(no subject)
Oct. 23rd, 2015 01:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
proximoceptionHow when you hear a song for the second time it fits your expectations about it like a missing puzzle piece. What this has to do with love.
She laughed too suddenly and with too high a pitch when I asked if she had any children. I glanced up quickly to track where her eyes went but they stopped instead of going. There was a clasp on her purse, and a half-minute later she snapped this a few times in rapid succession, as though to start herself back up like a lawnmower.
He said he'd never killed anyone and he still hadn't, technically. But when it came to lives was there anyone more careless?
More even than during the bombing we were hesitant to cross any of the six little bridges at night after the armies had come through - first the one chasing the other, then that film played backward, almost in a single month. The two broad enough for tanks people worried about the most, though they maybe shouldn't have. I more than once saw the tanks led across from my window near the rail bridge. Even during retreats there was a protocol, a quite similar one for both sides. Whereas with the infantry in those days any protocol stayed hypothetical. It was a human outpouring as forced and unpredictable as the first well-water after a thaw, or that first burst of ketchup. And the colors were about the same, the mineral crust of mud, the streaks of red. Though blood was bluish-black on uniforms. Came to seem one of the colors of each side. The only one they shared. Of course the blood had come out much more steadily than panicked foot traffic. Not always entirely evenly, but when there was a twist you felt there was a pattern to it, one reminiscent of magician's scarves. It slowed dependent only on supply. One protocol for all.
What the icicles did with the cracks in the bricks was obscene. That winter was looking for something that belonged to it, and its prying fingers were set to pull apart every home in Europe in the search.
How when you hear a certain song for the first time the world seems at last like the right kind of puzzle. What this has to do with love.
I was so drunk so often it's like I never was. I gave the nights to someone else, and lived my days in anticipation of how happy I could make him, how forgetful. Maybe I wasn't happy at all, when drunk enough - after all, I seldom was on the first bottle, the bottle that ended the day. That's why I always finished it before sunset: so I wouldn't lose those nights I'd never remember.
She truly wanted to do what you wanted. You could never tell if that was because she wanted it too or because you did. Unless it was because she wanted the proof that she'd grabbed you by your wanting and could now lead you anywhere. There may once have been someone for whom the play was about the money, not the high, but if so he got rich and retired long ago. And was probably in banking. And not named Dina. And not your next door neighbor's wife.
She knew another lie was the only way to get him to tell the truth, but she just couldn't do it. Do you understand what I'm saying to you? I'm saying she died - she's dead - because she needed to have never lied to him. And what you're trying to do goes back and makes even that a lie.
I also ate a lot of candy back then. I liked the simplest kinds, and I picked them based mostly on color. Eventually all they had left were translucent ovoids, from a stack of crates salvaged from a factory in the district's capitol. Boiled sugar syrup or a substitute, lightly flavored with some kind of root, with sometimes a bitter or unplaceable hint from the dye. Their wrappings were green so the color you picked wasn't quite what you'd get, which I liked. And how they were clear but you couldn't quite see through them. That felt familiar and right. And sweet and safe. Like when all the girls joined hands and danced in circle at the Christmas shows. Or where the river bent left beneath the last bridge and on hazy nights the lights on the arch would spread to form soft shapes with their reflections. A loop so not water nor road could take another friend away from me.
Her dog barked, up and agitated. "I'm your sister," she was forced to yell. A scene to prevent a worse one. Two lights in windows at opposite ends of the house sprung on almost together.
Sometimes you do a new thing when you give up. I put my bruised foot in the gutter and watched rainwater run by and then over it for probably an hour. A number of caterpillars fell on me, all relatives. Their tree was too wet. I wondered if there had been a signal about it, or some sort of discussion. Or if it's a family trait that tells you when to finally give up. One slipped down to my toe. And it sat there, just straining about for some non-showing ride. Which is why I got up.
What this has to do with love you'll have to tell me. But after that songs had singers, had instruments. Were recorded on specific days, days with weather that colored the songs. Would each be heard for the last time by someone on another day. They weren't always clear, these connections, but every last one of them mattered. Had mattered all along.
Now mattered to me.
She laughed too suddenly and with too high a pitch when I asked if she had any children. I glanced up quickly to track where her eyes went but they stopped instead of going. There was a clasp on her purse, and a half-minute later she snapped this a few times in rapid succession, as though to start herself back up like a lawnmower.
He said he'd never killed anyone and he still hadn't, technically. But when it came to lives was there anyone more careless?
