The Cambridge Chronicles

Incredible resistance. The last few days. Resistance to sitting down and doing something. Writing being one of them. I have the time tonight. Simone and Dana are not here. Nobody to bother or disturb me. Joe has just gone home. There are at least two hours before I will be too tired to continue. But something stops me. Its a feeling of lethargy and hopelessness. I don't know that its that bad, but something keeps me from going on. I have to break through it. Its a weak feeling. Like I can't move myself almost. This is such an old thing for me. Anxiety about going ahead and doing something. I sit here very still and quiet. Thinking things around in my head. Criticizing myself for not beginning. And the next moment coming up with an excuse to stall for a few minutes more.

Herb Pearce just called me back. What a relief to be able to jump up and do something else! But it does not last. Now I am back here and faced, again, with doing something. My whole life seems to be filled with repetitions of exactly this thing. Sitting here waiting for something to happen. Drifting away in my fantasies. Making plans for something beyond my latest idea. Not doing anything about the latest idea. Letting it drift off the edge of my world. Sort of sweeping it under the rug. I only have to pause for a moment and a big list of things I want to do pops into my head. The seminar, notes for Loris, sending something to Cheyenne and Adele, getting the stuff for FH ready, and on and on. Writing more and better programs for my business, getting my two books ready for a publisher. I wonder about being caught in a circular trap. Is it something that can be gotten out of? I say yes, but only if I go ahead and do something. But then I wonder if getting that list done will only put me in the position of having another list to work on. But the real problem is the one of being stuck and not able to go ahead. I don't think it matters what I do. Now is the time to go make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Simone is staying with Steve tonight. He did not want to come here. So she went there, Salem or nearby. He still wants to take her away from me. He wants her for himself. Sorry for him if he manages it. He has no idea of the desperate character he is getting into. Suppose she does leave me for him? Well, it is probably for the best. For me, not for her. She will then be faced with someone who doesn't want her to have the freedom she gets with me. And she must be aware of this. He hasn't kept his intentions secret. I can't imagine her letting this go on for long. She will take the bit in her teeth and run with it. Possibly even secretly. It would be better for me not to have to struggle with her ambivelence. This is the thing she always accuses Michael of. Her own affliction. I wish Linda was here.

Simone has been doing quite well for herself lately. Her boss confesses that he wants to fuck her brains out, and him being a happily married man, no less. But that is always such a joke. George finally showed up again after several months absence. He is in love with Simone again, and wants to her to leave me for him. I'm better for you, he tells her. How many men is it now? Possibly ten, that are all trying to get her to leave me for them. They all imagine that once they have convinced her to leave me, they will be the one who gets her. A sorry fate for that winner! And what a surprise for all of them. One down and ten more to go. I have coached her on dealing with Steve tonight. I have told her to tell him that nobody gains by taking anything away from anyone. That she needs to think big. To think about how to include him in something larger, and more important, than being selfish about one person. Does she want to stay trapped in this twilight zone of ambiguous relationships with all these men? Or does she want to try for something more solid with people who look beyond the couple relationship, the nuclear family, secret liasans, chaotic sexual encounters, hypocritical possessiveness of another person, and all the things she has tried. It will be interesting to see how she handles this tonight. Will he be patient, or will he give an ultimatum? She was resisting leaving for his house. She is afraid of falling in love with him. She feels the possibility. I don't want to treat him like Stu, she tells me. But she is already doing it. She is late, its getting later. She won't call him. I tell her to do it. Otherwise she is treating him just she did with Stu. She doesn't want to see it. Finally she is gone.

A funny incident with Linda yesterday. Monday night I went to the airport with her. She had been pressing me all day to do this. She tempted me with coming over early so we could fuck. It didn't happen. But I went anyway. An investment on my part. I wondered about being manipulated by her. No matter. So we get there and its not clear about the 8 oclock plane to NYC. Finally she gets a boarding pass. She must wait an hour. I decide to go home. But what a time. I get on the wrong bus. It only goes in circles. The subway breaks down and there's a long wait. So, the next day, in Harvard Square, who do I see? Linda, with some man! She calls out my name. I pretend not to see and wander around looking for the source of the sound. She finds this amusing. She is very embarrassed. Hides behind her escort, an English lawyer, visiting the US for a few weeks. She left the airport shortly after me, having called a friend who would go to NYC early the next morning. But she met him instead. So they stay at a hotel in Boston and she shows him around the city the next day. She is still embarrassed, and promises to tell me all about it the next day. Off they go. I must admit to a bit of jealousy, but mostly amusement. Next day I remind her about her criticisms of my so called sexual dalliances, which exist only in her imagination, and how its only true of her. She explains it as a need for adventure. It reminds me of the time Simone came back on the train from New Haven and called to say she wouldn't be home that night. She met a poet. She was completely charmed by him, and wanted to get fucked. Why do these women have such an easier time of it than me? But this one has a well known answer.

I have reason to feel pleased with myself. Both Linda and Simone have started writing about themselves. They use a very simple and straightforward style very much like mine. Simone has even typed some of it. They both let me read some of it from time to time. I am very pleased with them. It makes me feel almost like a real existential teacher. Someone capable of teaching people about life.

It has been quite easy to write these two pages. I am having more ideas about some sort of writing exercise or course for people. It is not clear just how to inform lots of people about it. I always have the hope that it will attract people to me.

Walking down Cambridge Street I see Adele's car parked by Harvard Community Health Plan. She works there. Thinking again about sending her a copy of my notes. And the poem I wrote for her:

Roses are red Violets are blue. More than ten years And I still love you.

Or thinking about writing her a letter. Dear Adele: When we were together I was very hidden from you. I am a little less so now. I write these notes as a way of being more aware of myself and as a way to let people see me better. I have wanted always to have you know me better. I still want to do something about my difficulties in communicating with you. So I thought to try this. I don't know what will come of it, but I don't want to spend my life with the anxieties that come with every thought of you. Most people who read these notes come to see me in a completely different way. Somehow I hope this will happen with you. I don't know. We will see. I feel like there is a lot more to say about this but nothing comes to me now. After all these years I still feel incredibly stuck and unable to do anything. Even writing this. Before I started it seemed it would be so simple to just sit down and write everything about how I felt about you, Cheyenne, and when we lived together. But now, at this moment, I can't really express how I feel. It seems at the moment I want to say to you how I feel, I become crippled. Can you believe that I am sitting her, no clothes, it is after 1 in the morning, and I can only stumble for the slightest shadow of how I still feel about you. This is so hard for me. Ten minutes for every sentence. A desperate feeling of failure. I don't know what more to say. Love, Richard.