Originally posted April 15, 2015
As I crossed the border into Detroit border police looked at my coat and jacket suspiciously, why was I so cold? Why was I so cold? Chicago happened the way that Montreal did. Streets and street corners and stay places. They came. From there the ride shares and I make it to the fold of Illinois and Wisconsin. We contemplate drinking the last beer in the trunk of the car. We walk inside instead, move into our bedrooms unravelling sleeping bags from their tight red cocoons. There we are. Four people plus 30 some odd more in a well carpeted softly lit room. It is here that we spend most of our time. It is here that we spent most of our time in silence. I eat only out of bowls to comfort myself. I eat in the morning and not after noon, or is it two? Do we drink tea? I don’t quite remember. I remember Raleigh, and smiling at Rob, but I’m not sure if we met eyes or if I just looked at the back of his balding head. I look for it and can’t find Carrie across the room as we are separated by sex, not gender. We are separated in silence in meditation we are to be separate. Men and women have different energies. Therefore we are to be separated in silence. We are separated in silence. I am placed in the back of the carpeted room next to the coughing woman in the plastic lounge chair. I do not like being placed in the back of the room, I get used to it. I stretch my legs at night as we watch videos telling us what we didn’t realize we had discovered during the day. The carpeting is soft and over the course of the days I realize it is not polite to recline. I eat out of bowls, I remember again, I eat out of bowls and sleep poorly. My mind searches and crawls in the few hours I release it from the reins. I feel okay. My roommate stretches and I watch her. She is wearing green leggings and reaches past her toes toward the red headed woman who runs marathons. I can tell she runs marathons because her souvenir shirts say as much and she slams doors upon entry and exit. I remember seeing Stephanie from time to time from the back of the room. Is she wearing makeup during this? I like her mousey hair and the two buns on either side behind her ears. The woman teacher, the grey white woman teaches by asking us if we understand the technique.
I wonder if my hips will hurt. I wonder if the clothing will be loose enough on my knees. I wonder if sitting will be painful. I wonder if my back will hurt. I wonder if my abdomen is strong enough to hold up my body for the course of time sleeping away from my lover. I wonder how my body will feel I wonder where it will be warm. I do not wonder. I fear but only slightly. Construction will be ongoing. There is talking and noise, talking and noise. There is not doing. There is the tomb of my bed that I sink into leaving an impression of my body which is a depression. There is no paper being made there is no paper touching my fingers and becoming tree putty, no flour. Why is the burner always on? The rice bag in the cactus my tea cups I will miss. My dog. Who will watch his face in the side view mirror as inhales all of the fresh pollen of the countryside. How did we end up in this country side?
In the car I first listened to Margueritte, in the car but first on the computer, Duras. In the car we listen to it and therefore I listen to it because I have company. I have company in my listening and I am turned on to listening because I have fraternity in audience. I understand hands. I understand blue and night and black and water. I, think, I understand negative but, perhaps I do not in any language. There was not much more I got from listening alone. But the streaming words conveying by helped a bit. It is then that I translate it cut and paste in Google and find bramble. The mess of words is difficult to read and so I do not read the translation. I listen to it in the car and hear the car and look over, Sebastian holds the phone and I see car lights and wonder if looking straight ahead isn’t safer and the same. What moves me? This moved me why? Coincidence moves me for it alludes to the divine. Nathanaël’s translation downloads onto the screen. It is typed in a font I like to look at. The short film of blue hands and black night unfolds itself into a nostalgia for solitude. I long for the crystals that made my forehead burn white, and the thumbs when pressed to my breastbone whisper wind, sand, birth and sorrow. “Les mains négatives” moves me because the man was alone. Only because he was alone without company are the palms on the wall the same size they’re all the same size and yet perhaps placed upon the wall by different men, in that Hericlitian way. I wonder how he made the colors and found the cave and I wonder if I’m wondering this in an ethnographic way or as a poetess as someone curious about her own desires about the tracks in life that have drawn off her clothes and on a crown of flowers. Is there silence in prayer? Is fear prayer? How do we silence? Where is the rejoinder? I’m thinking here of Martin Buber. I am thinking about what kind of response we require, how particular each call is. I think of the mourning dove that lives in the cypress trees behind my back door. The first time I heard him I thought it was an owl and intrigue died a bit when I realized it was a pigeon. I saw the neighbor’s dogs chained in the back and I saw a dove start and I saw the only one of the doves call until one day I saw them both calling and they called and I called in the same way. They are accustomed to calling to each other. Were they calling to me? I think of a time when one tries to call out and no voice is uttered. Perhaps in the Zone del Silencio. Perhaps Melik Ohanian records nothing and therefore nothing is recorded. Perhaps he forgets to turn the sound on and mistakes this for the moving fields of energy that block communication. Jealousy and rage block communication, as does an eyelash in the eye or a sneeze. In New Zealand I captured my first film as a series of vignettes of moments of the cat running up the stairs of my neighbor coming home from the bakery at 5 in the morning when the loaves are done and his shift ends. Colin plays golf. Colin smokes opium. Colin flirts. I didn’t have the microphone on to record Colin blowing rolled cigarette smoke into the garden where only wax beans grew. Accidentally, the movie was silent. It wasn’t good and the visuals were not satisfactory to negate the use of sound. This is not a diary. This is me understanding through my memory. This is me understanding through my memory and my body and my experience what it is to be silent what it is to capture, what is the capture.
