Here I have to take a breath, not that I’ve been running hard—two or three paragraphs is a stroll. I’m pausing before I walk you to the end of this dream to take my pulse. I’ve lost the thread. What had I meant to say? I promised myself I wouldn’t look back at what I’d written in Temple Dream and I’m barely hanging on to this vow (through this medium1 you can mess around endlessly with presentation, story, language, torture). So though I’m not chained I linger in the basement dungeon. Have I forgotten simply because my intention was flimsy? Dishonest. Too honest. Ridiculous. Genuine. Embarrassing. Have I ever held anything together—ever! Criminally, I hadn’t thought any of it through. And if I had would I have abandoned it? I know me! I suspect I would. I’ve slipped through the cracks between honesty and embarrassment, revelation and fear, dishonesty and play in whatever I write. The zen of not writing is this then? A breath or two between the bewilderment?
That said so forcefully I also have housekeeping to do—a detail I’d forgotten and those I didn’t know how to tuck into the narrative. For instance, I’d forgotten to mention the others floating in the dust motes, circling, spinning, as euphoric as I, talkative, something was said and then there was laughter. And I didn’t know how to tuck into the narrative the sound of trickling water, the hollow sound of footsteps, then banging as if a door swung open then closed. And I thought the pigeons disrespectful, alighting in the windows, dislodging bits of stone, cooing—transforming what was unparalleled into the ordinary.
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