| up north 5 part 4 - 1980 october | work & days: a lifetime journal project |
4th October Valhalla Lake Sunday Clawing at wet itch in the night, was I dreaming something to make it wet? Blood, is what it is. "'What would you like for breakfast? There is ....' I developed that way of telling people what there is." "We seem to have found a lot of conversation." He's coming along, she does. Indian man, cartridge belt, to downtown. Climb the hill, the hatman, talking what he knows and what he doesn't, businesses and candour about his children. Driving his car. The three millworker boys driving fast. "The world will be finished before then." Three, four, years. Past Mackenzie. Truck with light carpet. We don't talk. The loud music. Rearview mirror, shirt, plaid, streaming trees, turquoise sky, peaceful constant motion film. One breath of smoke: the quality of time with Jean, rides, coming into Hythe staggering, car's bad heaviness. House. Has a light? She's come ahead. Other home.
Dark. The unusual dazzle of the lights, not being able to tell just where they are, bumpy road, distances longer. Feel the chips, are they dry enough. Out to greet constellations in the south I haven't seen but have drawn [sketch], clear tonight, not cold, garden has had a tonic weather, stocks are revived in a bush, white poppies standing high up (later, nasturtium leaves, big, they've got even bigger), the cabbages have grown, the cauliflower has deformed out into branches. Candle and lamp. Happy. Sweep, cook, bath outside. Stumble over the chopping block. Knock into things. Open journal to forgotten position, having been with you and in Kelowna, on the road, competently, unsentimentally. 5
R describes trees hill café building. M is charmed. I notice he opened Luke's letter. Miriam teaching school, behind the bench when I moved it. [journal] Back from journey, October 5
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boots jeans bread veg - [daily record] 6 Tuesday Luke and I will live in the room overlooking La Glace, open downhill distance west and north. The room's crudely furnished, I am looking to see how it can be remade, pale pink paint or cream. West and south walls alright except the southeast corner, could cut plasterboard and fit it. Luke has tried one crib, found it has no bottom. I show him another. He drags a red quilt over himself. I find another small room, decorated cups, plastic flowers. She dresses hair, sold flowers for a living, lived poor with her children. Things left in the cupboards, childrens' clothes, long sleeper with a stain, books. Looking carefully, the walls to take in, the land I can see from the hill. Living in La Glace village, feeling how it'll be, people will stop in. Hitchhike out on the south road with Luke, carrying him sleepy on my chest. When he's restless I tell him he must go to sleep or walk. Will he walk? We're not far out of town, flowers grown high over our heads, dry stalks, autumn in the ditch. When a truck comes, stumble out to hitchhike. The truck stops, opens a small side window. He says he's making a difficult decision. I say, You mean you're turning off? He means that. We continue. Earlier meeting Nick Seiburt's mother. She knows no one here. Friendly to her, interested, see the decay of her black tongue when she speaks. There's Christmas dinner in the café. A child I find with his leg and crotch tied together with a string, raw, he can't walk right. I untie him and probably clean him. We make a list together of demands for his parents, more freedom. It's my sister's child.
