Affliction is a treasure,” wrote John Donne, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it, and made fit for God by that affliction.” —–What do I know of affliction? I am humbled by the stories of the Mormon pioneers, all of them, but more especially by those who suffered the most. But who did suffer the most? The sister whose feet were amputated when she arrived in the valley? The parents who buried children on the plains, hoping the wolves or the Indians would not disturb the grave? The children who buried parents along the trail, and then went on alone? Or the ones who arrived in the valley, hale, but having left family behind forever, cut off from them, disowned rather than renounce the faith? Affliction of the body, or the heart? I cannot enumerate my past and present afflictions. It’s too complicated.

 

It’s 2:30 of a rainy morning, and as the clock chimes the half-hour I begin to write. I looked at the clock whilst lying in bed still: it was 1:20, too early to get up for purposes of taking a pill; and yet I need to get up to frequent the room où le roi va à pied — where even the King goes on foot — plus, after an hour and half (all precise times) of lying on my back, I have some trouble breathing and my back feels lie it could become a problem my morning, and the back of my knees are beginning to sweat because they are supported by a pillow with a pure rayon cover. I lie there going in and out of my two alternate minds, sometimes conscious, sometimes not, snorking, until I look at the clock again and it’s 2:20am. I get up, with much pain in the process, trying to be as silent and still as possible so as not to disturb her, and go into the bathroom. I could have gone from pillar to post s is my wont, with left eye open and right eye shut—Pillar A the toilet and Pillar B some drink to wash down the pill, then back to bed. I think myasthenia gravis has something to do with my right eye wanting to stay shut after I get up, either in the middle of the night or in the middle of the morning. But just now it did not have much trouble opening, which I took as a sign that I could write down some of the great stuff I just had been writing in my mind, ergo in my sleep: écriture automatique, to a point. But by the time I had finished with mon petit pis-pis, I could no longer for the life of me recall any of it. What I did think worth writing—that other having been lost---was that in fact I had been composing in my sleep, or in my alternate mind. I am quite used to hypnogogic hallucinations; but in the past few days, but only rarely, I have been going from one mind to the other at night. Hypnogogic recitations, or even perhaps realty, alternate reality, or dreams, are not contiguous, and not sequential, perhaps therefore, and are isolated from each other, hopping from one scene to another completely unrelated scene. But what is happening now, in my dream time, is somewhat lie I was experiencing in Gresham in April, at the time of the trip from hell, or to hell, or in hell, where I was not the only one cracking up. (But nobody noticed mine.) I have my main reality, in which I am presently operating, writing this, reporting it; and then I have another, minor reality going on, and when I go out of this one I go into the other one, like changing channels on the TV. The question I have not yet answered, but only think I know how to answer, is, Does the minor reality pause when I am in this, the major reality, or does it continue to play on while I am in the major? As with the TV—if I am watching a show on the History Channel, and switch over to baseball, I catch the bottom of the fifth. Then I go back to the History Channel. The ball game does not stop: these are real players playing in real time. So when my history program is over, I go back to the ball game, and it’s the top of the seventh. But! If I am watching the ball game, and I have a movie pulled up on demand, if I go over to the ball game, the movie pauses. Then I go back to on demand and it starts up where it was. I happen to know that, in God’s view and in reality, there is only one reality. So how does this Doppelgänger reality work? It’s a function of my mind. And if I have two “realities” going on, not to mention the little bite-size realities, almost like mini-éclairs of hypnogogic hallucinations, and two is bi, am I beginning to go insane, entering into some bi-polar condition? So far, my alternate reality is much like the major reality. I don’t curse or do—mentally—evil things; but there are those who have lost their marbles, or moorings, and their alter-self is a nasty, profane Id, some Dionysius let loose from the abyss. Besides, which one is the pleasanter?

 

 

 

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

 

 

I have never robbed nobody. I have never kilt nobody. I have sinned, I have sinned, I have greatly sinned. How great a sin it is to injure God’s kind and tender grace; but I have broken His commandments with my peccadilloes and my pride. And now I sorely regret any misdeed, unkind word, untoward thought ever conceived and acted in all my life. But let no one assume the worst. I never robbed a bank. I never killed anyone. I have never been a secret criminal. I am not guilty of gross sins, my sins are bad enough but not to alarm anyone. They are the quotidian sins of commission and omission, not those that make the news or require a bishop’s absolution. Still I regret them one and all. I am not St Augustine with his “not yet.”

 

 

 

 

 

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

How long has it been?

 

Let not memory be so fine as to glean from all the corners, but let much lie untouched and undisturbed ‘til covered over with years of dust it is buried deep and ne’er disturbed. Who would want to remember everything ever said, done, and thought? That is the fear put in the heart by thoughts of the last judgment where the books will be opened and we are judged by thoughts, and words, as well as deeds. There are so many things I never want to think of again: sins and peccadilloes, lapses in judgment, foolishness, foolhardiness and stupidity, meanness and irascibilities. Keep them locked away; I have learned my lesson: I don’t need reminders to say never again. What shame I will be crushed under if all those come to light. Cut off all remembrances if with the good go the bad.

 

Mea culpa, mea culpa,

Mea maxima culpa…

I have to confess that I am not good at communicating with the tongue, and I am better at it with the written word. At least I’m not a mime.

I can write and organize my feelings, but it takes time. Instantaneous, extemporaneous argumentation (not arguing) is not something I have ever been good at, nor will I ever be. It’s just not my makeup.

So what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with that is, I’m not making money as a writer, and I’m not interacting with people with any degree of success because other people demand instantaneous, extemporaneous dialogue. They want the give and take, the repartee. They get some perverse pleasure from the thrill of someone misspeaking; they enjoy seeing someone at a loss for words. They like the games of tongue. But true human intercourse is more than words, I would hope. What about just reading people’s eyes? But that’s one-way communication you might say. Well, for some reason, people watch my eyes, and have accused me of drilling them with my eyes. I was born with my eyes. I didn’t do anything to change them. They just scare people. And I don’t even wear glasses.

So I’m writing. Don’t call.

This is a peach blossom in the first week of May, trying to survive the snow and cold of a Wasatch Spring.

Mea culpa, Mea culpa,

Mea maxima culpa…

It is time now for me to take responsibility for another. Not enough to try to keep things going for my ownself, staying away from the vices that so easily beset us; I must also now try to steer someone else away from vice, from wrong, from commandment-breaking. How? (Why?) The truth shall make you free. Is that the same as the truth will set you free? The truth? You can’t handle the truth. But on the other hand, truth is the only true antidote for miscreancy. When you have to stare the truth in the eyes, when you see the truth staring back at you and you realize you are naked before the truth, and it is not the naked truth, but the truth making you naked, then you can reset your bearings, and think to yourself, Maybe I am a piece of crap who needs to change my ways, change my life. So I must be the one who brings out the truth, puts it in front, turns on the light, and points at it—the truth—while going through the list of things that are wrong and commandment-breaking, things that drive others away. Addiction. Abuse of substance. Even legal. Inebriated. Slurring. Loud. Nonsensical. All the things on the list. Will it make a difference? Will the truth set us all free, me of having to do this? Will everybody see the truth who needs to see the truth?

??

??

On verra.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, I took her at her word. I thought she was sincere. I thought she meant what she said. Won’t I ever learn?