I, Priestess (8)

I, PRIESTESS (8)

Now.

My utopia was generally going quite well: exciting, exhilarating.

Life-affirmingly swell.

So.

I took the carpet and underlay (which we'd removed very happily in less than a day) to the tip.

Should've paid for a skip. (Why, on earth, do we acquire so much idiot shit, when we only throw it away?)

The trip to the tip sort of ruined my day.

I downed a gin and hit the hay.

I, Priestess (7)

I, PRIESTESS (7)

With utopia, comes the promise of ascension.

Today we created my stairway to heaven. We pulled up the carpet and underlay. Wrenched out all the staples, prised tack-strips away from the plywood beneath that requires little sanding. (I'm thinking of varnishing or, maybe, just painting.)

Masks still on our faces, we hoovered and swept. Scraped off the detritus (dust stuck to the paint). We lever-ed out cable-tacks left from BT.

I have to admit that it makes me quite happy to bring down a house to its former essentials. (With nothing but brute force and old-fashioned hand-tools.)

Perhaps I've succumbed to the DIY bug. More like, I'm addicted to being a thug 'cos I loved - with full force - this act of disassembling.

But, already, I'm lacking the desire for re-decorating.

I, Priestess (6)

I, PRIESTESS (6)

I wanted to create a utopia. Envisaged a number of grandiose structures.

But, it's structures and things that obscure clear thinking. The material world leaves one drowning.

I'm sinking.

I'm done with re-decorating, renovating, building: with off-the-peg fixtures and ornamentation.

Fed by consumption: banal acquisition.

I'm now in the business of property-deconstruction.

The Sub-Editor - Seven Spaces

SEVEN PLACES

Can anybody hear me?

Well, here's something I edited earlier (with thanks to A A Milne).

There was once an old sailor my grandfather knew
Who had so many things which he wanted to do
That, whenever he thought it was time to begin,
He couldn't because of the state he was in.

He was shipwrecked; the parallel doesn't end there.
He was out of his depth, exposed and laid bare.
He was lazy, for sure, but that isn't the issue.
Think shame and despair; that might give you a clue.

But, he made the decision to be rid some stuff
Discard all the past that made living so tough.
Discard all the things that got in the way
Just live in the present; live for the day.

As he lay in his bed, he divided the place:
Seven rooms that need clearing to give him some space.
Seven rooms that need clearing to get rid of the dust
To get rid of the dust, well that is a must.

He decided to spend a day on each room;
Get rid of the old; proverbial new broom.
A day on each room; could be done in a week.
But the more he considered it, the more he felt weak.

The more that he thought of the things he should do
The more that his fear and fretfulness grew.
As he thought of the things that he could - just - achieve
He lost faith in the project and failed to believe.

(Back to A A Milne.)



And so in the end he did nothing at all,
But basked in the shingle wrapped up in a shawl.
And I think it was dreadful the way he behaved
He did nothing but bask until he was saved!

The Sub-Editor - At Home

AT HOME

Make yourself at home; that's what people often say. So, this Christmas, I decided to give it a go. Of course people ask you to make yourself at home precisely when you're not; when you're away from your home and in somebody else's. But, before I can make myself at home somewhere else, I need to make myself at home where I live. I need to make myself again, because it seems sometime ago - a time I don't seem able to remember - the self I'd created (the self-made me) melted into air. 

So, this Christmas, I decided to give it a go. To make myself while staying at home. 

I found an old, synthetic Christmas tree in the attic. It was cold as death up there. Breath escaped my lips to form an ectoplasm in the black-iced air. My teeth ached and my fingers felt like bone. But I knew if I continued to search I'd find some Christmas baubles too; in two shoe-boxes, and each glass-ball wrapped in a thin skin of white tissue paper that crackled with age when touched.  

The coloured lights worked once I'd tightened each bulb in its socket. I switched them on in the dark. Icicles of pink blue orange purple and green piercing the gloom and, for a terrible moment, I was blissfully melancholy: achingly so. I wonder, is this what people call 'happy'?  Christmas past present and future converged suddenly. It was then that I properly devised my plan.

An old woman once said to me, 'perhaps if you could be yourself with other people you wouldn't be so weary in company'. I thought her both rude and mad.  The teeth in her mouth were like tombstones:  large blocks of weathered granite inscribed with a life already exhausted. I could see the blood in her veins pulsating through her liver-spot hands, but her cavernous mouth made me think of a corpse.

That was a long time ago, and I am truly weary now. So, this is the plan I've devised. 

I plan to make myself at home; away from the company of any kind of society. I will live my life within the confines of this house - which, as far as I can see, merely amounts to my property. I will live my life within the confines of this house until I've made myself again. I will exist in isolation: solitarily confined. The internet makes it possible: to work and to shop and to maintain the relationships one's obliged to sustain. 

I give myself a year: a new year's resolution.  Starting today.