I seem to push the car with my mind. Its damage is going to push me. Love for this open field. Don't I have to come here again. Love for my friend my friendship. Shit and food and tea Sweeping clearing the porch Eyes hurt by the lamp Letter to you examining visiting Jean
A play: fool, girl, alone without a company. -
Richardson Day lost in Miriam, Reiner, M. Uneasy passive, it's passive. Simple going from one letter to the next until the pile is gone. Recognize times but it's thin, runs quickly through remembering. Feeling familiar. Dorothy I'm thinking how fine she is. Them with their same story. I accept. Can do nothing with that my machine hasn't known a long time. It's 'transparent.' Without experience, recognized. Seem to think that for it to be work or not gluttony I should conclude. She's hysterical, says one thing only, I want contact. He's quite like that, liking many. The too many people. She's passionate. He's quite clear in his confinements. Contact would be what Dorothy has. Necessary letters. - [daily record] 8 Paul misery with Shan, I'm smug with J. Paul's died in a car crash. He says Paul was always afraid of planes, never did anything, is my reflection, as if he knew here wasn't time, to say: but he didn't live as if he knew he would die. What can't be written is the place. I can sense it but not well enough to say. A hospital. 'They' want to operate (is it 211?) on my arm, don't think there's anything wrong in it, talk to the Polish doctor wanting him to have a younger, translator, doctor for me to talk to. He resists. I draw a chalk diagram from overhead of a lamp (over head) body, legs [sketch]. Regretful to have scars on my perfect arm too. Draw in a sheet at the thigh, to say I'm embarrassed at having drawn myself lying like that with the doctor. First draw him head at thigh level, erase it, draw him high enough to work. Operating cap green. He says no, red. Tu peux / m'ouvrir / cent fois / tes bras / c'est toujours / la première / fois Reading film notes, throwing away. Sense of knowing more. Her marginal comments, and owing Noel for Trapline. Martha Haslanger's story. Trying Valhalla for mail and milk. Her smile. The car's been wet, hose ruptured. It's finished. Slowly being moved out. - [journal] It takes parts. It connects whatever is in that part in flatness. Quite simple musical development in which the themes consist of little more than recurring musical intervals. My dear From an outskirt outward in all directions. Buildings and a weather. Land descriptions. Making it a clock. [sketch]
- [daily record] 9 Letters. Reiner and M. Eating. - [journal] the precise study of imagination She talks of educating her controls Color is communication from air and earth to vision itself. Color is the language of intuition. When I meet forms alleged to be entities, they are seemingly transparent - an exquisite eggshell blue. a bluegreen mist that seems to be the life of the wood. Yellow-green around the body of the powerfully intellectual Over the liver a dark purple that darkens if tired, lightens to violet when less. The soul within continually struggles for illumination. The air around us is filled with symbols. The instructions are to pack, leave the car at Rudy's or Tony's, go to Vancouver, find a room on Georgia, work at a daily job, make certain to have early morning for own work on 'imagination' and circulating. Be near J and C. Something with Joyce. -
- [daily record] 11 Waking suddenly in fright of not knowing what to do, needing to complete something before dying. Walk to V[alhalla] not seeing much, thinking about the car. Etc. At Tony's a burst of excitement about my predicament. He says there's a lot suddenly happening, some heavy planets into Scorpio and - He stands motioning, his body gets him - is it that? - from concept to concept - in front of wonderful music in the dark junky kitchen. Saw some real light in his face. A woman up the drive. I wouldn't look at her because I wouldn't tell her what I thought, that I heard her program. He assented to what she said and brought out my boxes. I thought of things to thank him with. As we stood at the truck he cried "Look at that!" looking into the air behind my head. Wide wingspread coming fast, low, gliding over our heads. I am ravenous for the look of it. Brown and white feathers, small hawkhead. Just over the spruce, circles over the house, moves its wings, flies back to the lake. I say something sociable. We both continue in awe. It came directly from unknown and we won't know. [journal] October 12 The story of Mrs Tiesenhausen's visit. Been thinking, I can't visit them, I could write them, say goodbye, if I knew their address. Packing. Such a quiet knock. I'm in sleeping clothes. Open the door, standing a little back of it. Her, "It's alright, come in." Get her in the living room, put on pants in the kitchen. She sits in the red chair. I sit opposite. She tells me it's so wonderful it can't be said, what she's found. I look at her, watch her begin to cry. Gaze. Her rosy face. The odd yellow, it looks like tallow, deposits on her eyelids, shaped like flies' eggs. She is going to tell me, "I don't know whether I should talk about these precious things." Apostles. They call themselves workers. She loves them. "I just love them. When they come there is harmony, love and joy in the house, all