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Stuck on one of Judy's mixed tapes. Simon & Garfunkel’s hushed harmonies float up from bedside table where a spent butt in the ashtray, supposed to be crushed out, sends smoky tendrils upward entwining. Sitting Indian-style, journal laid across pretzel-shaped legs, setting free slap-dab-sentences to the beat of the changing songs. To the best of my ability. Fingers hurt. Left wrist aches. Came easy once but not anymore.
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Writing, I mean. Pushing this pen isn’t proving to be a walk in the park or anything. More a long wobbly stroll on a thin blue tightrope. No safety net below.
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Hard gathering up these sad-scattered-racing-angry words, skidding into walls, into the crash-barriers I’ve erected. It’s a matter of recognition. Cognition. There’s a big difference between riding a bicycle and writing. Just because you rode the bicycle-of-writing once doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to just hop back in the saddle and do it again.
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There’s a big difference between kneeling down and bending over!
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Judy loves Paul Simon, especially that album with the African guys on it – and that song about the girl with the diamonds on the soles of her shoes. It’s playing now, volume cranked. Turn it down, so as not to disturb Jack (snoring susurrously).
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And a rock feels no pain.
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Light last cigarette.
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Ah! One of Judy's all time favorite TMBG tunes - haven't heard in ages: Where You’re Eyes Don’t Go.
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Words dry matt black in the contained circle of white projecting from the Black&Decker SnakeLight torch coiled about my dome as the Me-Above amuses itself thinking it looks like a science-fiction type turban (a filthy scarecrow waves its broomstick arms) Me-Below feels like a surreal snake charmer, seducing words – blackwet and wriggly – out under clinical light, onto clean page (and does a parody of each unconscious thing you do), feeling like a crazed carpenter, nailing words to a paper-cross with a fine steel point. Making a point with slippery hands (when you turn around to look it’s gone behind you), I abandon the slab of stone my bed’s become, thinking that if Sleep were a woman – then she’d be a Bitch with a capital B for standing me up again!.
I'm learning to stop making dates with Sleep and Death - its an endeavour fraught with disappoint. And, as They Might Be Giants point out: if it weren't for disappointment I wouldn't have any appointments!
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Drag feet across carpet and fall into study chair. Switch off torch, drop it to floor. Click on desklamp and slide journal into the light of the 60-watt bulb. This paper before me, this chair beneath me, this desk I lean elbows upon
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Awake? Am I? Isn’t all this just a little too strange to be awake?
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But if you are awake, how can you be looking down from the ceiling?
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It feels so real (on its face it’s wearing your confused expression) Asleep? Could be (where your eyes don’t go) just another dream.
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Mind’s grown wooly. No. Not wooly, really: more like a lump of cheese. Writing and writing and I don’t know what I’m trying to say. Trying to get at... the point. Can’t keep it up much longer.
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Pen’s heavy as lead.
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You can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead..
Sheep? Sleep? Where are you?
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I am an Island.
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And an island never cries.
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