Michael Fredman's infinite thought field
This made me laugh.
From a publisher’s rejection letter to Herman Melville, on his submission of Moby Dick:
‘First, we must ask, does it have to be a whale?
…For instance, could not the Captain be struggling with a depravity towards young, perhaps voluptuous, maidens? ‘
More rejection letters sent to notable authors, here
It is par for the course on Valentine’s day to hearken keenly to breathless hints, succumb to whispers, be deliciously led to the summits of delight by teasing promises, promising teases.
This time, when I was almost certain, I ran, heart pounding, straight into a cab. Enduring a torturous journey with a friendly driver keen to discuss communism, while I was texting and checking the latest messages, yearning to be where my heart lay. I arrived to stand alone in uncertainty and longing which came to slow relief as I queued for an hour and a half in wild and restless wind and rain to see Prince play in King’s Place.
We had been catching hints on social media, finally following them when they suggested something true. My friend arrived to the queue only five minutes after I did and was about 80 people behind me. We thought it uncouth to jump the queue though it transpired he was 8 people away from getting in to the first show. A girl got booed by the 300 people she passed to then settle in with her friends, gulping away the shame with a fag and a can of beer.
The queue was nervous but friendly, there was an air of mystery to the night which led the man in front of me to be convinced I was wearing my hood up to disguise myself from paparazzi, he thought my voice sounded famous. I told him ’thanks, I can assure you I’m nobody, I’m wearing this because of the rain’, but he gave me a narrow eyed look suggesting he thought I must be bluffing.
Once inside and with my ticket, one final obstacle between me and Prince, acoustic, in a tiny room! I had to go to the bathroom, another man and I stood side by side, each of us impatiently cursing aloud at the slow will of nature keeping us bound to the porcelain.
Then I dashed in to the venue, to the sound of acoustic guitar and the unmistakable vocals of the man himself.
The room was warm and intimate, on stage he and the band were at once tight and playful. The musicians responded to his lead, so too the flow of the evening, which gave everything a professional but ever so slightly chaotic feel, as if anything could happen. After us dancing away to an acoustic ‘You Got the Look’ he suggested we sit while he and 3rdeyegirl jammed together and we dutifully did. What was particularly enjoyable was being in such close proximity that one could see clearly the expression on his face change, from passing notes of slight annoyance at a very rare misstep, to the contentment, joy and abandon upon his face as he sang and played.
We enjoyed first an acoustic set, where his raw talent was clear and bright to witness, featuring several remarkable covers. Particularly a lively and soulful take on the Clash’s Train in Vain, a dirty, funky, Bill Withers’ ‘Who is he and what is he to you?’ and a beautiful Crimson and Clover, soft and low, with the women in the audience providing a backing refrain of ‘over and over’ to the song’s end. He then segued into an electric set, funky and raw. Beginning the wild ride with him at the keys covering Billy Cobham’s Stratus.
Next he treated us to his exhilarating electric guitar: He has a great voice, is an accomplished pianist, but I’ve never seen anyone play electric guitar as well as Prince. It’s not just his technical ability, the complete mastery and assurance, which is staggering, but also the artistic musical invention on the fly. Stunning flourishes of melody and rhythm that burst forth, captivating and spectacular as fireworks in the night.
In contrast to his guitar playing, the Q and A element was interesting but slightly awkward, he gave self-effacing answers to effusive fans. The question on everyone’s lips could be surmised as ‘why are you so great?’, but when someone asked him basically this, he just rolled his eyes, soaked up the laughter, and went back to the music. Later on, in the midst of the electric set, one questioner rambled on with a densely worded question full of fan-knowledge about Prince’s remarkably diverse English influences: ‘I know you know Gary Numan…’ Prince did not quite answer the question, but shortly after, nodded to it somewhat by playing a very beautiful instrumental version of Roxy Music’s More Than this on electric guitar. I was rapt, because it was lovely and a marvellous synthesis of two musical worlds that I admire deeply. From a place without myself, I slowly became aware that I was literally on the edge of my seat, grinning, with a heart brimful of warm happiness.