those things." That they have no home, live in other peoples' houses, are given money, without record, are lent cars, are fed. "The way they live makes them like that. They give up everything. Sometimes they don't talk about the scripture for years." The scriptures were a sealed book. They opened it. Liking to look at her pink face crying. Thinking if there is a true gospel this is how it should be told. Trying to ask. She's saying it can't be told. Trying to find the questions to ask whether it is like the sense of unlocking I had with Cheryl and her friend. I could tell her something but she didn't know to listen. She went into telling stories about the workers and is in love with them, the idea of them. I was willing to imagine a true original young church that knows open heart suspended unsafe obedient living. Was watching to see if that's it in her, will she move right. Her doubts are right. "I don't know if I should say anything." When she's left and I'm thinking it should have continued some way (was it connected to last night's sense, when I sat speaking inwardly listening for replies - what is the way of knowing - the teaching - alright if I can find it in a form that isn't ugly and obviously wrong) she was back at the door saying why didn't I phone myself, and they'd bring me home. Yes, after the meeting driving slowing hoping Peter - The photographs of her mother's young womanhood. Drawings. Supper. Oh going somewhere and a cooked meal! Peter comes. We beam together. "You don't have to go to that thing you know." In his room drawing him out and then giving out my own. Stories of the shots I like, Turner on television, looking fascinated at his body. He doesn't notice that spring. He must. "After I saw you I did so much painting. What do you think of this." The one like Turner. Did I send that. Could see where it was wrong and right. Eagerly looks up Turner. "His fascination with colored light." Yes. This boy liked doing that black moving swirl. He liked doing it and that's his direction. Atmosphere. The cards, photographs, laid out so it's strips of tones of sky. "The sky in this one is wonderful. Silky." He's in a hurry to take me home but when they're back he isn't. "Your mother's falling asleep." In my house with him. "I'll just look at your room," wanting to read what's on the wall. Your letter. He's interested, doesn't know how to be. I see your photograph reproaching me from his hand but tell you it's alright. Your so human face on the wall. The gaze worries me. What are you saying tonight. It's Sunday the 12th. Packing your things. I think your face is more beautiful since you know me. I mean more present. She came today because during last night she dreamed she found the oriental carpet she threw out, now in Peter's house, in my house when she came to visit. She saw it in Simpson's and loved it so much. The way this story is superficial like my mother's journal. -
Sense of cultures separately inventing and testing then brought together and working again. He took on history as recorded, put it down in a form that can't easily be read. All ages are my contemporaries. Writing as if moving in history not time. Periplus An exciting enterprise big enough to take all the time to be launched. Longing to be launched. Movies with something else together in an art. It has to be me and other people. Not passing on anything you haven't tested. Omniformis 'It' is being thought into existence. Oh uncertainty you friendly sea. Not liking the way it would make my discoveries recognitions of what they the remembered men wrote, as if I'd then be only following along. But wanting to learn. Individual existence when fully explored will showing meaning different from doctrine. It came from Pound ubi amor occulus est. Premature synthesis 13 years! It scared me so much I threw it away. My evocation. I went down to find her and we came out together. A sense of acting, traversing, measuring, and a sense of space and stillness 1. Frobenius and Fox: African genesis. 4-gated city lost 4 times, lying greed and dissention. Wagadu. Like zehnen. Found in Pound. the hall of clear colours. The color choice of acid. Thought: I became them. Then thought: perhaps it's a mind they found and I found. That was the tiny stir of joy. A leaning.
music like steam ascending the Patti Page singer who sang as if to someone near her - 4 feet It may be that the imagination is a miracle of logic and that its exquisite divinations are calculations beyond analysis. the frog song with oscilloscope fading in and out
But if god would give you leave and power to ascend to those high places, I meane to these heavenly thoughts and studies Light fighting for speed is ever best in such a ground John Heydon Interaction of speaking with what has been thought over Does she invoke. Is there mythology. whose terraces are the colors of stars embodying publicly what they have denied themselves luce intelletual piena d'amore any invocation of spirits of the air, perceptions delicate and subtle That he mixes into his vision what's forbidden - not my nature - I can't do it - history. cun cunnus kin known a nest softer than cunnus connace What happens: a starting up: that could be done, to: it has been, what now, to: even that question is gone. Being willing to be seen taking what I want. Maybe it isn't so long.
