The Cambridge Chronicles

Recent events make me feel as though I'm only scratching my surface, that what I have been writing is superficial. The image I get is of a large open pit mine. The deeper one digs the bigger the hole gets. I have just been talking with Dana about an interesting self discovery made today. Walking down the street. A big fight inside my head. But suddenly I notice something completely different about it. Something I can't remember happening before. There are two people in the fight. There is a setting and they are fighting about something, what I can't remember now, but its not that important. There was my true character fighting with my false character. The false me being who doesn't want to admit to difficulties and problems in life, and the true character who is some part of these difficulties and all the things others say about me. The false character is always arguing and resisting these things said about me by others. Every now and then someone else would pop in the conversation, like Simone or Linda. They would say something to support the real character part of me. Then they would step aside. And the battle would resume with the two main protagonists. This is something very new for me. The last two days make my difficulties very obvious to me. Trouble with work, writing, other interests, Linda, Simone, medical problems. The false me does not want to be beaten by the real me. But there is something irresistible about this true character. Something not so bad. I notice that he is not harsh, not strident, not aggressive, very reasonable. He managed to parry every thrust. But the results were not disastrous for me. I didn't really get defeated. I have trouble making the explanation less abstract. The other side of me is what? Who was that? It seems to be gone now. But the impression persists. How to say all this without being mystical or spaced out. I have the feeling of being held by someone larger and warmer than me. A very comfortable and knowledgable person. But the old resistance came back eventually and overwhelmed the other. Linda and Simone have been fighting back a lot this week. This feeling of resisting comes up in me a lot as a result. Every little criticism evokes a denial and an increase of this internal tension. Sometimes I manage to accept it. Mostly it causes a flood of feeling. This afternoon I found myself suddenly wrapped up in the stolen battery story. A long time ago. I was 10-12 years old. Don't remember exactly. A family lived up the street a ways from us. The father made me mad about something. He had an old battery sitting out in his yard. One day I took it. Hid it somewhere near my house. Later, maybe a few weeks, I took it to a scrap dealer for selling. Still later my mother asks me, did you take so-and-so's battery and sell it? Why no, I says. She doesn't believe me. A big fight. She yells and threatens. The more she does this the more I resist. Finally it comes to getting a spanking. But still I resist. No way will I admit to this. I did it, of course, but it is impossible for me to admit this. The memory is confusing about what happened next. Did I lock myself in the bathroom, or did she tell me to stay there until I confessed? A day or so later she asks about John. I talked in my sleep and must have said something about him and the battery. Or this is what I remember. This whole thing doesn't make sense or have a good connection.

The other day Simone made some positive comments about my writing. That it is less a recollection of what happened during the day and more about me and my feelings. Flashbacks are used very well to tell the story. Anyway, she says its getting much better and more interesting. But I find this to be interfering with what I write. Each time I try to write a sensitive story about myself and some connected incident from the past. Every critic sways my tone. Again I have this feeling of some insight and lack of ability to express it. As though I'm tied and gagged and trying to yell out some message to a passerby to free me. An interesting mental image to just pop into my head. There I sit on a simple chair, hands bound behind me, feet tied to the chair, and a gag in my mouth. How to get somewhere? Hop up and down? Fall over to try and roll somewhere, and possibly risk injury in the process? Or maybe sit and think my way out of this imaginary bind? Is any problem I have any more real than the one of imagining myself tied up? And first of all, who tied me up? I mean the whole thing took place in my head! There I was, just like that - bang! No fantasy about being robbed or anything. There wasn't anybody else, but me, in this fantasy. I just imagined myself bound and gagged. Is that one g or two? So anyway, and now I can't remember what I was going to say. Shit, another interesting idea down the drain.

Did you know that The Cambridge Chronicles, 1981 Edition, has been published on Amazon? Buy the whole thing for 99 cents and read it on a kindle (or kindle software for your Mac or PC), here:

A Memoir About Art & Sex During The Reagan Years (The Cambridge Chronicles, 1981 Edition)

# posted by ADL : 5:14 PM