Summer’s arrived, but it’s too bright, there’s too much light. I spent the day in the office and now I’m home. And as I thought this morning, I should mark this day. There’s something I want to say. But too many false starts. Can’t get there – to what I want to say. And I think to myself instead: I’m going to have to sit this one out.
To sit it out – how many hours before bedtime? And this bottle of wine nearly gone. How many hours? Ah, I feel dazed, tired. I felt tired this morning, so I had to take myself off. I went to the office; worked. Thought: I might as well do something, even if I’m tired. And there’s no temptations in the office. Nothing to keep me from work.
But now I’m home. You have to come home in the end. And to me, home means: another kind of work, or time preparatory to work. Because there’s only work. You have to go forward in some way, I tell myself. To take some kind of step, all of you, I tell myself. And I opened a bottle of wine – and drank.
I have my Jandek albums here, that is my good fortune. All of them in a row on my gas heater – what happiness. And I can mark each day by listening to another album, I’m saving them up. Happiness: Jandek’s black on black, his brown on brown. The grey on grey of his music. Painting with few, few colours. And yet those colours are enough.
What matters is to go on, to continue. To work, blessed work. To double up despair, to give it shape. To give it a body – and isn’t that a kind of joy? To make – isn’t that joy? To rise from despair just enough to – sing? To – play? Isn’t that joy enough, the exultance of your powers. Your unexpected powers, even there, close to despair. Even close to the end, still powers. What glory, to be able to make. To play – to sing. What a surprise, to be capable of that.
And I’m home. The flat around me like a cloak. empty space. The washing machine and kitchen furniture in the lounge, stranded. The microwave covered over with a blanket. And green bananas on top of them. And grapes cooling in the fridge. And Jandek. First, The End of it All, and then – a favourite – A Kingdom He Likes. Ah, Jandek. Jandek to get through these difficult hours, these threshold hours that I’ve never liked. That separate afternoon from evening.
Didn’t I have something to say? Wasn’t there something? It came to me last night. Last night, I thought: that’s it. The thought seemed hollow. It had hollowed itself out. I thought: it’s like a sculpture, that thought. I was happy, because I was capable of thinking it. It just fell into me, that thought. But I was ready, somehow. Somehow I was primed, ready. I was waiting. In the flat, the silent flat, where the mirror on the open door of the medicine cabinet shows me unexpectedly as I go up the hallway. I see myself – unexpectedly. Someone is here; that’s my body. Ah – I am here. But am I here?
But I had something to say. I thought: that’s something at least. And waited. Because it wasn’t time to write, not then. I hadn’t the energy. The propensity. No point beginning. Save it for the morning, I thought. Save it for early on, rise early, and write it out. Try to find it, by writing. Try to approach it in the right idiom. Find the right idiom, and then approach it.
But when I woke – nothing. When I woke – a new tiredness, a tiredness within tiredness. Hadn’t I made it until six thirty? Hadn’t I slept all the way to six thirty? Wasn’t I rested enough? Wasn’t it bright enough, already, outside, in the summer sun? Wasn’t it bright enough in this indecent summer that spreads light everywhere, everywhere, and knows no secrets?
But there was nothing when I woke. I woke like a corpse. I woke up, and lay there, appalled like a corpse. Thought: is this it? is this waking up? Is this the morning? Is this what I’ve woken into? Light everywhere? The indecency of light, showing everything? Waiting for me? Light as though it had always been light? Light since the day of creation?
I wanted to slip back behind it. Wanted to reach behind the dawn, to accompany it. To know that at least there was darkness. Darkness – what happened to that? Night – where’s night gone? Because it’s too bright. I’m home from work, from the office, and it’s too damn bright. There’s no secrets.
No need for a table light. No cone of light in which to write. And the curtains, really, have to be open. And the whole flat exposed. To no one in particular – who’s interested? – but still open. As though it were undone. As though the walls were made of glass. You can see in, and see out. That’s the tyranny of light. Sight reaches everywhere. No secrets, no walls. Everywhere can be seen.
What happened to my thought? Where is it? But I’m not worthy of it now. Sit this one out, I told myself. Sit out this day, I thought this morning. Just as I thought last night: sit this one out. Wait, I thought. You’ll have energy tomorrow, I thought. Energy on rising, I thought.
But as I woke I thought: there’s no energy here. None in these limbs and this body. There’s nothing going on here, I thought. Another day to sit out, I thought. Another day in lieu of – work. Of real work, essential work. Of the going forward. Or of the illusion of going forward. Of the illusion of beginning, I thought. When in fact there were never any beginnings, I thought. And no work, I thought. And no thought, not even the beginnings of that. No thought.
I’m woozy now. I’m half drunkenly stubborn. I’ll stagger on in writing regardless, I think to myself. Stagger on, I think. Go on. Think, I think. Go on, I think. For laughs, I think. For your own amusement, I think. For the amusement of no one, I think. No one but you, I think. But at least I find it funny, I think. At least it amuses me, I think. As I type. And type very quickly as I always do, I think.
But what of my thought? What of it – my thought, that thought which came to me? Perhaps it isn’t really mine. Perhaps it just fell like an angel, and isn’t mine. But it’s there inside me. It’s there, I know its presence. I should write about it. Should write it out. But I can’t quite do it. I’m not quite up it. This idiom – isn’t right. You have to find the idiom, and this one isn’t right somehow, there’s nothing it can welcome, I think.
It isn’t capable of that, of welcoming, I think. It can’t play the host, I think. So I’ll have to sit this one out, I think. Sit it out and wait, and maybe everything will be different tomorrow, I think. Maybe everything will be different tomorrow and beginnings will bloom and thoughts will fly and fingers rush over the keyboard, I think. You’ll have to sit this one out, I think.
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