12,168. RUDIMENTS, pt. 830

RUDIMENTS, pt. 830

(early stages of veneration)

Men always annoyed me; that

whole 'male' thing I could never

catch up to. I was way partial to

Winter girls, lost in their big,

cloth jackets. It was almost as

if I wanted a role in some large

Russian movie  -  snowflakes

in the air, landing on coats and

hats and jackets with only a

faint female face showing, and

some snow-dusted snow. By

contrast, the male was all

unthinking bluster; stomping

and brushing to be rid of all

that snow. In the two trains of

thought, that same process had

its effect. I don't think I ever saw

a man, reticent to proceed, step

back to thoughtfully consider

something before making a

choice. The money-bet for them

was always in the 'do,' the 'act.'

I realized the wasn't me at all;

I was thoughtful and sensitive,

both of which I was instructed

on, were 'feminine' attributes.

Boy, was I ahead of that curve.

-

As it turned out, within the

physical world that wasn't true

at all. I could roust and prowl

with the best of them. But it

was  -  and this is where things

got different  -  at the internal

level where I remained all the

outsider, the sensitive, the watcher,

the viewer. Not voyeur, by the

way, that wouldn't fit. My stance

wasn't quite like that. I did have

a certain bluster and stamina,

and sloppiness and haphazardness,

that was not in any way feminine.

I could be a blustering fool with

the best of them.

-

Looking back at the life of Jean

Rhys, Carole Angier once said,

'Her life was really just the same

scene repeated over and over again.'

I thought that over for a while,

and decided that was not mine at

all. And then, foolishly, I also

got hung up thinking why anyone

would think to say that something

was the same over and over again?

Wasn't that a writer's overkill?

(Angier was also a writer). It

always seemed, in my own life,

that occurrences were different,

every five minutes.

-

You see, the thing was, at any

one moment there were numerous

things churning  -  that was always

just the way I was. With only two

hands, I could only grab two things,

successfully; anything more was

a scramble and a mad-grab.

-

The early stages of veneration

seem to come easier than does the

staying with it. People have always,

eventually, turned on me. I guess it's

just the way I am. A closet full of

enemies, grown from a thimble full

of friends. How that happened I

never know, but I always stayed

with it, rode the crest, and took

the dive down too. My Studio

School acquaintances and friends

were quickly passing. Some flew

up and a few flew down; the nature

of that game is struggle. What it

afforded me was a glimpse into

another piece of Nature; one I'd

not known about before. It

didn't take words really, and it

didn't take actions  -  we each 

had our own. I guess for me it 

was a strange confluence of 

histories, different places, and 

a few batterings. New York was 

sure a strange place to learn in.

My one friend, Jeff; his father

had started something that was

called The Paperback Exchange.

A string of stores, it was, small

storefronts to which people

brought, or turned in, their

paperback books after reading 

them, and walked out with a

replacement, or another book. I

never figured how it worked; 

maybe it was a club-to-join deal

and then you got the exchange

privilege; but in any case his

father had made a good bundle

on it. Jeff was cool; a little flighty

and mercantile too. He could

talk like there was no tomorrow, 

in fact, on most any subject, if 

you got him going he'd hardly 

ever stop. We finally had a sort 

of falling out, then a few years 

went by, I opened the friendship 

back up, and he returned the deal. 

Cool. By that time his enthusiasms

had cost him a leg, due to neglecting

diabetes; and then not so long

after, he was dead. Too bad, and

isn't everything always?

-

Instead of living on 87th street,which

is where I knew him and visited, he

ended up in Hancock, NY, living with

some half-famed Korean artist lady.

Name forgot right now, but I did

say half-famed. I'd never met or

known her at all. His wife, back

when I knew them, was a really

lively Filipino girl, maybe half so

anyway, named Juanita. She

worked in some artist capacity

down at PBS, Channel 13, when

they were near Columbus Circle.

I don't know where Juanita ended

up, nor do I even know if PBS is

still in that location. I guess all that

was some early stage of veneration

forming too. Have to be so careful.
-
Everywhere I went, there was so
much to like, and so much to dislike.

As with learning to read some weird,
cuneiform language of the ancients,
each thing was a symbol of ten other
things, all to be taken in at once  -  
unlike English, which was by contrast
so fairly practical, one word and idea,
in a row, at a time, singularly strung.