Alone and Not Alone (3 page)

The Elevation of Ideals

To construct a set of ideals, a toy tool kit suffices, provided that the handles of the hammer, saw, and screwdriver are of wood and painted light blue. However, a full set of adult tools enables the builder to work more rapidly and with greater precision. Of equal importance are the raw materials, though it is possible to use various bits and pieces that one finds along the way. Remember, though, never to use metaphors in the construction, for over time they will shift, and the entire construction will sag and perhaps collapse. (Of course these rules apply only if you live on dry land; another set covers undersea construction.)

(If you end one ideal in parentheses, you must begin the next also in parentheses. Otherwise, the joint will not bond.) To construct a solid set of ideals, do not begin too early, for all too often the ideals do not turn out to be ideals at all: they are ideas, and, like bubbles, they tend to float away and pop. In doing so they can be beautiful, but æsthetic beauty is not of great importance here, unless it happens to be the same as moral beauty, which happens very rarely in modern societies. So allow your ideals to evolve through the decades. If you cherish them and don't think about them too much, they will change themselves by rotating on their axes while flashing on and off, to show you that all is well. When you turn fifty, they stop flashing, and for a while you think they have vanished, but it is you who have vanished, so thoroughly that even you do not know you are there. But you are.

You are, the way your mother is there, and your father, too. At this point you can obtain a set of tools and start thinking about the
construction, how to begin it and where. These choices will be up to you: some choose the head, some the heart, and others even elect to build it outside themselves. The choice of location might bedevil you, but I will tell you now that the location doesn't really matter, except to you.

Deciding on the design of the construction can prove extremely difficult. This is normal, so don't fret about it. Just pick up the first ideal and see how it feels in your hand, then pick up a tool in the other hand. You will know immediately if they match. If they don't, try others. If nothing seems to work, you are not really fifty, and it is best to put the tools away and try later.

But do not postpone the resumption too long, for you might have grown so old that you no longer remember your project, or you may not be physically strong enough to make difficult moral decisions. Assuming, however, that you do resume, aim to build a perfect structure, no matter how small, for if the one you do complete is good enough it will float up of its own accord and stop in midair, where you can sing to it any time you want. If a door or window falls off, do not be concerned. Another door or window will appear in its place. And anyway, you will be inside, looking out.

Birgitte Hohlenberg

I do not know who Birgitte Hohlenberg was

or why C. A. Jensen painted her portrait, in 1826,

but I'm glad he did, because then I could see it

in the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen

and buy a postcard of it and send it to my wife:

“Isn't she beautiful?” She being

Birgitte Hohlenberg
and
the painting of her.

I don't know which of them I love more.

Both are bright, calm, and sweet—

she had a way with beauty. You see it

in the brown satin dress with fluffy sleeves

and big white collar edged in lace, the hat

a light white puff around her head

and neatly tied beneath the chin,

her curly chestnut hair an echo

of the ribbon curling around the brim

and returning over the shoulders

to a loose knot at the collarbone,

her slender neck rising to a face whose high color elevates

how interested she is to be sitting there

looking straight at you without the slightest hint of carnality.

Just being in her presence would be enough

for me, now, at my age.

When did I send this card? August 15,

2001. That long ago. Before the Towers came down—

before a lot of things came down. But she

has stayed up, on my wife's dresser. How

she died I don't know, or at what age.

C. A. Jensen lived to 78, a long life

back then. Good for him.

I hope he was as happy

as he makes me every time I see his picture.

I hope you see it too.

Pep Talk

Dinner is a damned nice thing

as are breakfast and lunch

when they're good and with

the one you love.

That's a kind of dancing

sitting down and not moving

but what dances exactly

we do not know nor

need to know,

it is dancing us around

and nothing is moving

in the miracle of dinner

breakfast and lunch

and all the in-betweens

that give us pep.

Preface to Philosophy

But it wasn't such an ugly day when I read Dixon's remark, at the age of fifteen, because I had already been
charmed
by the idea of the worthlessness and absurdity of life, which seemed far more sophisticated than the idea that life is meaningful and wonderful.

Now as I read it again for the first time in fifty-four years, what strikes me is not the truth of his statement, but the image of an early man's finding himself “face to face” with an idea; that is, with a ghostly being three times his size, wavering before him and communicating without speaking. Of course this is not what Dixon meant to convey; he was using “face to face” metaphorically, as an expressive device. But now I am face to face with his metaphor.

However, I can escape it by trying to picture the room in which I first read his remark, my bedroom, with its front window and side window. Sitting at my desk, I could have gazed out the front window and across the street to the window of my friend, from whom I had bought the book in which Dixon's writing appears, but if I was propped up in bed I could not have seen out the window directly behind me, whose curtain I usually kept drawn so that anyone stepping onto our porch would not glance in and see the back of my head. I did not want anyone to look at the back of my head.

As for its having been an ugly day, who knows? That is, “ugly” meaning what? Stormy? Dark? Probably the latter. Again he is speaking metaphorically, referring here to the psychological weather of the human nearly struck down by an idea, as I am struck, though not down, by the idea of a dark cloud in a protohuman shape fifteen feet high that descended and stood before the man and emanated the idea of the worthlessness and absurdity of life.

