From banter with Esperanza, I see I was already harboring a dream house in the woods, rather than the sleek flat in a high rise in midtown. Woods, but no mention of lakefront.
From there, the volume leaps rapidly into autumn. “It’s been so long since I have written. … Vagueness replaces articulation.”
Molly says everybody talks about their problems, but very few talk about what makes them happy.
At one stretch, I ranted about how few people could relate to my love of classical music etc., yet also how little I knew of rock or Hollywood stars. I see now that wasn’t the root of my loneliness, but rather my inability to see them as feeling creatures for reasons other than what facts they might share.
~*~
Out of the blue: “Nikki’s fucking up my head. I look strange (though mystic, interesting, intriguing) when I see myself in reflection: the hair and beard: where am I? I want to run but realize the malaise is within. … I’m homesick, but for where? Not Dayton, unless it’s [her family]. Not my parents or the Moons. Or Antioch?
~*~
Molly’s “We’re going to discuss infinity.”
“Oh, that will take forever.”
A note of taking a bubble bath at Molly’s – we didn’t have a tub with our apartment.
Also, her friends had the strangest names: Leo, Lousy Ruly, Zoom-Zoom, Beaver. How would a plain James fit in?
~*~
“It kinda pissed me to discover I paid $1.95 (plus tax) for Trout Fishing in America only to see it was set not by Linotype but rather electric typewriters, probably some poorly paid secretary …”
~*~
Interesting, when I claim there’s nothing Quaker about Quaker Lake, other than being in Pennsylvania. “Nor is there a meetinghouse for miles about. … Unlike Brackley’s roadside dive.” Quakers were still way off in my future.
~*~
Recollections of Fay, her smiling baby teeth and playful body, her wordplay mind, yet eons behind … while Judith gives nothing but her body but wants my soul, says I still love Nikki and should see a shrink.
~*~
Much of the volume continued the lines of judgmental social commentary cloaked as verse. Interwoven are attempts to define the landscape, both surrounding me and for the nation at large.
There were also pages written in pencil, now too faint to decipher.
The back page has both Nikki’s brother and Pips’ phone numbers and their addresses at Cornell. [Kara was now also there, all three as freshmen.]
A typed teletype roll insert: Time is flying by on dragon wings. Let us use Chinese dragons: they are beings of beauty and magic and have a pearl between their teeth.
So who I was addressing when I concluded, “Catholic hang-ups are beyond my scope of comprehension: I hope you arrive to where you can not only name them but comprehend them: the task of living is immense: we have no other choice. Peace & love.”
[Incinerated]
~*~
From Spiralbound Hippies, with commentary from now.
Jnana's Red Barn 