In his longest response he told about how he found Jesus through Larry Graham, and while this could have been cloying, it was actually quite touching and added to the sense of proximity with him as he shared something obviously so personal to him, with wit and without preachiness.
Then he returned to the rock and the funk, we all danced, it was loud, fervent and mesmerisingly good. He seemed to be enjoying himself along with the rest of us. Partly, I wanted him to play my favourite songs, but this did not detract from enjoying his new material. The whole gig had an organic flow to it, it was extraordinary, stripped down, raw and scintillating. It may all have been cynical marketing for a new album, but last time he toured the UK he sold hundreds of thousands of tickets and played a huge stadium night after night. He could easily have done this again, yet he had chosen to do something completely different.
Maybe this was him seeking a particular experience for himself, not only us, perhaps trying to recapture some connection with music and the audience that he may have lost as his stardom has escalated stratospherically, carrying him far beyond the simple world we inhabit into the awesome but lonely and distant dark night full of stars. At one point he gestured to someone in the front row for a swig of their drink, they apologetically offered up an almost empty pint glass and Prince declined the dregs, but he had a playful grin on his face that seemed to indicate that he was amused, happy and comfortable.
After an hour and a half, there was a crescendo of music and then he asked if we wouldn’t mind leaving so the 500 people waiting outside – ‘our brothers and sisters’ could come in from the cold. I didn’t want to leave, but I was happy to, he had created a warm and loving atmosphere and made us all feel not just witness to, but part of, something very special.
Personally I feel very lucky to have seen him in such a modest space, it was a great (though expensive) privilege to watch him close up, playing in a relatively uncontrived and inventive way for so few people. Outside, I saw my friend at the front of the crowd ready to go in for the second show. I made some appreciative hand gestures that attempted to express the joy I felt but could not hope to. Maybe some types of joy can only be communicated through music I thought to myself as I put my hood up, turned my phone back on, and went back to being nobody in the rain.
Nelson Mandela has died. As the world reflects on his life and mourns his passing some people, not all of them vicious racists and/or rabid right-wingers, denounce Mandela as ‘a terrorist’ because of the violent actions of the armed wing of the ANC, and while I think it is right to condemn acts which led to innocent lives being lost, I think it is important to do so in context.
The context of course is that of a country divided by racial segregation officially brought into being in 1948 by the National Party that ruled ’til 1994. Apartheid denied many rights to non-white South Africans, such as the right to vote or the right to love freely. In 1960, after the ANC organised protests against the pass laws the South African government made the ANC illegal. Those peaceful protests turned into a massacre of unarmed civilians by the police. 69 deaths were recorded. 50 of whom were women and children. It was after this state sanctioned mass killing of civilians and the outlawing of the non-violent political party, that the MK, the armed wing of the ANC came into being.
“[I]t would be wrong and unrealistic for African leaders to continue preaching peace and nonviolence at a time when the government met our peaceful demands with force. It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle.”
Nelson Mandela
Contextually we should remember that, as well as the assassinations and deaths in custody of ANC members like Joe Qgabi and Steve Biko, the South African government killed women, like Ruth First, and children, like six year old Katryn Schoon with letter bombs. To do so they employed people such as the South African secret policeman responsible for that child’s murder, Craig Williamson, and shotgun wielding hit men like Ferdi Barnard. Of course it is a stark truth that every government has its killers and thugs, but just because actions are state sanctioned does not mean that they should be accepted as just.
Bear in mind that the same police whose statistics we rely on to measure the violent actions of the MK, shot civilian men, women and children in the back as they fled. Bear in mind the government death squads, such as the sinisterly named The Civil Co-operation Bureau, and the campaigns of violence and murder they undertook.