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That I came with my hair cut off to revolt her and shook with how much I needed her to touch me. - [daily record] 19 [I take to sleeping on a big hay bale next to the swans' lake] I was in the hospital with you, head far under quilt. Honking announces 5-6 swans swiveling feet down, wide spread legs from fat asses, skiing brake into the water, stretches up big sheetflap wings. What are they saying, why are they saying anything. Some standing, one floating, scratching. When I jump out of bed they surprise me taking off. Coming through the dry grass striped jellabah over shoulder, skin leg pants boots, John on the field already. Sunday, breakfast fire and the last of Charlotte, Jane to find out. No life except at the beginning. Emily refuses to be other than herself and dies when she doesn't win. Charlotte because she's lonely marries and obeys a stupid man, and dies of pregnancy! Oh! Go back and get her. Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor. Her sisters dying intact, her brother dying wrecked. I can go to Pound today. Roam to feed, fire, drink, read to be in the atmosphere of one who makes, someone working. Do I have a chance. What could I make. Briefly Emerson because she - and best was on Thoreau. Instant coffee ideas, write down what comes. Not much tracking. Best was the sense of multiple writing. Not often in the descriptions: a feel for his feel of the combinations. A slightly intoxicated feel of being able to learn him now. Superior to unwilling self. Suspicious of the way they praise themselves in him.
Helmer's truck. His sweetheart in bomber jacket runs to the door. Brandy in thimble cups. Easily say, I sometimes have to be with my own kind. He brought it back to say some wouldn't understand what I meant, but he did. Bridget copying on the typewriter. "In the quiet of evening to raise ones in t e l l I gen ce." Her voice between our talk in candlelight saying words like 'stillness.' Fucked girls and fat leopards. In a sweater with the hot rock in my towel out to bed. Badly stumble over mud clump, rock and towel fly ahead. Sit, rub my knee, go on thanking it that it's strong and elastic. Settle the rock inside with a spot on my back. Peace days. The hay has a dip. The birds aren't close. Do I hear a line of voice behind. The night's partly conscious. Head under the quilt that hangs down over the side, cold air flows up to my head. - [journal] Walking gravel and dirt wind flowing hiss in the ditches the ground spread lit translucent blue beyond thinking of the way thought falls to pieces with a glee felt like a live little dab among the pieces it can fall glee is still here 'I'm still here'? doesn't need to be that the same known lit fields brilliant dull gold / grey road / blue vast / walking progression glee again walk a dream is a surrounding to extend completely around
Only thus can the oppositions of the subjective and the objective be risen above. The act of the sentence. I think god is merely the act of taking thought. What did I say: it's the slippage. I take it that's what one means by the creation of the universe. Digging grass, bringing it in the wheelbarrow, telling Daphne in the parking lot of the liquor store. - [daily record] 20 Seems warmer, can have head out. Red east. The birds are quieter than any night I've been with them. I can see them, white. Eyes are muzzy from candle reading. A few have gone twice past. Patrol. Quiet. He comes in next to her. She has to watch. Against a small doubt, then will he turn to her? No, I will and am. It surprises me, makes quite a deep wedge. Knowing it will bring the moment of getting out of the covers, that springing, quicker. Grass. The different kinds. Tying a boot, up at the rushes, tall and the dry grass color. Harmless strong biting air. Later see the water's frozen. Bright blood air. [Peter von Tiesenhausen visits.] Red car fast up along the spruce. Pat my hair! First sight he's heavier. I get busy around the house. He booms. "There was something I wanted to tell you." Shirt unbuttoned. "Oh yeah, I went to the college and got that Turner and you were right." "Didyu want to show me some of those pictures?" Liking the poppy and thrown light. But it was: thrilled heat, diaphragm, when he read Some are attracted to stones. And said "Each line has a different meaning for me" and with a sweet face described the place - in other countries such places have ruins - where several springs come out of the ground, "a stream about this wide." It wasn't from attention. Voice. Last night an au pair, children's maid in a household where they set a piano into the wall, cut through plaster. Much of the time outside, a wall. Pottery class. Woodbox? Barky branches. That I got to tell him - he's getting drunk and resisting his work because it will make him alone. He seems to give the parts directly. And displease his mother. 