beneath habit and fear – what is beneath habit and fear?
a man walks beneath a dim streetlight wondering what it is that is beneath habit and fear
he thinks eventually that there is something deep and essential that transcends abstractions like language and thought
he remembers a night – a late-summer night in a small country town on the other side of the world – he drove with his family to some tennis courts where his parents were going to play – he remembers that the lights illuminating the courts were magic – intensifying the night – nighting the night – drawing thousand of flying insects – the clay of the courts was cool against the warm night air
suspended in a field – in a negative space – of course
“it’s twenty to seven – what’s it twenty to seven for?”*
time rushes away – what can you know – i must watch the ripples pass – that is the profound part of it – the time – macroscopic stuff like us? what value does it have?
leave it be – we can’t leave it be – as we are – surrounded and abandoned
i had an inner life before i realized that it was an inner life – it was a life – Thoreau fixed his boat when he thought it had become unbalanced
the desire i had once and can now only vaguely remember – to be an orphan – the strongest are the feelings – senses – the sense of the space and the sense of the time – words can do but one thing
what expectation – to touch something that is usually obscure – obscured – the sound out on a winter night in the north – to recognize the beauty of it – whatever it might be – reverberation – off into the night – away from the light – smooth and smoothing – left behind for nothing – a red book – a red spine – lettered – making some solitude
once upon an otherwise
the nonsense of being
a sound shimmers away to be held at the horizon – held as embraced – not touched you say now
the mass of memory – its insignificance – place and family – history and nation – how small it seems
what story – this story person embodies nature the world’s substrate – the story must show that the story person exists in a struggle – only exists in a struggle – the story must show that the story person – as the substrate – will always win any struggle
we regularly see her dreams
the struggle that she is in is with abstraction – economics – the idea that is money
depth again into it – backing into it – like an idiot
* Clarice Lispector
abstract sleepwalk 