{"id":20795,"date":"2018-12-14T06:37:46","date_gmt":"2018-12-14T11:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=20795"},"modified":"2018-12-14T06:37:46","modified_gmt":"2018-12-14T11:37:46","slug":"the-ineluctability-of-the-small-the-nearby-the-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/the-ineluctability-of-the-small-the-nearby-the-now\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ineluctability of the Small, the Nearby, the Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Image:<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: “East Side Railroad Tunnel East Portal,” by Erik Gould. (Spotted on Flickr<\/a>, and used here under a Creative Commons license: thank you!) If you’ve got a nice wide monitor, be sure to click the image for the whole panorama.The photographer’s lengthy description of the subject includes this anecdote: “On May 1st. 1993, a group of students gathered at the western portal below Benefit St. for a May Day party. They lit fires, put on animal masks, pounded on drums until early the next morning, when police arrived. Fearing the activities in the tunnel were unsafe, they attempted to get the students to leave. The situation escalated quickly as some students refused to go, the police responded with pepper spray and the students answered with rocks and bricks. The ensuing melee ended with many injuries and a badly damaged police car, and the police charge in the next day’s paper that they had encountered ‘satanic rituals’. As a result the portals on both ends were sealed up with steel doors, which soon were forced open.”]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a> (italicized lines):<\/p>\n

Little Things<\/strong><\/p>\n

After she\u2019s gone to camp, in the early
\nevening I clear our girl\u2019s breakfast dishes
\nfrom the rosewood table, and find a dinky
\ncrystallized pool of maple syrup, the
\ngrains standing there, round, in the night, I
\nrub it with my fingertip
\nas if I could read it, this raised dot of
\namber sugar, and this time,
\nwhen I think of my father, I wonder why
\nI think of my father, of the Vulcan blood-red
\nglass in his hand, or his black hair gleaming like a
\nbroken-open coal. I think I learned to
\nlove the little things about him
\nbecause of all the big things
\nI could not love, no one could, it would be wrong to.
\nSo when I fix on this image of resin
\nor sweep together with the heel of my hand a
\npile of my son\u2019s sunburn peels like
\ninsect wings, where I peeled his back the night before camp,
\nI am doing something I learned early to do, I am<\/em>
\npaying attention to small beauties,<\/em>
\nwhatever I have—as if it were our duty to<\/em>
\nfind things to love, to bind ourselves to this world.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Sharon Olds [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Am I free? There’s something that still restrains me. Or am I fastening myself to it? Either way, it’s like this: I’m not completely free because I’m tied to everything. In fact, a person is everything. It’s not a heavy burden to carry by yourself because it isn’t simply carried: one is everything.<\/p>\n

It seems to me that for the first time I’m gaining in understanding about things. The impression is that I don’t try anymore to come closer to things so I won’t go beyond myself. I have a certain fear of myself, I’m not to be trusted and I distrust my false power.<\/p>\n

This is the word of someone who cannot.<\/p>\n

I don’t control anything. Not even my own words. But it isn’t sad: it’s humble happiness. I, who live to the side, I’m to the left of whoever comes in. And within me trembles the world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Clarice Lispector [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Suddenly<\/strong><\/p>\n

Suddenly<\/em>—the word most used by Dostoevsky. Somebody told me that. Some Dostoyevsky expert. Suddenly<\/em>. As though any kind of action could be drawn into words: Suddenly music. Suddenly turning. Suddenly silent. Suddenly. As though I never saw the process.<\/p>\n

Everyone in the old house is sick but me. Silence, except for the snoring, coughing, and occasional trips to the bathroom. Snow everywhere through the windows. You can’t look out without seeing it. Suddenly winter. Frozen rivers. Bitter cold. Barren trees. Small silver plane etched out against a chalk, still sky. Suddenly, completely alone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Sam Shepard [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

I once had a patient, a widower living alone, who became convinced that the ticking of a clock above his kitchen table sounded like human words. The clock would give him short commands. “Go to bed!” “Wash the dishes!” “Turn off the lights!” At first he ignored the sound, but the clock repeated the instructions over and over, always using the same words. Eventually he began to follow the orders and the clock took over his life. It told him what to have for dinner and what to watch on TV; when to do the laundry; which phone calls to return…<\/p>\n[…]\n

Strangely, he didn’t want to be cured. He could have removed all clocks from his house or gone digital, but there there was something about the voices that he found reassuring and even comforting. His wife, by all accounts, had been a fusspot and a well-organized soul, who hurried him along, writing him list, choosing his clothes, and generally making decisions for him.<\/p>\n

Instead of wanting me to stop the voices, he needed to be able to carry them with him. The house already had a clock in every room, but what happened when he went outside?<\/p>\n

I suggested a wristwatch, but for some reason these didn’t speak loudly enough or they babbled incoherently. After much thought, we went shopping at Gray’s Antique Market and he spent more than an hour listening to old-fashioned pocket watches, until he found one that quite literally spoke to him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

…and:<\/p>\n

No Less<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was twilight all day.<\/p>\n

Sometimes the smallest things weigh us down,
\nsmall stones that we can’t help
\nadmiring and palming.<\/p>\n

Look at the tiny way
\nthis lighter vein got inside.
\nLook at the heavy gray dome of its sky.<\/p>\n

This is no immutable world.
\nWe know less than its atoms, rushing through.<\/p>\n

Light, light. Light as air, to them,
\nfor all we know. Trust me on this one,
\nthere is happiness at stake.<\/p>\n

Boulder, grain. Planet, dust:
\nWhat fills the stones fills us.<\/p>\n

I remember, or I have a feeling,
\nI could be living somewhere with you,
\nweighted down the way we aren’t now.<\/p>\n

Often the greatest things,
\nthose you’d think would be the heaviest,
\nare the very ones that float.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Alice B. Fogel [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “East Side Railroad Tunnel East Portal,” by Erik Gould. (Spotted on Flickr, and used here under a Creative Commons license: thank you!) If you’ve got a nice wide monitor, be sure to click the image for the whole panorama.The photographer’s lengthy description of the subject includes this anecdote: “On May 1st. 1993, a group […]<\/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":"Sharon Olds, Sam Shepard, et al.: 'The Ineluctability of the Small, the Nearby, the Now'","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":[247,1393,250,251,4159],"tags":[792,1497,4167,4811,4839,4840,4841,4842,4843],"class_list":{"0":"post-20795","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-art","9":"category-poetry-writing_cat","10":"category-essays","11":"tag-the-everyday","12":"tag-sharon-olds","13":"tag-clarice-lispector","14":"tag-alice-b-fogel","15":"tag-sam-shepard","16":"tag-michael-robotham","17":"tag-the-immediate","18":"tag-the-small","19":"tag-the-nearby","20":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-5pp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20795","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=20795"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20799,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20795\/revisions\/20799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}