The Cambridge Chronicles

Simone has written me another poem. She does this every now and then when her emotional energy rises to a peak. She takes it and crafts a little statement, poetic really, about the state of things for her. It is addressed to Richard:

This morning early
as I lay next to you Outside there was a silent
white dawn and yet it was still night.
Last nit I was singing as I drove home
I seemed to know
What the moon knows And this morning
all my sap was mounting
to that moon that
you gave me.
That by now had dissolved
to make way for the
sun that had risen.
The low music.
There was no
twig of me not trembling with fear and joy
I am a seed again I am microbe in the swampy
waters under the
boardwalk in the island.
And you broke my skin to carve
I love you in the deep swampy fears
surrounding my
heart

The poem is dated June 19, 1981. I don't remember when, but in the last 3 weeks or so, she said something about how she often felt I would give her the moon. So one day I did. Its hers now. She often tells people about this. And another time, last summer, we were on Plum Island. There is a boardwalk that wanders through swamp, low hills, sand dunes, grass, etc. At one place a small river or stream passes under the walk. The water was not moving, or so it seemed. But crisscrossing it in random directions were these lines. We discovered they were made by some small animal. One could take a stick and write in the film covering everything.

I spoke to my mother the other day. About a package with some pictures she was to send me. It seems they have been lost by the delivery service. She has sent me things over the years, presents and so forth. Nothing has ever arrived. Somehow she manages to fuck up. Things are either badly wrapped or wrongly addressed. I gave her very precise instructions before sending the pictures. Something went wrong anyway. I have tried to make her feel guilty about it so she will try to find them. They are pictures from the last 10 years or so. Some of me, Adele, and Cheyenne. Carl has talked to her about what I wrote of my stepfather. Carl did not believe I had such feelings about him. My mother said how there was such poor communication in our family when we were growing up. And and indirect comment about how difficult it was for him, my stepfather, to like me, or do things with me, when he liked such different things. I don't remember anything like this ever being directly expressed. I don't even remember me saying I didn't like the things he wanted to do. I only remember the resistance I had to doing many things. Fishing was one of them. Somehow it never did interest me. Completely boring. But he would do it for hours. I liked the hunting where we were almost always moving. But the times when I had to stay back in the camp were no fun. Long rides in the farm truck were interesting for me. Carl has not sent copies of it to his brother, sister, or mother. I have told my mother to tell him to do this. Sometimes I feel that the most real communication in the family is now taking place. And I feel bad that it did not happen when we were children. It shows me how my present difficulties go back to those times.

Simone has revealed herself to me in the last few days. Not that she doesn't do this often. But this time it seems very different. She has told me about some of her sexual fantasies, something she hasn't told anyone else. It seems she likes to imagine very heavy people on her when we fuck. And that she likes to imagine weighing them and each time they get heavier. Its something like that. Nothing special. But for her it is a big step to say that this is what goes on inside her. Saturday night we went to a dinner party at Constance's house. She is Michael's present girlfriend. He was very anxious about our coming and making a scene. Nothing happened. Simone was very nervous and noticed many things. She was a little hyper. She noticed how Michael was wearing clothes that she had bought him. Later that night she broke down and told me more new things about herself. How she had faked a pregnancy for 5 months when she was with a man named Phil. Suddenly I can't even remember the other thing. She was worried that I would leave her if she told me. Now I remember. We went to see our therapist the other day. One thing talked about was her fainting. He wants here to see the resident doctor. I have maintained from the beginning that her fainting was very directly related to her emotional state. Whenever there is a lot of stress she faints more. What she revealed was a history of faking fainting. It started with Skip. She would do it to get his attention. It happened with Michael. She would pretend to faint. She would even fall down stairs and stay there will someone came to help her. There were a lot of incidents related, but all with the same pattern. She would fake fainting to get attention. The next day she had the biggest shit in a long time. She has been shitting every day since then.