RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,359
(knowing what you want to own)
In a way, you can't lift a 100 lb.
rock with 5 lb. hands; meaning
you have to be 'up' to meet any
situation. I'm getting too far along,
and I know that's not my station
in life any longer.
-
It's a long and depressing comedown,
in many ways, but, in the same fashion,
it's fated to be. I learned to relax, I hope,
before that first knife-cut got me. Now,
pretty much, there's not much there.
-
It seems as if - when you move
somewhere far from your original home -
your small-mind takes over and somehow
gives you access to things you'd not get
ordinarily. Face it, the ground, the very
soil, you're walking on doesn't know you,
nor do you know it. It's all foreign soil,
no matter what's been there before. It's
new to you. I tend to praise the land and
the dirt and the rocks and the trees all
around me. There's a form, also, of ritual
cleansing that people seem to do when
they take over a 'new' place. I've seen it
in many forms and places - it's ritualistic
in that it confirms and solidifies the deal
between a person and his or her new place.
The acts involved (in a nearly religious
sense) can range from cutting and cleaning
up a yard that was perfectly fine the way
it was; re and-painting trim or foundation
blocks, simply for the sake of change or
stamping an imprint onto the new place.
As if answering to a spirit, things get done
until a pitch-level is reached where it's
really 'yours' - as the feeling would
have it.
-
Probably this is all too tedious to explain
but it's just one of the kinds of things I
tend to notice. There's no name for it yet
there it is. Already in existence. Which
then prods me along to think, 'for how
much time can something exist before
being named?' Man gave names to all
the animals, remember, and that must
have been pretty early on, in whatever
semitic tongue it may have been - I
guess they all got translated in their
way to what we have today. Swans.
Horses. But... horses were never in
that mix; not even Arab steeds were
around early on. By contrast, today
we have quarks and charmed quarks
and muons, and the entire array of
physics and its scientific terms, and
they all get named quickly. How's that
go? Existence precedes essence? Or
essence precedes existence? It can
get confusing.
-
Once I got to the 'country', most of my
living changed. Even as I got to Elmira,
the essence of my life was already altered.
Things were accepted, and the regular and
often strained routines were gone. The only
difference was that the senses of place had
changed. I found myself no longer caring
about the things that used to absorb me each
day, in Woodbridge. There were a lot of
nervous people there; I'd see them pop into
Platt's Stationary Store, and quickly come
back out with their New York Times, having
left the car running, and then swiftly head
off again towards their work. There was
never a moment to spare, for them, and
everything was always running. One guy,
a chubby fellow whose clothes seemed
misfit, as if he'd grown chubby after he'd
bought his work wardrobe, he come every
day, for like 30 seconds, for that newspaper
I just mentioned, and his care bore a plate
from Pennsylvania. I used to try and figure
out where he came from, and to where he
headed each day. As best I could figure, he
must have taken the turnpike from somewhere
by Mercer or the Trenton crossing, (say he
lived in Yardley, PA), and got off at a
Woodbridge or Carteret exit, and come
up Main Street, stopped daily at Platt's, and
headed the rest of the way up Main Street,
probably to a semi-professional office job
in Raritan Center. Yes, it was all conjecture,
but that's how I made it, and named it -
his daily, without fail, commute - which
seemed distant and way too far-fetched for
me. (I worked right next to Platt's, in the
old Woodbridge National Bank building,
and each morning afforded me the short
opportunity of watching this guy come
and go). I should have been a detective!
-
Once you name something, even if it's just
a routine, you own it! 'My daily commute'
or My daughter's wedding'. I think the trick
in life is in knowing what you want to own,
rather than just getting stuck with it.
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