{"id":17643,"date":"2016-01-15T08:00:31","date_gmt":"2016-01-15T13:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=17643"},"modified":"2016-01-13T06:07:07","modified_gmt":"2016-01-13T11:07:07","slug":"from-a-thousand-selves-to-none-at-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/from-a-thousand-selves-to-none-at-all\/","title":{"rendered":"From a Thousand Selves, to None at All"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'The<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: “The Search Intensifies,” by Timothy Neesam (user “neesam”) on Flickr.com<\/a>.
\nUsed here under a Creative Commons license.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

I’ve always figured it that you die each day and each day is a box, you see, all numbered and neat; but never go back and lift the lids, because you’ve died a couple of thousand times in your life, and that’s a lot of corpses, each dead a different way, each with a worse expression. Each of those days is a different you, somebody you don’t know or understand or want to understand.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Ray Bradbury [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Maybe you can afford to wait. Maybe for you there’s a tomorrow. Maybe for you there’s one thousand tomorrows, or three thousand, or ten, so much time you can bathe in it, roll around in it, let it slide like coins through your fingers. So much time you can waste it.<\/p>\n

But for some of us there’s only today. And the truth is, you never really know.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Lauren Oliver [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and (from whiskey river’s commonplace book<\/em><\/a>):<\/p>\n

Can one know one’s self? Is one ever somebody? I don’t know anything about it any more. It now seems to me that one changes from day to day and that every few years one becomes a new being.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(George Sand [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

How I Became a Ghost<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was all about objects, their objections
\nexpressed through a certain solidity.<\/p>\n

My house for example still moves
\nthrough me, moves me.
\nWhen I tried to reverse the process
\nI kept dropping things, kept finding myself
\nin the basement.<\/p>\n

Windows became more than
\nusually problematic.
\nI wanted to break them
\nwhich didn’t work, though for awhile<\/p>\n

I had more success with the lake.<\/p>\n

The phone worked for a long time
\nthough when I answered
\noften nobody was there.<\/p>\n

Bats crashed into me at night,
\nbut then didn’t anymore.<\/p>\n

The rings vanished from my hand,
\nthe pond.<\/p>\n

I stopped feeling the wind.<\/p>\n

One day the closets were empty.<\/p>\n

Another day the mirrors were.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Leslie Harrison [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Neither from whiskey river<\/em>, nor from its commonplace book<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Angels<\/strong><\/p>\n

Elliot Ray Neiderland, home from college
\none winter, hauling a load of Herefords
\nfrom Hogtown to Guymon with a pint of
\nEzra Brooks and a copy of Rilke\u2019s Duineser<\/em>
\nElegien<\/em><\/a> on the seat beside him, saw the ass-end
\nof his semi gliding around in the side mirror
\nas he hit ice and knew he would never live
\nto see graduation or the castle at Duino.<\/p>\n

In the hospital, head wrapped like a gift
\n(the nurses had stuck a bow on top), he said
\nfour flaming angels crouched on the hood, wings
\nspread so wide he couldn\u2019t see, and then
\nthe world collapsed. We smiled and passed a flask
\naround. Little Bill and I sang Your Cheatin\u2019\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>
\nHeart<\/em> and laughed, and then a sudden quiet
\nput a hard edge on the morning and we left.<\/p>\n

Siehe, ich lebe, Look, I\u2019m alive<\/em>, he said,
\nleaping down the hospital steps. The nurses
\nwaved, white dresses puffed out like pigeons
\nin the morning breeze. We roared off in my Dodge,
\nBehold, I come like a thief!<\/em> he shouted to the town
\nand gave his life to poetry. He lives, now,
\nin the south of France. His poems arrive
\nby mail, and we read them and do not understand.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(B. H. Fairchild [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

The Ten Thousand<\/strong><\/p>\n

The rain comes late, draws the afternoon into darkness,
\nno light where there should be light, no way to be but drenched
\nuntil it curves down over your lips. The taste of every living thing
\nis in the raindrop the way all things open their eyes inside
\na single bloom in the garden that is now hushed in a robe.<\/p>\n

Whatever you feel about it, whether you live for it or pray
\nfor the rains to die, the water joins with all of us, tendon, bone,
\nartery, vein, saliva, everything that melts and goes hard, escapes
\nas air. The water brings a reunion for a moment with what we know
\neach time we breathe ourselves here or are forced to breathe.<\/p>\n

If I write without color it is to obey the gray way rain brings
\nthe past to us. The ten thousand are one giant palace with a room
\nfor remembering, where you must stand alone, touch and believe
\nwhile it seems you are touching nothing and have gone all mad
\nin this life, this gift. We are sitting on a rock in the thick falling<\/p>\n

of water, purple lilies are growing in the sun’s ocean shadow,
\nsheep with golden wool are flying in the trees, a patient monkey
\nis bandaging a wounded blade of grass, the garden is a mesa,
\nseeds are mountain caves, the moon has gone infinite, made
\ntwo of its own selves for each of our palms. Now we have faces.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Afaa Michael Weaver [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

An infant is a pucker of the earth’s thin skin; so are we. We arise like budding yeasts and break off; we forget our beginnings. A mammal swells and circles and lays him down. You and I have finished swelling; our circling periods are playing out, but we can still leave footprints in a trail whose end we do not know.<\/p>\n

Buddhism notes that it is always a mistake to think your soul can go it alone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Annie Dillard [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “The Search Intensifies,” by Timothy Neesam (user “neesam”) on Flickr.com. Used here under a Creative Commons license.] From whiskey river: I’ve always figured it that you die each day and each day is a box, you see, all numbered and neat; but never go back and lift the lids, because you’ve died a couple […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,250,5,251,4159],"tags":[295,1391,3165,3233,3641,4243,4244,4245],"class_list":{"0":"post-17643","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-art","9":"category-06_writing","10":"category-poetry-writing_cat","11":"category-essays","12":"tag-annie-dillard","13":"tag-leslie-harrison","14":"tag-ray-bradbury","15":"tag-b-h-fairchild","16":"tag-lauren-oliver","17":"tag-afaa-michael-weaver","18":"tag-george-sand","19":"tag-souls","20":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4Az","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17643"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17654,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17643\/revisions\/17654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}