12,472. RUDIMENTS, pt. 933

RUDIMENTS pt. 933

(declaring myself Sheriff)

The best way of doing anything

is to do nothing at all. If I were

to say to you (glaciers, however,

melt faster than me, so don't 

sit up waiting), 'Do nothing

until you hear from me,' you'd

certainly end up doing nothing

because you'd not hear from me.

Many years of studious intent

have led me to that conclusion,

and it is not, therefore, just some

idle talk. The bane of human life

is 'activity.'

-

Motivations are key factors  -  in

the work of others. Getting it over

on you. I once had a 'boss' for a short

few years, even less, actually, who

was all about that and only that, and

she played hard. It was all superfluous

vanity and a disingenuous toying

with both words AND the fates and

minds of others. Without mercy; she

was so convinced of the devious

rightness of her sourcing, perhaps

thinking  -  at the printing counter  -

(these were NOT the bookstore

people) that none of this was noticed

by others; but she was as obvious as

a mole rat when it finally does leave

its mole-rat lair. The only thing any

of that taught me was that I truly

disliked the mercenary aspects of

money and business. Funny thing

was, she too at first came across as

an 'artist'  -  at least to herself. John

Lennon portraits can be very

convincing, I guess, until the

fact is realized how poorly they

date. I had to shake all this, and

roughly, from myself  -  because

all this employment crap became

untenable to me. It wasn't that I

owed the world anything  -  the

world owed me, yet I never got

anything back except the duplicitous

crap of the wandering snipe and the

meandering few  -  losers all, and

all across their own deserts of

infamy, chosen or not. They can

have it all.

-

There's only one kind of purity

in  this world, and that's the sacred

purity of self. Anything else, I

don't even want to hear it.

-

I'd guess the weirdest and most

uncanny silence, and cold, I'd

ever had to face was on the night

of my arrival to Pennsylvania, just

me, in the new house I'd just

bought. Knowing nothing about it.

It having no real heating system of

any value but a trickle. I knew

nothing about the house, other

then where a few switches were.

I had a torchlight of my own, two

Winter coats, some blankets and

nothing in the cold and empty rooms.

The dark and the cold were of an

instant pitch of blackness I'd never

seen before  -  'country-black' to

be sure. My companions? 10 zillion

nighttime January stars, as sentinels,

high above me. I was amazed. The

rooms indoors (darkness had fallen

by 4:30 pm, and after that it was

mostly all by luck) were barren,

echoey, and cold. There seemed an

absolute emptiness in the bizarre

old house  -  it felt as if it was

last occupied in 1912. That was

not the case, but I knew nothing;

moreover, it was as if I'd drop-kicked

myself into another population,

which population knew all the

names, agents, and participants of

local life and lore (including the

house itself, as I later found out),

while I knew none of it but simply

took up me newly-acquired role and

ran straight for the center. By such

actions maybe, stage legends are

made, but I wasn't one of those.

There's a ghostly feeling in the deep,

dark of night when you are suddenly

in some place totally foreign and

unmade to you, without recourse

to reference or any means of comfort.

To many people, that about sums up

life itself, but I was a bit more curious

than that. None of this put me off:

I slowly entered the cellar stairway,

after creaking upon a rear door in

an area some later called a 'Summer

kitchen' but which to me then seemed

just an added appendage at the back

of the house  -  filled with debris, tools,

and metal of some thirty years part.

I did finally get light from one dim

bulb there, and getting past the

doorway to the first few cellar steps

was more adventure than risk. I

guessed there had to be a light, so

I scanned the wall areas with the

torchlight I had, finally finding

a switch and (ever so cautiously

and with trepidation) flipping it.

Lights came on!

-

There was still a deafening silence.

No applause or cheers, and though

the scene could have been the Roman

catacombs or some Roman arcade,

there were no lions setting out to

tear at me if I'd not renounce. I'd

never been in  a space of this sort

before. Half, at least, of the 'floor'

here (the rest was hard dirt and

broken concrete, was a monstrous

slab of flat, ancient rock. Is there

any other kind?). Were fire, pestilence,

and earthquake here to break out,

I'd probably be safe. This was some

solid underpinning, but I immediately

wondered, how did they secure a

house to a rock, all that biblical

stuff notwithstanding - about faith

and solid rock and Peter and all.

I filed the thought away for

another time.

-

Besides being built on rock, the 

house, at this lower section here 

had two large swing-out doors;

they acted as 'garage doors' if

one were bringing a car (or a

tractor) in, and when open they

afforded a half-expansive view

of some countryside  -  the two

pond which went with the house, a
distant farm, and the surrounding 

landscape. In any case, I knew

none of this at this first-night

stage. I was working blind, and

stumbling my way trough a

new nothingness. Pretty cool,

thought I, pretty cool. I was in

my own ghost town, and had

declared myself 'Sheriff.'
-
Nature here was, already, wild and
out of control. But at least I had
my quiet, and my space.