Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold,
Let it be forgotten for ever and ever,
Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.
If anyone asks, say it was forgotten
Long and long ago,
As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall
In a long forgotten snow.--Sara Teasdale
I have a place on my left hand, between my index and my middle finger. It's the place where I, aged four or so, cut myself with a sharp knife. The stitch seams, never removed, rest there still.
I have a vague memory of what happened--of pushing a knife through sofa foam, trying to make the foam encapsulate the knife each time. I have the realization that my game was not only not wise but also in all likelihood quite unsuccessful, although, with hindsight, I suspect it was quite colorful in tis time, in a crimson or scarlet way.
I deal in secrets. I've written many times before that when one learns secrets, one comes to realize that all secrets are incredibly banal. I am not sure that banality is altogether a bad thing. So many times what is needed is sheer story, and banal stories often make quite intriguing yarns.
So many times people live lives filled with secrets and self-deceptions. Save me from anything, other than the truth about myself. Some people avoid the truth in a gauzy haze of excessive postive thinking. Some people avoid the truth rather more perversely, by assuming they live in a universe much more pre-occupied with their doings and personal drama than ever could possibly be the case. They self-deceive themselves into despair, the ultimate Hades drink to allow one to sip right past the laughter and move on to the forgetting. Forget goals, forget dreams, forget aspirations. Deceive oneself that there is no worthy way to fill the time. In time, the time passes. The half-life decays. The moment decays.
Part of me wants to write that I wish I was the kind of person who could help people erase their self-deceptions. As I sit in my spare room, filled, despite good intentions, with junk and needless things, such a wish is wish-projection at its worst.
Yet perhaps there is hope to be found in my so-called hopeless challenges. Perhaps there are bits of me, amid the packrat's horde here, waiting to be discovered. Deconstruction. Sorting bits. Pull out the bacteen, clean the inner wounds. Examine the bits, and try to find a whole. Then awake tomorrow, to try again.
Drive Alone--"Bit of Me"