I don’t condone violence, but I understand how it might become a desperate person’s or people’s seeming best option against impossible odds, against violence and repression.
To look at the comments barked out across the globe on social media, you might be forgiven for wondering whether Mandela was a saint or a terrorist, as if those are the only definitions possible. Whereas he was a man, a man who struggled in difficult times to bring equality to his people when they faced terrible injustice.
It’s easy, and facile, to impose black and white distinctions of absolute good or absolute evil to situations and the people therein. It is meaningless to do so. Reality is painted in many more colours. Pure white and pure black are actually very rare, if present at all, in nature, the same is true not just of human flesh, but also of human nature:
“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” —Rivonia trial, 1964
RIP Nelson Mandela.
Okay. Be prepared for this, it may make you cry, I write ‘may’ because there is a chance you are an internet connected washing machine or something.
The other day I chanced upon this image with the caption ‘a 12 year old boy plays violin at the funeral of his mentor, who helped him escape poverty and violence through music’.
Because I am not a washing machine this was enough to move me, the story within that sentence and the photo of the young boy’s tears, brought a lump to my fabric softener drawer. But then I decided to look into the story further.
I found out that his mentor was Evandro Joao da Silva, a man who co-ordinated a hopeful charity group called Afroreggae that encourages young people from all over Brazil to take part in activities such as football, music and capoeira to help avoid their descent into the world of drug-trafficking.
It is heartening to know there are people like this in the world, people struggling to fight the encroaching shadows with whatever light they can generate, whatever love they can muster against the vast indifference of a cruel world.
But this inspiring man, Evandro, was murdered in a robbery in Rio in October 2009.
The details of the robbery, captured in CCTV footage, add insult to injury:
The footage shows two men approaching Evandro and throwing him to the ground before shooting him. They then proceed to remove his jacket and flee the scene.
A military police car then passes the scene, with a full view of Evandro lying on the ground.
The officers do not assist Evandro but chase the thieves. On catching them, they do not arrest them but let them go.
The footage shows one of the thieves walking away just a few minutes later and afterwards, one of the officers putting Evandro’s belongings into the police car.
The police drive off, and Evandro is left to bleed to death.
Source: Rio Times 2009
So there you have it, a tragic and terrible story, a dark stone flecked with golden slivers of the hope and kindness of people pitted against the grinding and constant gloom of greed and poverty. Upsetting, right?
But it doesn’t end there.
Within a year of playing the violin and weeping at the funeral of his murdered mentor, Diego was diagnosed with Leukemia.
This came shortly after his mother was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour.
Diego died aged 12 after slipping into a coma and an unsuccessful operation.
Here, at his funeral, his friends, other children from the Afroreggae program, play a final homage to him – the song Asa Branca.
What is the world, with all its indignity and suffering?
There are not words fit to say.
But there is, at least, music that tenderly, furiously, fills the abject silence.
Epilogue: I was going through a box of personal items the other day when I came upon a ticket from 2003, when I was working in International Politics and had been sent to Brazil.
I was able to take a few days in Rio as holiday and while there I went to see Public Enemy (and the Streets) play live, I remember very much enjoying the other Brazillian bands I saw supporting them, one of which was Afro Reggae.
January is a bleak month of dwindling hopes (after a fair start, the jogger stops and wheezes in the crisp air, plump hands on knees, dark frown-lines of defeat griddled onto their red raw mince face) but February carries with it the dancing sound of a distant spring, that encourages the heart and enlivens the step.
With that (whatever that was) in mind, here are a few inspiring things I’ve found about the place:
“People say why don’t you give it up? I don’t think they quite understand. I’m not doing it just for the money, or for you. I’m doing it for me.”
Keith Richards
And how about this? A gorgeous work by Rashad Alakbarov, ‘Flight to Baku’, using perspex ‘paper aeroplanes’ to cast coloured shadows that paint a scene.
