29 June 2016

Notes - AM / Dewdrop / Brothers 12 / the plan



       Mid-morning. Jill is here for the cleaning, Carol is readying to leave as you have errands planned for the day. One is going to AAA to get her luggage checked for the Jamaica trip – new rules. She and Kim are getting excited about next week’s trip and Sharon and Gill’s wedding. After that you can focus on the Colorado trip in August. – Amorella

       1005 hours. We have taken trips periodically since retirement and don’t regret a one of them. Carol has never been to Colorado and I haven’t been there since 1960. Mostly it is about seeing friends/family in sometimes wonderfully different settings along the way to and from. That’s the way my memory reads it. So, shortly we will be off for the morning and lunch.

       Post. – Amorella


       Later in the afternoon. You had writing time before and after lunch at Smashburgers. Carol was reading the morning paper while you were working on Dewdrop and in the process published October 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8, 2009 dates of edited metaphysical oriented dialogue between you and me, the Amorella. Carol is out watering flowers as it may not rain until Saturday. You were beginning to work on the Brothers Twelve segment when it crashed. You had decided to reference the Blake quote from Chapter Eleven – “Both read the Bible day and night. But thou readist the black when I read the white.” - Amorella

       You have completed the near final draft of The Brothers – Twelve. Add and post. – Amorella
***

The Brothers – 12  ©2016 rho, GMG.2

“I’ve been thinking about your book and I have a proposition for you.”
Richard smiles, I couldn’t sleep last night so I headed to the basement and found my old college paperback of Dante’s Inferno, John Ciardi’s translation.”
“Where is this leading?”
“I was struck by what you said about the shape of Merlyn’s dream segments the other day. I tried to visualize such a segment and came up with stair steps.”
“I need a reference Richie.”
“Merlyn is climbing out of his dream into the present in a Grandma’s Story segment. He is moving up through the DNA as Eve moved up through his DNA in the last chapter of book one.”
“So you are saying Merlyn is consciously attempting to get to the present time and unconsciously he tries by way of a lucid dream moment.”
“Yeah, Rob.”
“Okay, Richie, is there any other Merlyn reference that has a stair step analogy to it?”
I found a big one in one of Grandma’s early stories in book one.”
Robert, “Hendrix?”
“No, Dante.”
“What does Dante have to do with anything?”
“Dante climbs down into Hell with the help of Beatrice who symbolizes Love,” responds Richard, “and with the help of Virgil symbolizing Reason.”
“And?” says Rob gruffly, thinking about how he never finished The Divine Comedy.
“Virgil has to climb out. Once Dante reached the Ninth Circle of Hell where the traitors were, he had to climb up through Purgatory, then on through Paradise.”
“Isn’t that about where Grandma’s Story is?”
“In book two?”
“Yes, Richie. Merlyn has his lucid dream moment.”
I don’t remember what I write. That’s why I write it.”
“That was in the Grandma segment of chapter ten of this book,” intones Robert. “Jeez, Richie, where’s your mind?”
.

            Later, Robert is sitting alone at the kitchen table with an empty cup of coffee. Connie’s closed Bible sets at her place and it reminds him of Blake’s quotation: “Both read the Bible day and night. But thou readist the black when I read the white.” Richard’s mind is the dream not his brain. He has unconsciously split them in two separate entities. Freud and Jung were speaking of the brain. The unconscious doesn’t know the difference.
            People wonder on the meaning of dreams. Robert’s lips raised a slight smile automatically as he catches a connection. The mind understands things before the brain is aware. Wit first springs from mind, then the humor rolls from the tongue. It is the brain that is the mind’s shadow. DNA is a dimensional connection to the human dream projector. Richie thinks Merlyn is climbing up the text, that somehow Merlyn is inside him . . . like in that film Being John Malkovich, full of imagination coming out of the actor’s head.
            Robert suddenly focuses on the white saucer and cup. Why is Connie using this for everyday service? She is going to pass this china on to Jill. Why would she change her mind? Does anyone really know why anyone really changes his mind? We don’t say, ‘I changed my thinking; we say, ‘I changed my mind.’ The brain might do the thinking, but the mind does more and the center of Richie’s book is Merlyn’s mind, really of course, his own. The mind writes but it is the brain that does the editing.
.

            Richard drives into the College Cemetery and sits silently in the car where the roads cross. He stares at the front doors of the mausoleum surrounded by still white snow domed by the distinctly clear February afternoon sky. It is hard to have words, considers Richard, when pictures will do.
            It is more comfortable to sit in my study or in the public library to write, thinks Richard, than to sit in the cemetery. Why do I come here to get away? Where’s my mind anyway? It is not at my study, the public library or here at the cemetery. I wonder where Merlyn’s mind is; the dead Merlyn not my fictional one? With this, a once adolescent created poem flashes – every word from the interior of Richard’s skull.
.

Wicked thoughts plague at my twitching fingers,
and tip toe they in a swirl about my head, thinking
Lucifer ready to slither up from my shoulder blade.

Cold fog and heavy mist and foul night
rule Grendel-like on this barren stone in the heart,
the place where running quickly is a way of Iife.

I focus my mind on the stellar beauty of a quiet moonless night;
but slippery whisperings abound, suggesting I stay up
until I find some delightful way of ripping the stars out one by one. (798 w.)
.
            This is not who I am today. Why then does memory root out these ancient unforgotten words?


       2006 hours. We ate out of the refrigerator tonight and watched NBC and ABC News as well as two “Property Brothers”. No more TV tonight. I am feeling rejuvenated after working on two projects today. Tomorrow I am working on Brothers – 13, then, once that is completed, the Brothers – 14 segment. After that the plan is to do the remaining Grandma segments or the remaining Pouch segments. I haven’t decided which to do first. Once those are completed it will be time to do the three remaining Dead segments, which, of course, will be from scratch.

       Sounds like a plan boy. Also, we can also work on Dewdrop along the way. Perhaps so that when the book is finished we will be into 2010 on Dewdrop. – Amorella

       2027 hours. This is fine with me, Amorella. A different set of objectives will change the routine. I will certainly feel more personally satisfied once GMG.2 is completed. As for other projects I’ve recently considered they’ll go on the back burner for now. Fortunately for me I am still alive to continue writing.

       Post. - Amorella



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