C.G. Jung - “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
Not a path i would recommend to many, but if you wish to suck the life blood of the essence of your existence, i haven’t found a more honest declaration of the terms and conditions for awakening. The difficulty is that there is no guide but yourself and what you feel. I have averred and attributed to others so much of what i feel for so long, it is a challenge just to feel and dwell with what i find. Social creature that i am in spite of my recluse ways, it’s become more than interesting to discover how others respond to my best efforts to stand naked without apology or demand. Music remains a solace, and Madame Paradox in her infinite wisdom has bestowed the “the tin ear” of our planet to me, so i am left with sole pleasure of plunging my last cogent tendrils as deep as i may into the melodic pistil nearest my heartstring - just now it is “Murder Most Foul” - Bob Dylan ·
Storm #8 is banking its fires just off shore and my landlady is understandably ignoring my concerns about the mold growing from the leaking ceilings on 60% of a domicile i pay too much for even prior to the the Covid vacancies. Suffering seems to be a perfect topic to listen to Mr. Dylan serenade the ghost of a dead John Kennedy. I can’t blame people i meet for being frightened; ironically it never occurred to me that anyone but those i’d deliberately menace for no more than distance or time to make an escape until a woman i grieve for not knowing whether she breathes or is dead in the hunting cabin she enticed me back to in the city i was raised, suggested to me “it may be that people are afraid of you.” We didn’t quite parse that move far enough to surmount the bugaboo of flesh on flesh after i'd learned that all she wanted was an escort for her corpse out the door and someone to sweep up the detritus so’s that her “loving son” would not be inconvenienced. I was too far gone down the existential rabbit hole to countenance such a con - but remain grateful for that important lesson so late in life.
More grateful that the first thing that occurred to me after setting my kettle of vittles on and spritzing the vinegar on the ceilings of an investment property apparently believed by the owners will magically repair itself and that i will continue overpaying for the privilege of being rained on and having to send my laundry out because there is no room dry enough or free from mold such that i can wash clothes and expect them to dry within 2 days is concern for those who are far worse off than i, and what can i do to help? I no longer feel like a chump being touched by sharper characters because they confuse my kindness for an easy touch, rather i am more discriminating about discerning the con from the beleaguered. This may be because i do not parade my misery for a purpose or that i am willing to share my discomfort more openly because i realize how connected we all are; if it could be that - i am just too fucking tired anymore to care.
- care about how i appear · yet when i bagged my clothes to send to my friend’s newly launched laundry service, i realized i had been parading the “greasy stain” one gets from too long on the bicycle without paying careful attention to one’s retreat, part of the joys and pleasures of living in a too damp environment that has been over moist, for over long. Mine is a minor complaint compared to the 1,000s of displaced families from the recent floods - but does that makes my suffering any less, nor a basis for my landlady to ignore my requests that she attend to her moldy ceilings or release me to find healthier lodgings. Though how i could ever find lodgings healthier than a back door i can call ducks home to thinking i’m helping my stalwart farmer friends, or where i can contribute to the local economy by contracting with their enterprising, genial and entirely excellent son’s laundry service while enjoying the benefit of cultural wisdom one cannot gain by any other means than living in the midst of it, is doubtful.
So, where to die - in the tradition of my much admired Lakota Sioux brethren i would pick my time and wander out to find the place where the “great spirit” will accept my skin back into the spiritual realm of all creatures, great and small. The best i can hope for today, here and now is that my laundry load has not proven so great that the pittance they will accept for the great benefit of exchanging damp and sullied clothes for dry and folded cloth is of more benefit to my friends than it is to me - and to me that is an excellent exchange whatever the cost. Next Day: true to form, my friend’s delivered the cleanest and driest laundry i’ve had in the year and 3 months i’ve lived here, and as expected they would not accept a farthing more for a service that provided sleep at the onset of another storm, #8 in as many weeks. My landlords having gorged themselves on my latest rental payment are nowhere to be found now that the walls and ceilings in 60% of my boutique villa are oozing mold, and all i can do is cling to my dry sheets hoping i do not wake up to another creek in the hallway. I’m reluctant to ventilate with open windows and doors until the “all clear" is given, but have no one i can trust for good counsel about how much mold on the walls is considered tolerable or whether as a foreign devil i even enjoy the right to object to what i consider “unhealthy” conditions. now to begin the next day’s paragraphs with joy in my heart and hope in my imagination . ..
jts 24/10/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
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