I haven’t delivered on the promise made at the end of my last. I did try to start a memoir of life in the commune, but various technical problems presented themselves.
I had difficulty with names. I couldn’t remember some; I didn’t want to use some because the emotion was too strong and telling felt like betrayal. Contrariwise, with other names I felt that I must use real ones to relive the memories with enough feeling. Then I was unhappy with the pronouns, like “we arrived at Crow Hall in a battered van”, when “we” meant my family. My memoir has always been centred on “I”: one soul cast into the maelstrom of existence. Till now it has only reached the dawn of adolescence, and hasn’t yet had to deal with adult responsibility. So when it came to describing “our” homeless state, back in 1971, I tried to find refuge in a more inclusive “we”, not just my family but the more inclusive “we” of the human race. I wanted to say “We all do our best”, for I found myself squirming in shame.
Another reason why I could not say “we” in the family sense was that my first wife has become a blur, blanked out from memory, a silhouette with no feeling attached. Add all these things together and it doesn’t amount to “emotion recollected in tranquillity” which with Wordsworth I take to be the condition of poetry (prose in my case). Does this mean my life-story from 1962 to 1989 can never be told? Not necessarily. The Autobiography of John Cowper Powys makes no mention of his mother, sisters, wife or mistress, and the only women described are from the demi-monde, such as dancing-girls in burlesque shows or street-girls, whom he likes to sit on his knee fully-dressed while he reads them poetry. And it doesn’t matter: the book has a wholeness and completion even so. You can’t tell a tale without leaving lots out.
It dawned on me yesterday that there can be a happiness in not doing things. I don’t mean I sat on the sofa staring at my fingernails. I mixed fine plaster to fill up unsightly holes in various internal walls. I shifted the bird-feeder around in the backyard, though the birds still don’t come and take the seed. They are good at not doing too, I guess, like the friendly pony in the photo above.
I thought of buying a young tree, a variety of prunus with a Japanese name, which blossoms pink in the spring; and a spade to assist in planting it. It felt good to do neither.
I thought of how to make a painting of the hill to the north of our house. I could cut stencils and make a repeating pattern of the roofs and windows of the houses that cling to the hillside. I could make printing blocks from a raw potato, for similar effects, as out art master, Mr Bell, had taught us in one lesson (circa 1956). Then I would use water-colour to fill in the remaining details. They were simple ideas to think of. The pleasure, as I realized, was to take them no further. Many of the things I actually did try doing yesterday proved abortive, and had to be abandoned, giving rise to displeasure. Better to imagine them, and leave it at that.*
“Procrastination” is another thing. To get a haircut, have my car safety-tested or fill in my tax return are unthinkable, until shortly before the deadline. (In the case of the haircut, the deadline is a week after Karleen tell’s me it’s time.)
Not-doing is the balm for a restless over-active mind. It allows you to intend, and relish in anticipation—and then do nothing; to plan a story or poem and never put pen to paper.
The space freed up is delicious, like fruit gathered from the wild, or a gift from the gods.
* When I was fourteen I sat for the College of Preceptors exams. From a list of English essay questions I chose “a journey you would like to make”. Years later, after I’d left the school, I discovered it had won a national prize. Part of the trick was to base it on a journey actually made, and then to gild it in words, give it the roseate hue of nostalgia dressed up as yearning.
PS It wasn’t till two years after this post that I learned from Brett Johnson about Fernando Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet. Pessoa’s narrator, who’s probably interchangeable with the author, turns imagining without doing into an art form and complete way of life.
a wayfarer’s notes 
I tend to avoid writing prose. Because I think it is a more precise or exacting activity. So I pretend to write poetry. No matter how adolescent it may sound.
I still would like to write some autobiographical stories but my knowledge of English grammar, usage, idioms, composition and rhetoric is not good enough.
And prose can sound too honest and too precise.
Otherwise, I know what you mean.
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Technically, your posts are verse, but I read them as carefully written prose, broken into lines. Most people I think would consider poetry as the more exacting activity. But these days the standards have weakened.
Anyhow I think your writing is good and don't worry about your knowledge of English. I didn't spot any defects in what you wrote and it is certainly most expressive!
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Vincent,
I'd like to think so. But I tend to sacrifice content, expression, and style in favor of form. The form defines my expression.
Most of them were written in one sitting.
By form I mean literally the length of the phrases.
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I looked again at your verse, Siegfried and liked some of it a lot. Some – to me anyway – is indeed poetry. And if it sounds adolescent, why not?
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Sometimes I force myself to write and I end up writing my journal.
The ones that I wrote with ease, with some deep emotion, or in tranquility were probably what you consider the poems.
Also I studied a little about metre a long, long time ago but I discarded it because I tended to write light verse and nursery rhymes.
I have the idea that writers start by writing poetry, experimenting with different styles and expressions and end up writing a complete novel or novels. As soon as they become addicted to writing or just want to write longer pieces.
Well, there is verse and there is poetry. And prose is sometimes the better poetry, in my opinion. Unless you prefer classic formal verse. But I tend to favor Modern American. ;>)
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vincent hello 🙂
I'm not sure if your post was intended to be funny…but it sure hit me funny. I love your humour.
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Kathy, you do me great honour – and I am referring to your use of the English English spelling of humour. I discovered some of your own sense of humor by playing the audio clip on your profile: Kermit singing Wild Thing. I love it.
I didn't intend the post to be funny, being intensely serious by nature, but I love making people laugh, and according to my mother I started doing that when she took me along to some developmental clinic before I could stand up on my own.
I don't write to achieve an effect but to dig down to the truth, which in this case involves self-deprecation, a traditional English comic style. My writing does not court popularity, being dedicated to exploration of things beyond the edges of the cultural map. Which makes it all the sweeter to receive your remarks!
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Vincent (((Hugs))) to you. I love your style.
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Vincent, I am doing your stunt, reading backwards, and so, come from the former later post to this previous one having commented on the latest.
Now I think this relates to Julie's last posts also, and that to me is telling of time common to us all.
And self-hate, however you would like to call it, I woke thinking about this mid-night morning (2AM my time), and was urged to some blogging, well decided!
I will come back to this post, it is just as powerful as the later one, I am deeply moved by it too.
Till then.
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I think, Vincent, that we all, everywhere in the world, are imbued with self-hate, some know it and work with themselves, others deny it and fake a life of ease and pleasure, never being fulfilled.
Some create great punishments and suffer their fate, some quickly destory themselves and their civilizations. I wonder if the USA is not slowly punishing itself by evolving into a culture of domesticated farm animals in obvious captivity with controlled life and lifespans.
I know of one group is studies this, how to overcome their instilled self-hate, individually and socially. A post on that later maybe.
I know the 'not doing' very well, planning but never getting there.
I love the idea of the birds, their not doing is so incredibly obvious but you had to say it, I didn't see it, lol, so true tho!
Need to tell Kathy about that, she is a bird person, birds on a wire.
Enjoyed it. Oh, yes, I lost the 'we' sometime back and don't think I can get it again.
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