And here’s a pep talk from ‘Kid President’ that made me smile.
If that doesn’t do it for you, that’s fine, here’s a dog in a top hat:
I recently returned from a small Island off the coast of Vietnam where I had a motorbike accident. I had hoped the serenity of the island would help me focus on writing, but the only writing I did was on the back of an envelope just after my accident. 
It’s somewhat disjointed (the writing, not the foot) but I was probably still in shock, I reproduce it here nonetheless:
I’m lain on a gurney in a tiny Vietnamese hospital. I’ve just had stitches to close a gaping wound in my foot after a motorbike accident.
A woman is dying noisily in the room behind me.
Another, even more serious accident is in the cubicle beside me.
A man name ‘Luck’ translated for me. He’s the general manager of where I’m staying. He sat with me, “you’ll be fine”, he said – but he left during the stitches, looking queasy.
Luck! A one armed, few toothed man just wandered into the hospital, selling lottery tickets.
My blood was spurting out on the red clay road.
I tumbled and slid on my right hand side.
My Frankenstein monster foot, in stitches.
I was a boy the last time I had stitches.
Foot feels weird, taut, numb.
Will the pain return?
Oh, the people I love. I love them.
A man staunched my wound with a ripped open cigarette, the nicotine leaves sopping up my blood and stinging into my system.
“What can I do?” I asked myself on that red clay road.
Life is not to be taken for granted.
I love you. If ever I have loved you. I love you.
This was my thought as I left for work that morning.
‘If there is not enough good in the world, you can’t bemoan it, or despair, instead you have to try to do something about it. You have to increase the amount of good there is.’
There was a reason that I thought this. But it is not one that I can elaborate upon. The day before I had received some extremely shocking, painful news that left me very concerned for people I care about. I had done what little I could, had got angry, shed a few tears, gone into a type of resourceful shock that is familiar to me. A place from which I can find solutions, actions, before (perhaps instead of) processing the emotional impact of things.
At work, apart from this worry sitting on my shoulders like a pair of remorseless Buzzards, it was a normal day, I was ploughing through my inbox, but then, at about 11.30 a friend tweeted me, it was an aside to say that a man I barely knew at all, a man who only existed on the very fringes of my own existence, had died.
That man was named Horace White, and he was a person whom I saw occasionally pushing his trolley along the streets of East Finchley, where he lived. The only words he ever said to me, that I recall, were ‘best of luck’, the greeting and parting wish he gave to all he met.
He died, aged 54, two days ago. People, young people mainly, would sometimes mock him, taunt him with the name ‘Stanley’, which he hated and which would lead him to erupt into harmless but profane outbursts, I have seen this happen on a bus, and been partly concerned and then politely amused.
He would spend time sitting outside McDonalds and Barclays on Finchley High St, drawing colourful pictures with his crayons and giving them to those who asked for them. I read one story on his tribute Facebook page that he used to keep all of his crayon drawings in his suitcase but then one night left it outside the Post Office, the bomb squad were called and blew it up.
There were some tears in my eyes as I watched a video on youtube of him saying ‘best of luck’ to the camera. He seemed confused, lost, gentle, kind. Childlike. Even in the other unpleasant videos on the site in which he was provoked into shouting, there was no threat to his behaviour, it was childish, a tantrum.
And some of the tears were for The Situation I was worrying about, which – in a way that I couldn’t explain well even if I felt able to write freely about it – correlated with this man’s death.
I don’t mean to be frustratingly enigmatic, but I feel that even without the specifics what I have to write, to put out from within me to here, still holds true, has meaning.
At lunchtime I bought some Monkfish (special offer, for dinner that evening) from a supermarket and then I found myself wandering to Tavistock Square, where I stood before the statue of Gandhi looking at the messages and objects people had left there in the alcove beneath where he sits.