'Abstract.' "Do you ever have a sense that painting might change you?" He didn't hear it the first time and then it was as if that simple obvious had poked into him. On the floor. "Stay where y'are!" Said before I knew, and then (I wondered) heard in its right sense. "Well I can see how anybody would love a woman." See the beautiful days but don't go into them. Using Pound talk to elicit thoughts I might never have had to have, but did, unsettled. - [journal] The apostles came, one older, at the door, the younger at the foot of the steps. "If you want to pursue them I thinking you -", looking to see if what they are is visible. They're familiar. Taking them in. It doesn't make them attractive. This one thin-lipped. They're not lighted bodies, they're shut-off bodies. (All these things added, aren't.) Bible school men years ago. "If you come to them like this in your suits they'll take you as salesmen." Then his little smile.
god's eye art 'ou, do not surrender perception but Mr Thoreau was equipped with a most adapted and serviceable body not encumbered by his memory those pieces of luck which happen only to good players fishes swam into his hand and he took them out of the water 44: I remembered 42, liked the loveliness of the number but he has not pushed his study of days the angels assume fish and repeatedly become visible
natura with its delicate future tense Kinde was the Old English term the angles of crystals
he or that which in despair of naming aright, some have called the Newness the Maker things that don't need to be named is believing DR's ethic, politic, etc simply inherent colored moving pictures, reproduced sound without importance 1. don't know what to call the work 2. doing it because it's necessary to have a craft 3. refusing to do it as a craft 4. whatever sort of work, it is to make a quality begin with paradise plants and Jean Waite instead of quotations, voices day-moon low east near a thin cloud in pale bluegreen went to a thin trace in high air "It will destroy you." "No." Circle Lo - images that are requests: the room with the light 5. that if there is a more direct way to make the mind, the work has to be dropped 6. anything can be penetrated 7. not to forget the charm order of living right (obedient) luminous images (sound and light) usury use I cannot get to the core of my thoughts any more in words An ardent student of music "I'd like to be able to write music" start out start out on a life already started precisely how the line goes, how the word is, in its context, what has been done, what's possible now to do 8. not to talk idolatrously about being an artist
to step back here to this place of the elements and minims of language the beauty on the wall, trees moving across Mozart particles of light paradise clear color silver crashing crystal body of air Seferis a river of lights starting to pick out phrases for some quality slowness is beauty stream of water full of grasses seven lakes faceted air ply over ply lamination what to do with history wild mint the fourth; the dimension of stillness writing with things on the wall ubi amor shelf cut in hilaritas gathering of the light in one place real paradise Jefferson and concrete memory troubadour France the filmy shell (sheath, shed)
9. I love language but want to put my pictures in as an intelligence by feel. and make music 10. if the question is witness, working for heaven, then I don't know whether the work should be inner only, or whether balance can look after ambition. witnes testimony, knowledge. testis witnis. as saint 11. hating reference a unique sense of shape focus at a distance quick fade in and out
shots and their barking it's late at night 12. working with language is necessary to keep out of wrong language. Working with pictures is love. Penelope at home writing his story in the room behind the word at a distance
The universe in its wholeness and freedom has become his spiritual home. The perfect faces I see at times when my eyes are closed
goddess 13. it has to be difficult a stream of water full of grasses
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