What made the man believe it? And then go on, as I have gone on?

You Know What

Every once in a while

it occurs to me

that I am a vibration

as hard as a living creature

and that that creature is me.

It occurs when I look out of my eyes

at it and it skulks away

into the dark area.

But you know what?

Take your philosophy

and put it in a paper bag

and carry it to a destination

and open it and see

if it looks back at you

and if it does

then you are occurring

because it is occurring too.

I learned that in my childhood

and I did have a childhood it was better than most

but I got nervous

when my mother got nervous

and my father was always quietly nervous.

We were a bundle of secret nerves sometimes

and at others we had quite a good time

especially my mother and me.

We would sing duets in the car

in harmony.

Sometimes she'd take the alto sometimes I would.

It was oddly satisfying

to come to a stop sign

and stop.

Lithuania

wasn't something I had heard of

and Stalin was I thought a cartoon character

because he had only one name and a mustache.

No one in America had a mustache

because Hitler had had one and he

wasn't funny he was shouting

and shaking his face around a tight nervous fit.

Our family was a little nervous but not like that.

He had a real problem we had a slight one.

One day someone told me to relax.

I didn't know what they meant,

I thought we were just the way we were.

We had names and identities and we knew

who each other was and what to say.

So what is “relaxing”? It is turning

into someone else in your own body

which is what is happening every moment anyway

but so slowly we can't see it—

in effect it isn't occurring

though really it is.

A Bit about Bishop Berkeley

Bishop Berkeley

is fond of saying,

in the middle of making a point,

“This is obvious

to anyone who takes a moment

to examine it with an attentive mind.”

Then he says

“Abstract ideas do not exist,”

which sounds odd

until you see what he means

by
abstract

and remember that he says

that language makes everything unclear,

though we need it

to get what we want.

He convinced investors

to give him a tidy sum

to open a school for colonial

and Native American children,

but the final funding fell through

so he bought Rhode Island

or a chunk of it

and went back to England

and told his investors,

“Abstract ideas do not exist.”

This is obvious.

And oh, his name was George.

The Step Theory

An idea went by like a bird

and a bird went by like a cloud

and a cloud went by like a moment:

this is the Step Theory of Reality

and its by-product the Ziggurat Configuration.

Then a bird went by like an idea—

the idea of the Step Theory itself,

for no one thinks of it anymore,

because its pieces lock together seamlessly,

the way a play on words

is just words and not just words

at the same time, for a moment.

It can't come back

because it never went anywhere,

unlike a cloud that can't come back

because it went everywhere.

And so we jump around and sputter,

to the great amusement

of our higher selves,

the ones we can't find,

their laughter echoing forever

in the few moments we have.

That's step 1.

Now sweep idea, bird, and cloud

into a little pile and put them in a box.

(They will come in handy later.)

For step 2 you must forget

who you aren't, that is,

everyone else, even though you

are
part everyone else.

This in itself is not difficult:

you do it all the time

when you're not looking.

What
is
difficult is what follows:

you must make yourself

as flat as a pancake

and try to avoid having syrup

poured onto you.

Most people will not

pour syrup onto a human pancake,

but there are a few who would.

Once you are flat, just lie there

for a while. Look at those clouds

and the bird that flew into the idea of them.

Eventually the Ziggurat Configuration

comes into play. The weather is hot and humid

but the ziggurat keeps climbing itself

until it gets to the top, then

it comes back down, only to climb back up,

and so on. I once had an aunt like this

—there was no stopping her—

her face in profile formed a ziggurat.

We children put glasses of water

on the steps, thus representing the soul

without knowing that it takes a while

to learn that we have one, but

by that time the soul had vanished

into the process of being itself,

like the idea, the bird, and the cloud:

song, song, and song.

Step 3 is for later,

but I can tell you now

that it involves rolling green pastureland

you step into but not onto

and follow your nose,

no cloud, no bird, no idea.

My '75 Chevy

Out in the yard

sits my 1975 Chevy pickup truck,

repainted red with a white roof,

body smooth, carburetor rebuilt, new tires,

new dashboard, black leather seat covers,

new floorboards, and two new side mirrors.

In a timeless yard—

it creates its own time zone. 1975.

I can't drive simultaneously in 1975 and 2012,

but I do

because when the truck goes forward

I enter the sliding zone known

as Miles Per Hour

and I'm just someone in something red.

For A.

The little blue heron's back again

Was he here when

Joe was here too

with Bill and me and you

when we were all just fifty?

If the three of us add twenty

we'll get something unreal

unlike what we are and feel

which is what Joe

couldn't imagine and ever know:

how my grandma said now and then

“I'm in good shape for the shape I'm in.”

Art Lessons

Narrative Painting

The Madonna never walks.

The Portrait

Bronzino did for the portrait what the portrait did for the sitter.

Still Life

The best still lifes have emptiness.

The Self-Portrait

The self-portrait did for the self what the self did for the portrait.

Landscape

Landscape is a window through which you see what you thought.

Sculpture

Don't move.