The pain of The Situation was raw, raw and confusing enough to me that I wished I believed in the God’s of man, but I don’t. I looked at the quote from the bible that someone had placed in the shrine, Matthew something or other, I looked at another quote, it was a Hindi quote about the universe coming from the deathless self. I saw a pack of self-help cards that someone had left, seemingly for someone in need to take.
None of these objects were of any use to me, but the motive behind them was. That people genuinely want to help others, that matters. That reached me.
I cannot tell you what my expression was as I walked on from Gandhi’s statue. I was absorbed in thoughts of what I could possibly do to help the people involved most directly in The Situation. I was wondering about the phone calls I should make, of what I should say, what I could do…
And then a voice called out to me. Quietly.
It was a man, a homeless man, his trolley and his possessions scattered about him on his bench. He was grimy and his fingernails were horribly long, he had a white and ginger beard, he may have been in his 50s, or his 40s, perhaps even, like me, in his 30s.
He pointed at my supermarket bag.
‘Can I have a sandwich?’
‘I don’t have any sandwiches, this is fish’ I explained.
We looked at each other.
‘Do you want some money for a sandwich?’ I said, reaching into my pocket for some change. I was being dismissive.
‘I can’t walk anywhere’, he said to me, and he lifted up his trouser leg to show the sores on his leg.
‘I’ll get you a sandwich’, I resolved, ‘what do you like?’
‘Anything’, he said.
So I walked back the way I had come, I looked at some options, trying to decide upon what would be the most robust and well balanced option, eventually settling on a large roast beef and salad bloomer on brown bread. It may have been my own hunger dictating the choice.
I walked back to him with the sandwich, and he asked me to open it for him (his hands clumsy and dirty, his extremely long fingernails handicapping him) I did so and he took it gratefully.
‘God bless you’, he said.
I stood in front of him.
‘Do you have anyone looking after you?’
‘No, not really’
‘Do you visit the NHS?’ my question came out clumsily, but he answered it with a ‘no’.
I stood there for a moment longer, wondering what I should do. And in the end I just walked off, leaving him eating the sandwich.
I walked off because I am not a saint, I am not even a good person. I am just a normal, lost person, like all of us, and I was still hungry, and I had phone calls to make, and I did not have the time to spare in my lunch break to do any more than give a man a sandwich.
All of us is lost because not one of us has any idea truly of why we exist, we come into the world full of bright possibility and hope, and then the whittling away at our innocence begins, the strange chaos of events, of other people’s pain and sadness and confusion and love and joy and cruelty touches us in ways we can’t ever know or forget, but underneath the isolation we strive to fashion for ourselves, the ‘I’, to protect us from the confusion of others, we are all connected in ways we can’t even see, by a filament of being.
What was the story that led this man to be homeless on this bench, what cruelty, or love, or chaos had he known? What cruelty or love or chaos has led me to be where I am? What cruelty, love and chaos am I responsible for?
I phoned the person who had contacted me the previous day hoping that I could help them with The Situation. They were far closer to it than me, and more terribly upset. As the phone rang I could see the chap eating the sandwich, he seemed happy enough, and I felt heartened a little by that simple fact.
When I got through and I spoke to them, I tried to offer love and support and whatever practical help I could. I think I may have done some little good.
We, all of us, affect all those around us. We all of us make a difference to people’s lives, even if we aren’t aware of it. This is a platitude, yes, but it is true.
Horace White simply used to say ‘best of luck’ to the people he saw. That is not much, you might think, but it is infinitely more than silence.
These are just my thoughts, I make no attempt to order them. This is a repository. Rather than a craft.
Dec 3 2009.
Mortality is keenly on my mind. We live as if it death is a far and distant thing. But it is everywhere. Close to us. Our shadow.
This evening I walked past a motorbike accident. The police and medics kneeling over the felled and quiet rider.
The idiocy – some of it well meaning – of the passers by struck me. One man had parked his car by the side of the road so that it blocked the passage of traffic, yet he had taken to standing by the police car, and making the gestures of a traffic policeman in order to usher the traffic along.
