the stream of jewels
June 3, 2020
The first book is now a vestige, a reference to a time and a place when Gilberton
served as a transitional object, a buffer (container for the “performance of
life”) versus a lived experience. It was a research space; in the intro I used the
word experiment. These terms create distance. Now it is the opposite of an
experiment. It is fully realized, felt. Now I experience everything within it in real time,
as it always was.
I described the flood of August 13, 2018: “This day was the first time in eight
years I was directly involved in real events, as they unfolded in real time.” My role
set precedent for all future experiences in Gilberton: unmediated. It was the first
departure from my Bubble of Honest Guises and served as an ending in two ways:
1 to the book
2 to the way I spent my time there until August of 2018
Now I visit a place where everything is normal. I do the same things: walk around,
talk to people. But the audience is present. The space between me and others
closed, the gap between me and the environment narrowed like the cracks in
arid slurry until there was nothing left but indivisible life. I have often tried to
uncover, or to invent, a term for this process, this phenomenon. The best I can do is
refer to it as something becoming itself. But truly, is has more to do with seeing,
and maybe most accurately, allowing.
A few weeks ago Bary asked to buy my property; I said no. Instead we talked
about building a fence around the lot. I agreed, so he can build a jungle gym on the
back of my lot for his granddaughter, and I can build a firepit and an outhouse.
This morning: Bary comes over to take measurements for the posts. I ask
him to move the trailer now that the ground is solid enough, dry enough after the
flood that it can sit on solid ground, back on the property where it used to be--
level— parked beside the forsythia that extends from Deb and Vinnie’s yard and
scrapes the camper’s aluminum siding in the wind.
Nothing was ever unreal about this place. It’s astounding what a mind can
construct, to achieve a sense of order, of familiarity, of assimilation. Once that
assimilation occurs, reality presents itself simply as it always occurred. For as
simplistic as this realization sounds, the results are stunning. It can cause grief.
It can cause exhilaration.
To recognize the thing you needed to see was always there. Now you’re ready,
now it is inside of you, not outside of you. You become ready to not-see
what you saw before.
The first book is now a vestige, a reference to a time and a place when Gilberton
served as a transitional object, a buffer (container for the “performance of
life”) versus a lived experience. It was a research space; in the intro I used the
word experiment. These terms create distance. Now it is the opposite of an
experiment. It is fully realized, felt. Now I experience everything within it in real time,
as it always was.
I described the flood of August 13, 2018: “This day was the first time in eight
years I was directly involved in real events, as they unfolded in real time.” My role
set precedent for all future experiences in Gilberton: unmediated. It was the first
departure from my Bubble of Honest Guises and served as an ending in two ways:
1 to the book
2 to the way I spent my time there until August of 2018
Now I visit a place where everything is normal. I do the same things: walk around,
talk to people. But the audience is present. The space between me and others
closed, the gap between me and the environment narrowed like the cracks in
arid slurry until there was nothing left but indivisible life. I have often tried to
uncover, or to invent, a term for this process, this phenomenon. The best I can do is
refer to it as something becoming itself. But truly, is has more to do with seeing,
and maybe most accurately, allowing.
A few weeks ago Bary asked to buy my property; I said no. Instead we talked
about building a fence around the lot. I agreed, so he can build a jungle gym on the
back of my lot for his granddaughter, and I can build a firepit and an outhouse.
This morning: Bary comes over to take measurements for the posts. I ask
him to move the trailer now that the ground is solid enough, dry enough after the
flood that it can sit on solid ground, back on the property where it used to be--
level— parked beside the forsythia that extends from Deb and Vinnie’s yard and
scrapes the camper’s aluminum siding in the wind.
Nothing was ever unreal about this place. It’s astounding what a mind can
construct, to achieve a sense of order, of familiarity, of assimilation. Once that
assimilation occurs, reality presents itself simply as it always occurred. For as
simplistic as this realization sounds, the results are stunning. It can cause grief.
It can cause exhilaration.
To recognize the thing you needed to see was always there. Now you’re ready,
now it is inside of you, not outside of you. You become ready to not-see
what you saw before.
