Wood And Water – Part 4
{- Continuing from Part 3” {Here} -}{-there are 4 parts-}
{- prosodic short story stone riley creative commons 2020 the creds are at bottom -}{-a short story of beginnings-}
[:: The lady is remembering a bird that only chirped and twitched its wings, and vanished in the light of a snowy mountain’s forest air, and the lady exclaims to us.. “So I was staring at the empty space where a living thing had been before!” ::]
Of course this pierced me to the heart – I must have sighed or cried out something with the shock – but he whispered just as urgently, “All right. And now the light! Open your eyes wider and let the light through!”
Oh, frustration beyond measure. Yes, I saw the light in the hanging water drips where it was glimmering every color light and darkness. It was glistening in the sunlit crystals of the little heaps of snow.
I could smell infinity, the moist and burning light. It flashed out of the falling drops and wove a sort of web of jewels, just like I’d later hear the Buddhists say, before me and around me from the very air which tasted on my tongue with every breath.
I could have reached and touched the universe with fingertips or held the source and sum of everything nestled for a moment in my hand. But at that time there seemed to be no solid substance to it.
Try as I might, I could not hook into it with my eyes to pull it inward through my eyes into my skull inside this bag of quivering human skin. My dear dear rage was a solid thing which filled me, and the fear which, of course, I now felt was the heat which had my living anger boil like lava. But at least I was alive.
There was no room inside of me for light.
Oh, youth is wasted on the young. I was so earnest, such a simpleton as well. Bless the child I was. That year, with all that boiling stuff, I could have simply let the universe come flashing out from me to find itself. I could have let it through flashing outward instead of in.
But what are years to spend? The learning is the treasure and soon enough I would learn.
In any case, you’ll understand, this spiritual exercise was utterly exhausting. I was holding down the rage and fear with all my strength and meanwhile also reaching out to try and seize the universe.
Good thing I’d had a solid meal. Good thing the fellow held me up. Perhaps it was just the sex simmering between us, but truth to tell, I never found another yogi half as good as him, and he self-learned in those beautiful Kentucky mountains. But finally I must shake my head, despairing of it.
And he said, “You’ll get it.” There was a most surprising mixture of respect and compassion mingling in his lovely voice.
Would I? Ever?
“Yes,” he said, “because it’s easy when you finally get it figured.” And he said, “You’re not scared of it.”
“It’s beautiful!” I cried.
Were people frightened of it? Yes, of course I understood at once that’s why there are so many lies about it, people saying they can sell it to you in a jar and that kind of thing. But that was not this fellow’s line of merchandise at all.
And so of course I took another look at him. I’m sure I pushed away to arms length to look him up and down. There I was now come to my senses in this world again, yearning for a universe, and leaning on this most amazing person who had simply pointed toward everything which at that moment I was capable to see.
Perhaps the best, he had let me show myself to me.
He had stood up to the rage without a flinch. He had stood up to the possibilities of what some lunatic might do there in the yard behind the kitchen. Ye gods! For all he knew, I could have murdered him.
In actuality, to tell the truth, for all which one can say about it now, some ridiculous moon-struck widow might have pulled a heavy little bulldog pistol from her pocket and left a perfectly innocent fellow lying in a pool of blood.
Some different fellow than he was, and perhaps I might have done.
But none of that was in his face or manner. There was simply concern for me written all over him, in his hands that held my body firmly and the way he leaned his head and knit his brows and searched my face for any sign of pain.
Well, then, was there some possibility that I would be like that some day? Me? Me as Florence Nightingale?
One thinks not. Scarcely. If me a yogi, why not Cleopatra or Marie Antoinette?
But him. Him! What a decent chap! Not Lancelot at all but really more of Chaucer’s knight in fustian tunic. Yes, I must come back here some day and tup him well, just for proper courtesy if nothing else. Damsel in distress, and all of that!
And so of course I asked him then, “What is it like to live without fear?”
“Oh . . .” he said, “there’s still things I’m scared of.”
“No,” I said, “not like it was before.”
“No,” he said, “not like it was before.”
“You have to tell me.”
“Oh . . .” he said again, “There’s nothing to it. You want to know? What it’s like?”
What frustration! What was the magic formula for living as he did? How does one walk about the world immersed in wonder? I fairly shouted, “Tell me!”
“Well . . .” he answered finally, “the best that I can say is something from a book I have. Before I come back from the war you see, I slummed around over there and picked stuff up, some books, this one in particular. I could show it to you sometime.”
“Talk!” I demanded.
“Oh, well, see there’s a little story. It’s in China …”
“China!” no doubt I screamed.
“Yes, and at the end it says is this . . .”
He glanced about the place there where we stood. Did he mean to indicate this place and time – this world – or was he watching out for spies eavesdropping on the secret?
Then with a smile which started very small but grew across his face as though it snuck from hiding somewhere, he spoke slowly, maybe savoring the words.
“Before you let the light go through, you chop wood and carry water. Then after you let the light go through …”
So he was laughing nearly. He glanced about the place again and gestured toward it all to prompt me to complete the thought.
I had to smile with him, from his smile and from all that was obvious around us there. I saw he hoped that I would get it. How many did? Directions for a fearless life of knowledge of the beautiful? The formula to transmutate your soul from gross to gold? The eternal recipe for worlds of wonder?
I rather grinned and nodded, struggling to force the words out past a laugh …
“After you let the light go through, you chop wood and carry water.”
Chapter two:
Bohos – that was grand. We really tried our hands at everything you can imagine. Unfortunately, my paintings were horrid. Bert Stein – he was a friend of mine – you must have heard of him; they have some of his things at the Boston – the homosexual cowboy painter. He tried to break it to me gently by saying it was true my composition was “jejune” but my coloring was interesting. They were atrocious.
But amateur theatricals, that’s where I made my mark. Dancing naked! Bert and I and some others – was it Dottie? – there was Ike of course – we did a send-up of Rites of Spring at a Hollywood garden party once. Of course I produced and directed and danced the lead. I even got the orchestra stripped off to their undershirts at least.
Hilarious. What an entrance! Silk scarves and peacock feathers entirely! The crowd roared. What a riot.
Of course we drank far too much and smoked bales of marijuana. There were some suicides and auto crashes. There were some botched abortions. It was the Great Depression and independent artists didn’t eat. We were a bony orphan crew but childish fun was free.
It’s a good thing Boston Trust kept sending those widow pension checks my dear Bill left. Our crowd waited for those beautiful telegrams; that’s when we’d eat.
That was California in the thirties.
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{- End Of “Wood And Water” -}
{-Creds.. This is from my book.. “Tales Of Men And Women”
.. .. Its overview page .. {-Here-} -}
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