Suse, I wrote a response, but it just sounded
glib when I read it before sending it, so I didn’t. But just so you know, I am thinking about
you and I care. Allan From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of suse Pardon this rant--I know I shouldn't --ignor it of course if
you like--perhaps it is not fluxus related--been ranting for days--spose I need
a blog. Anyway, I am over and out fer awhile again after this one... so don't
fret Grizzly Girl Or The
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Or The Two Americas Revisited, Or How I became a Street Thug by Suse Allison I recently and intensely experienced a fall common to the
humanoid; The dreaded dark night of the soul. What makes this particularly
dangerous for me in particular is that I like to hit bottom. I don't
know about other people, but I am almost happy when I finally hit bottom. I act
it out with a joie de vivre that only the French can make sound as delectable
as it is. Seems a paradox, no? Believe me, the falling itself is agony, the
subtle, daily, slip-sliding is no picnic. Ah, but hitting the bottom somehow
feels like home again. I am ready now, here, in desperation to march down the
Middle of Main Street. I remember a movie poster from the early 60's. A lithograph
featuring a gigantic woman, crushing the highways, picking up cars in her hands
with vicious intent. I never saw the movie but the movie poster was enough; her
sneer is what I feel. Her deranged scowl as she wreaks havoc on the
civilized world is exactly what I have in mind. I am ready again, to March down the Middle of Main
street--against traffic, just like Vesta Thomas used to do. Or As his friends
call him, Vesta Arresta--so called for having the longest arrest record in
Middletown History. Others call him bear, because they know him as one of the
warmest, gentlest in Middletown History. So, what started the fall? I quit my job. Quitting a job is
something I have been warned since childhood to never, ever, do. It is like
jumping off a moving train or boat-- you will never catch up again. You need to
wait until you get to a junction, a station to change trains, or a life boat at
least to get you to the next place. Something. You don't just quit your job.
Well, I did. I knew I would find other work. And I did. The only problem is
that having been diagnosed with breast cancer and the subsequent surgeries and
treatments have left me in reduced capacity to work--at least temporarily.
Still, if you are living simply, as we do, one missed paycheck begins a
devastating downward spiral as the paychecks disappear completely. An epidemic
of famine hits the home finance department and tensions rise, things taken for
granted become precious. And yet, I have done it before. Am I just that selfish? Of
course I am--it is another way to beat yourself over the head as your outlook
follows your finances into the abysmal downward spiral. I have jumped
off the train before and the adventures I have had along the railroad tracks
have been some of the most intensely beautiful moments of my life. The paradox
again is that those moments give you back reason for staying on the train again
in the first place. As you watch it disappearing round the bend. Affirmations of living are important to those who dwell
often in melancholy. We would trade our lives for but a moment in the sun. But
then comes remembrance, responsibility and the emotions that tie us to this
earth. The fantasy, it turns out is not enough, a return to obscure torture is
demanded.( remanded?) But the long dark night of the soul, after three or four
sunrises does not seem so bad. It is no mystery to me why so many of the
earliest religions worshipped the sun. What a super-yang-spirit-phenomenon with
an accountability record like no other--except the moon. The moon! Ah, the moon! The Sumerians called her Sin. What a
sultry-yin-spirit-perfectly diametrically opposed orb, with a compassion and
regard like no other--except the sun! And when both are full and round, one
comes up as the other goes down... So, why is one of the subtitles of this essay The two Well, because when you are sliding down the slippery slope
from security to despair, or, as in my case, you've already hit bottom-- you
encounter and entirely different set of connections and possibilities. Points
of view become clear from which you were previously occluded. At least in my
experience, a stirring of compassion, not just the daily kind, with which you
commiserate with acquaintances over casually--but the electrifying kind, the feel
it in the blood kind, that makes you compassionate with the oppressed, or the
starving, or the brutalized, or the merely innocent. It is not always apparent either. I am certain that others
feel it. We only need to pay attention to the rants and tirades in
our own speech. What angers you when you read the newspaper or watch the
evening news?. Is it Abu graib? It is prices? Is it another politician
revealed? It is when you begin to rail out loud when no one is around--it is
during those moments when you most locate your brothers and sisters; your
kindred spirits. Those who endure what you endure. Who have perhaps been
enduring it for ages, or who will most likely have to endure further because
nothing is being done. You lash at your future, their past. You fight the
discrepancies in your own life choices--how you sold out--how you participate
in your own downfall. You shovel yourself from hovel to hovel in absurd and
desperate acts. Vast confusion obscures the way to proceed.And so life can
become an absurdists joke, and all you can do is try to keep it real, do you
know what I am saying? Or, you can join in solidarity with those with whom you
feel most alike with. There are forces which beckon at your door. Is it a wolf?
Are the wolves at the door? Bloody likely. Are they looking for food, a
leader or a mate? Perhaps none. Perhaps all. I find that I want to become a street thug. If my life
were a story then the appropriate way to end this story, or at least chapter,
would be for me to become a street thug; then everyone would live happily ever
after. As the Swedish American poet Lennart Bruce once wrote: '...there are occasions when a "lawless" community
becomes more humane than a "society of law and order." When
reaching such a community's deepest layers, there sometimes remains a latitude
for benevolence in its original form, free of legal technicalities, a pure
compassion under utterly harsh conditions, a necessary goodness that emanates
from the depths of the human soul." (From the introduction to The Second
Light: Vilhelm Ekelund). This describes one of the two The haves are on corporate retreats right now; they are
taking their annual sales meetings down in The have-nots, well, they are mostly taking care of each
other's children or parents because there is just not enough money,
room, or food. The original struggle was subsumed by subsequent struggles.
Too frequent are the times when you just want to kill someone who calls you a
name, or who is already killing in the name of your country. The have-nots
cannot afford so many funerals. I want to walk down the middle of |
- FLUXLIST: Grizzly Girl/Pardon the interruption suse
- Re: FLUXLIST: Grizzly Girl/Pardon the interruption Ann Klefstad
- RE: FLUXLIST: Grizzly Girl/Pardon the interruption Allan Revich