More even than during the bombing we were hesitant to cross any of the six little bridges at night after the armies had come through - first the one chasing the other, then that film played backward, almost in a single month. The two broad enough for tanks people worried about the most, though they maybe shouldn't have. I more than once saw the tanks led across from my window near the rail bridge. Even during retreats there was a protocol, a quite similar one for both sides. Whereas with the infantry in those days any protocol stayed hypothetical. It was a human outpouring as forced and unpredictable as the first well-water after a thaw, or that first burst of ketchup. And the colors were about the same, the mineral crust of mud, the streaks of red. Though blood was bluish-black on uniforms. Came to seem one of the colors of each side. The only one they shared. Of course the blood had come out much more steadily than panicked foot traffic. Not always entirely evenly, but when there was a twist you felt there was a pattern to it, one reminiscent of magician's scarves. It slowed dependent only on supply. One protocol for all.
What the icicles did with the cracks in the bricks was obscene. That winter was looking for something that belonged to it, and its prying fingers were set to pull apart every home in Europe in the search.
How when you hear a certain song for the first time the world seems at last like the right kind of puzzle. What this has to do with love.
I was so drunk so often it's like I never was. I gave the nights to someone else, and lived my days in anticipation of how happy I could make him, how forgetful. Maybe I wasn't happy at all, when drunk enough - after all, I seldom was on the first bottle, the bottle that ended the day. That's why I always finished it before sunset: so I wouldn't lose those nights I'd never remember.
She truly wanted to do what you wanted. You could never tell if that was because she wanted it too or because you did. Unless it was because she wanted the proof that she'd grabbed you by your wanting and could now lead you anywhere. There may once have been someone for whom the play was about the money, not the high, but if so he got rich and retired long ago. And was probably in banking. And not named Dina. And not your next door neighbor's wife.
She knew another lie was the only way to get him to tell the truth, but she just couldn't do it. Do you understand what I'm saying to you? I'm saying she died - she's dead - because she needed to have never lied to him. And what you're trying to do goes back and makes even that a lie.
I also ate a lot of candy back then. I liked the simplest kinds, and I picked them based mostly on color. Eventually all they had left were translucent ovoids, from a stack of crates salvaged from a factory in the district's capitol. Boiled sugar syrup or a substitute, lightly flavored with some kind of root, with sometimes a bitter or unplaceable hint from the dye. Their wrappings were green so the color you picked wasn't quite what you'd get, which I liked. And how they were clear but you couldn't quite see through them. That felt familiar and right. And sweet and safe. Like when all the girls joined hands and danced in circle at the Christmas shows. Or where the river bent left beneath the last bridge and on hazy nights the lights on the arch would spread to form soft shapes with their reflections. A loop so not water nor road could take another friend away from me.
Her dog barked, up and agitated. "I'm your sister," she was forced to yell. A scene to prevent a worse one. Two lights in windows at opposite ends of the house sprung on almost together.
Sometimes you do a new thing when you give up. I put my bruised foot in the gutter and watched rainwater run by and then over it for probably an hour. A number of caterpillars fell on me, all relatives. Their tree was too wet. I wondered if there had been a signal about it, or some sort of discussion. Or if it's a family trait that tells you when to finally give up. One slipped down to my toe. And it sat there, just straining about for some non-showing ride. Which is why I got up.
What this has to do with love you'll have to tell me. But after that songs had singers, had instruments. Were recorded on specific days, days with weather that colored the songs. Would each be heard for the last time by someone on another day. They weren't always clear, these connections, but every last one of them mattered. Had mattered all along.
Now mattered to me.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2015-10-23 10:31 pm (UTC)I am struck with how rarely you ever indicate that you know you've written an amazing sentence, and how many amazing sentences you write. It's like Hitchcock, in a way: the amazing scenes he does, that just flow seamlessly with the movie, without his underlining how extraordinary they are. It's harder to miss in you, but still fascinating that you don't seem to worry about it at all.
no subject
Date: 2015-10-24 01:58 pm (UTC)I don't think Hitchcock would have achieved what he did with individual scenes without putting a lot of thought into them, since each would take days when preparation, shooting and editing were tallied. Maybe part of the thought was that they needed to fit with their neighbors? To never stop obtruding, but unobtrusively - that's a master's trick.
I can reliably find some of the phrase-making potential present in whatever I'm talking about, but that's a surprisingly useless skill when one's just talking about whatever. It's mere eloquence if the phrases that emerge don't meaningfully join up with others elsewhere, emerging from their own also joining contexts. And doubt about the point of phrase-making makes it harder to care about your phrases enough to not mostly fuck them up with uncaught ambiguities, unintended echoes, poor word choices, factual wrongness, plain awkwardness etc. Until there's a whole there's no part.
I think that's what I'm attracted to in this fragment method. I fear there can never be a whole, for me, but if I pretend that one is there beneath the water perhaps I can impart more part-hood to the bits that stick out.
no subject
Date: 2015-10-26 11:47 am (UTC)