of a
machine in his breast loses his
simplicity. He who has lost
his simplicity becomes unsure
in the strivings of his soul.
Uncertainty in the strivings of
the soul is something that does
not agree with honest sense.
It is not that I do not know of
such things; I am ashamed
to use them.'
-
For me, it was all
something like that.
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