“Everything is crushed” (Les mains négatives,Duras, tr. Nathanaël).
Open your hands and find nothing. What is memory distilled but to reach out to squish a mosquito and relish at the sight of blood in your fingers and in the same way release your fist to find no blood on fingers and find you didn’t catch him you didn’t kill him. He is still flying somewhere and hopefully your attempt scared him from ever biting again. Perhaps Zone of Silence moves around. Perhaps you can or cannot photograph or cannot record the sound of a desert vacuum. Either way there is a plot of land that exists in silence. It is to be found for the sound waves come barreling towards you, the intrusion of these waves on your eardrums, tender caverns, wail out in affection. The original call is an infant for her mother. She learns her voice through her desire. I do not like to think of puppets, with teeth blackened in Japan (In Praise, Tanizaki) or puppets through Nietzsche’s life work (Ventriloquism, Goldblatt). Though the metaphor of marionette is at times appealing, the image of one practicing such an act before it is performed is too near to molestation and perversion. I mention this distaste because I see maternity played out as a puppet show, all soft felt plush and double stitching. The mother that is activated by her own fertility, and spoken through by the production of an infant’s nutrition. A child cries out for her mother before she cries out for her lover. A lover that, as far as experience has shown me, causes her to cry out continuously. Our hand-painter however cries out perhaps to a lover or perhaps to his God. The unrequited realization of a love renewed with each tragedy for a power than can relieve it.
These hands
the blue of the water
the black of the sky
Flat
Placed spread upon the gray granite
For someone to have seen them
-Duras, tr. Nathanaël
Imagining a spirit that, driving the waves that carved the very cave in which he stands, he calls out for his lover, his god to relieve him from his anonymity.
Post script In Nathanaël’s lecture on Shadows, she notes the gender in the original French of the one that calls and the one called out to. Without this information, I read it both as amorous and prayer-like. With this information, I read the translation as son to mother, son to mother-god, man to female beloved.
As I crossed the border into Detroit border police looked at my coat and jacket suspiciously, why was I so cold? Why was I so cold? Chicago happened the way that Montreal did. Streets and street corners and stay places. They came. From there the ride shares and I make it to the fold of Illinois and Wisconsin. We contemplate drinking the last beer in the trunk of the car. We walk inside instead, move into our bedrooms unravelling sleeping bags from their tight red cocoons. There we are. Four people plus 30 some odd more in a well carpeted softly lit room. It is here that we spend most of our time. It is here that we spent most of our time in silence. I eat only out of bowls to comfort myself. I eat in the morning and not after noon, or is it two? Do we drink tea? I don’t quite remember. I remember Raleigh, and smiling at Rob, but I’m not sure if we met eyes or if I just looked at the back of his balding head. I look for it and can’t find Carrie across the room as we are separated by sex, not gender. We are separated in silence in meditation we are to be separate. Men and women have different energies. Therefore we are to be separated in silence. We are separated in silence. I am placed in the back of the carpeted room next to the coughing woman in the plastic lounge chair. I do not like being placed in the back of the room, I get used to it. I stretch my legs at night as we watch videos telling us what we didn’t realize we had discovered during the day. The carpeting is soft and over the course of the days I realize it is not polite to recline. I eat out of bowls, I remember again, I eat out of bowls and sleep poorly. My mind searches and crawls in the few hours I release it from the reins. I feel okay. My roommate stretches and I watch her. She is wearing green leggings and reaches past her toes toward the red headed woman who runs marathons. I can tell she runs marathons because her souvenir shirts say as much and she slams doors upon entry and exit. I remember seeing Stephanie from time to time from the back of the room. Is she wearing makeup during this? I like her mousey hair and the two buns on either side behind her ears. The woman teacher, the grey white woman teaches by asking us if we understand the technique.
I wonder if my hips will hurt. I wonder if the clothing will be loose enough on my knees. I wonder if sitting will be painful. I wonder if my back will hurt. I wonder if my abdomen is strong enough to hold up my body for the course of time sleeping away from my lover. I wonder how my body will feel I wonder where it will be warm. I do not wonder. I fear but only slightly. Construction will be ongoing. There is talking and noise, talking and noise. There is not doing. There is the tomb of my bed that I sink into leaving an impression of my body which is a depression. There is no paper being made there is no paper touching my fingers and becoming tree putty, no flour. Why is the burner always on? The rice bag in the cactus my tea cups I will miss. My dog. Who will watch his face in the side view mirror as inhales all of the fresh pollen of the countryside. How did we end up in this country side?
