Something wonderfully unusual seems to be happening…
My younger writings emerge, as if they still had something to say, and I seem to understand the words in light that is quite a bit more fun than then!
I blame it all on the philosophy texts I have been reading for the past oh I would say three years… the latest catalysts?! Inside and not outside?
Many years ago, a friend of mine pointed me in the direction of Norman Brown, James Hillman and eventually, philosopher Gilles Deleuze and his buddy, Pierre-Felix Guattari. I resisted, tried to follow, they enticed, but none of them clicked entirely.
Then slowly I discovered Donna Haraway, Iris Irigaray, and a myriad of thinking women in music I knew almost nothing about. They clicked better.
Reconnected with my earlier yearnings, and more at peace with what I imagine is the way I want to go when I die – not so different from like I live now, growing flowers and weeds, waiting for caterpillars, underground bees and silk ties, in this almost infinite and very imperfect daily search for beauty, still a word acceptable…
With an old favorite image of a young woman poking through the membranes of the multi verses… Not so: it turns out this is instead an engraving of an old monk dressed in a scarlet robe!!
I have newer fountains in me. (Still grounded, of course, and still forbidden a bit by my prejudices against Saxon, Latin and Greek men, intentionally shaping their worded grammatical worlds…on to their own reflections and icons)
To the newness of the fountains…may all the stories come to life:
The Uni verse is hidden inside the beginnings of the Stories for Childwoman, published here last week.
THE UNI VERSE
(LARGE MOBILES BUILT FROM CLOCK PIECES, WHEELS HANGING FROM THE HEIGHTS START TO MOVE SLOWLY ALL OVER THE STAGE. THE WHEEL STRUCTURES ARE MADE OF BLACK LACE, MARRIAGE OF VEIL TO TECHNOLOGY. SCREEN PROJECTIONS OF WOMEN MAKING LACE THE OLD FASHION WAY, WITH PEGS, LIKE IN MEAIPE.)
She had a certainty about the universe.
The universe, huge space in time,
made out entirely of interchangeable parts.
Recycling station where we, in illusion, thought we were unique.
Yet where we fitted like clogs on wheel,
like wave on shore,
like palm on fist,
like interlace,
Where we could be replaced at will,
exchanged one for the other.
The universe, this place in time so big,
it could contain all variation,
all distribution, all permutation.
a paradoxical verse in spare parts.
She, the seeker of connotations, these butterflies,
she wanted all of these beauties,
the blue azure, the other ones, background in white,
black of foreground meshed into gray.
She wanted these floating connotations!
Inside her body, she wanted all, these connotations,
just like tattoos, these variations.
(BUTTERFLY TATOOING DANCE IN BACKGROUND. GRANDMOTHER RESUMES TELLING OF STORY. LIGHTS FOCUS ON CHILDWOMAN'S DEN. HER CAVE WAY UP ON LEFT STAGE. ALL TALISMANS FROM HER SEARCHES CREATING SHIFTING VISUAL EFFECTS - SNAKE SKINS TURNING AND REVEALING TEXTURE, ENLARGED GRAIN OF FISH SKIN, SEED PODS, BROWNS, BEIGES OF LATE FALL AND WINTER HARVESTS.)
(CHILDWOMAN ACTS SOME OF THESE NOTIONS AS GRANDMOTHER CONTINUES TO TELL THE TALE)…
…tune in to part 1 of the Stories for Childwoman, here.
And … coming soon …
Part 2 of Stories for Childwoman, when she goes to UNI-VERSITY, a place quite different from her UNI VERSE.
Childwoman goes to uni-versity
Uni-versity, the place to learn about single thoughts. The place where you can also learn much about some of the best about divorced thoughts. From exile in uni-versity she learns about concepts mostly, her heart is placed on a platter and taken to the nearest lab for deep freeze. Later, she is told, upon payment of a modest fee or a very large sum, depending upon her yearnings, she could retrieve her feelings and unfreeze them…
my god erica this is WONDERFUL