Searching for self in the possibility of a possibility

This work talks about itself. And, with every word, it explores the impossibility of its own existence.

“Won’t do no good to hold no séance,
What’s gone is gone and you can’t bring it back around.
Won’t do no good to hold no searchlight,
You can’t illuminate what time has anchored down.
[…]
Won’t do no good to sing no love song,
No sound could simulate the presence of a man.”
- “Carrion”

Meta-textualism is dead. It is a dead art. One that has died even before it began. The hands of many people contributed to its demise. And, we mourn you with every passing day.

Anne Carson has secretly become my hero, though I would never admit this publicly. It would mean loss. Harboring an obsession for Anne Carson is like harboring an obsession for death. For shame!

(The true path to creation is, at its essence, a hubristic challenge. The creator toils time and time again to prove to himself that he is still capable. He has chosen to rival the Supreme Creator. He will never prevail. At least not entirely.)

(Man is fundamentally impotent.)

The above is called an incipit. Used to set the mental stage, so to speak, of where I begin, and where I intend on ending.

* * *

The walk along the coast of The Sleeve is treacherous. The craggy wall of rock is high, the wind blows incessantly. One false step. One step.

Intention is a whirlwind of brain chemical and desire. I wonder, at times, if it weren’t intentional. It would be easy to convince myself otherwise from what really happened. To tell myself a story that would make it sound better. A story that would make it palatable.

“On the edge of love,
Like on the edge of a cliff
It doesn’t take much
For me to become

One woman like another
One woman amongst others
Or worse, like all the others.”
- Patricia Kaas

What do they have to say about it?
A life according to the liar: Clones will rule the world. Get the fuck out.
A life according to the plagiarist: This is not my life, fuck you.
A life according to the absurdist: Fuck fuck fuck! Pass me a carrot.
A life according to the pacifist: I don’t remember it that way, for fuck’s sake
A life according to the warrior: Jump!

Nobel Laureate in Literature and Pacifist Harold Pinter (1930 – 2008), The Bombs:

There are no more words to be said
All we have left are the bombs
Which burst out of our head
All that is left are the bombs
Which suck out the last of our blood
All we have left are the bombs
Which polish the skulls of the dead

Where my story picks up: It was after the inappropriate love, after the walk along the Seine, before Normandy, and before traversing the Ocean. The moment in between. (This is where every story takes place.)

It was a Tuesday. Claire called me out of the blue. She was at a café (L’Étoile Manquante) down the street (Rue Vieille du Temple). He was there. She was there. I went. Drinks were consumed, introductions were made, plans solidified. Thursday. Out. The scene as it always had been for us. Plus one.

Much later: He saw “Goodbye, My Warrior” and thought it to be about him. His name meant “warrior”.

Thursday. And then, there was one. That was the beginning of the end. Saturday also holds a special significance in this story. Or, the idea of Saturday, in a different time and a different place. I don’t think I saw Claire for some time after Thursday. She left without a word that night. No one knew where she was for at least a few days.

Then, there was the rest of it all. Fourth, fifteenth, moving, the sushi place, the movie theater, the apartment in the third, working in the tenth, the train up North, travelling all directions, calling back and forth. It all moved so fast. In a final streak of desperation, there was the Mairie du 15e. It took all of ten minutes. Papers signed. Fate sealed. There was no party. No celebration. Only silence. It had already become purely administrative.

Much much later: I received a letter from The Sailor. I was to blame. It was my fault. I ran away. I caused it all. I never responded, my words stifled.

* * *

Flash-forward to the Impossible City. In the concrete jungle: a life of penciled-in brunches, cocktail drinking, dinner plans in the Village (East and West) and outer boroughs, weekends in the parks, tea sipping, book reading, subway riding.

It is supposed to eat you alive, the Impossible City. It is supposed to spit you out. Only your own personal resolve and dedication can persevere. Take heed, be warned: The meek will not survive. It can be an extremely lonely place, and one of abundant decadence.

This part has yet to be written. But, I know why I did it. I know that I had to prove to myself I could survive, that I had something left, that the skeleton of myself could rise. Resurrection. That is why I did it.

* * *

What I have left from my other life: Books. Mostly books. Some clothes. Music. End of list.

At the end of Water Drops on Burning Rocks, a film by François Ozon based on a play by Fassbinder, the fabulous Anna Thomson (Levine) places her hands on the frame of a window of the apartment she is in. The camera, for the first time in the film, passes through the wall to the exterior of the apartment. The shot shows her shadow in the window, with her hands on the glass as she struggles to open the window which won’t budge. Quietly at first, then in full volume, Träume (Dreams) is heard. This German song is interpreted by Françoise Hardy with her strong, smoky, brooding voice. It is one of the best examples of cinematic allegory. It is the visual representation of the need to run away, the desire to flee, and the confrontation of these with the impossibility of fulfilling such a primal need.