In the car I first listened to Margueritte, in the car but first on the computer, Duras. In the car we listen to it and therefore I listen to it because I have company. I have company in my listening and I am turned on to listening because I have fraternity in audience. I understand hands. I understand blue and night and black and water. I, think, I understand negative but, perhaps I do not in any language. There was not much more I got from listening alone. But the streaming words conveying by helped a bit. It is then that I translate it cut and paste in Google and find bramble. The mess of words is difficult to read and so I do not read the translation. I listen to it in the car and hear the car and look over, Sebastian holds the phone and I see car lights and wonder if looking straight ahead isn’t safer and the same. What moves me? This moved me why? Coincidence moves me for it alludes to the divine. Nathanaël’s translation downloads onto the screen. It is typed in a font I like to look at. The short film of blue hands and black night unfolds itself into a nostalgia for solitude. I long for the crystals that made my forehead burn white, and the thumbs when pressed to my breastbone whisper wind, sand, birth and sorrow. “Les mains négatives” moves me because the man was alone. Only because he was alone without company are the palms on the wall the same size they’re all the same size and yet perhaps placed upon the wall by different men, in that Hericlitian way. I wonder how he made the colors and found the cave and I wonder if I’m wondering this in an ethnographic way or as a poetess as someone curious about her own desires about the tracks in life that have drawn off her clothes and on a crown of flowers. Is there silence in prayer? Is fear prayer? How do we silence? Where is the rejoinder? I’m thinking here of Martin Buber. I am thinking about what kind of response we require, how particular each call is. I think of the mourning dove that lives in the cypress trees behind my back door. The first time I heard him I thought it was an owl and intrigue died a bit when I realized it was a pigeon. I saw the neighbor’s dogs chained in the back and I saw a dove start and I saw the only one of the doves call until one day I saw them both calling and they called and I called in the same way. They are accustomed to calling to each other. Were they calling to me? I think of a time when one tries to call out and no voice is uttered. Perhaps in the Zone del Silencio. Perhaps Melik Ohanian records nothing and therefore nothing is recorded. Perhaps he forgets to turn the sound on and mistakes this for the moving fields of energy that block communication. Jealousy and rage block communication, as does an eyelash in the eye or a sneeze. In New Zealand I captured my first film as a series of vignettes of moments of the cat running up the stairs of my neighbor coming home from the bakery at 5 in the morning when the loaves are done and his shift ends. Colin plays golf. Colin smokes opium. Colin flirts. I didn’t have the microphone on to record Colin blowing rolled cigarette smoke into the garden where only wax beans grew. Accidentally, the movie was silent. It wasn’t good and the visuals were not satisfactory to negate the use of sound. This is not a diary. This is me understanding through my memory. This is me understanding through my memory and my body and my experience what it is to be silent what it is to capture, what is the capture.
“Everything is crushed” (Les mains négatives,Duras, tr. Nathanaël).
Open your hands and find nothing. What is memory distilled but to reach out to squish a mosquito and relish at the sight of blood in your fingers and in the same way release your fist to find no blood on fingers and find you didn’t catch him you didn’t kill him. He is still flying somewhere and hopefully your attempt scared him from ever biting again. Perhaps Zone of Silence moves around. Perhaps you can or cannot photograph or cannot record the sound of a desert vacuum. Either way there is a plot of land that exists in silence. It is to be found for the sound waves come barreling towards you, the intrusion of these waves on your eardrums, tender caverns, wail out in affection. The original call is an infant for her mother. She learns her voice through her desire. I do not like to think of puppets, with teeth blackened in Japan (In Praise, Tanizaki) or puppets through Nietzsche’s life work (Ventriloquism, Goldblatt). Though the metaphor of marionette is at times appealing, the image of one practicing such an act before it is performed is too near to molestation and perversion. I mention this distaste because I see maternity played out as a puppet show, all soft felt plush and double stitching. The mother that is activated by her own fertility, and spoken through by the production of an infant’s nutrition. A child cries out for her mother before she cries out for her lover. A lover that, as far as experience has shown me, causes her to cry out continuously. Our hand-painter however cries out perhaps to a lover or perhaps to his God. The unrequited realization of a love renewed with each tragedy for a power than can relieve it.
These hands
the blue of the water
the black of the sky
Flat
Placed spread upon the gray granite
For someone to have seen them
-Duras, tr. Nathanaël
Imagining a spirit that, driving the waves that carved the very cave in which he stands, he calls out for his lover, his god to relieve him from his anonymity.
Post script In Nathanaël’s lecture on Shadows, she notes the gender in the original French of the one that calls and the one called out to. Without this information, I read it both as amorous and prayer-like. With this information, I read the translation as son to mother, son to mother-god, man to female beloved.