A policeman got out of his vehicle and, rather than praising the gentlemen in the manner he might have been expecting, asked him in a scolding tone to move his car out of the way. The man continued his helpful gestures even as he listened to the policeman admonish him.
A small group of people stood on a traffic island by the injured party – one of them, a balding man with white beard, made half hearted traffic policeman gestures too, I think shyness kept the gusto of his gestures down. I saw one driver slow down and crane his neck to try to get a clear scope of the horror.
I walked fairly briskly past, I did not crane and I did not peer. I was satisfied to see that a motionless motorbike rider was being tended to by the police and a medic or two, there was nothing useful I could do, two people were already guiding the traffic along, and anyway I had just come from my Grandmother’s house, and though I was thinking about how foolish it was that I felt I had to hide my tears from people passing me by, how foolish it is to be ashamed of love, even so, I did not want people to see me, people I did not know, with tears in my eyes.
She is ill. How serious remains to be seen, a specialist’s scrutiny approaches. We know, from the symptoms that it could be terrible. She is scared. I go and see her and help her with practical things. When she leaves the room where we sit together, to get a letter or paper or something, I well up – stinging tears, but I know she finds comfort in me, and so I stifle them, recall the calm and strength of love, and find light and amusing things to say and talk to her about the things that she wants to talk about. If she saw that I was terribly upset, it would upset her.
I owe her my strength. I want to allay her fear, to give her comfort. And I know that I have always been able to make her smile. When I was a little boy she used to sing a song ‘you are my sunshine’, to me, and this was a comfort to me in difficult and confusing times. And I was to some extent a lightness to a terribly hard life that she had endured. But to me, how can I qualify what she is? She is the person who showed me what love is. True, kind, love.
So she writes to me to tell me now, by email, on the computer I got her, that she loves me, and that I am a lovely person. She says my visit has exhilirated her enough to log on to the computer and check her emails.
I write back to tell her that I love her very much, and that if I am a decent person, it is largely because of the love she has given me throughout my life.
Last Friday night she was very ill, breathless, frightened. I went to her and we got a doctor to come over. In the time while we waited we talked about a meeting she had with Lord Joffe, a friend of hers from South Africa. They met on the way up some stairs to a meeting of the fatalistic lobbying society for assisted death that she has long been a fan and active member of.
They both had been friends of Bram Fischer, the South African Lawyer who was arrested by the authorities, detained, humiliated, later to die of Cancer.
My Gran loves to talk of Bram, she admired him deeply. The authorities would not let her visit him, even when he was dying. They were cruel. They hated him most because he was one of them, a white Afrikaner – from a ‘good’ family. His treachery was absolute in their eyes. They kept him in isolation and from hospital as long as they could.
She spoke of how she had been too tired to ascend the steps to the meeting all in one go, and how Lord Joffe had stopped and sat with her on the steps. He was speaking at the meeting.
She told how when he gave his speech to the assembled crowd he said how glad he was to be speaking there, and how glad he was to have met an old friend on the way in, Margaret. He called out to her in the crowd and she waved back to him.
The Doctor came and I stayed in the other room, letting my tears brim and pass in silence, unseen.
My Grandmother is a good woman. And goodness is a rare and wonderful quality. Not to my Gran. She sees good in everyone.
Until recently she belonged to an ANC support group for the old guard, they would meet up and talk. Some of the more set in their ways would insist on discussing revolution.
The young ANC, the young blacks of the new South Africa have formed a new group – to which this ancient vanguard is able to join, but which is clearly distinct from them. They call themselves ‘the special branch’, which my Gran finds amusing – ‘they are too young to remember’. She and her comrades lived in bitter fear of the special branch – the people who would send letter bombs; Assassinate; torture.
Her old support group will remain only as a creche service to look after the children of the young new ANC. I am not too clear on the details. What is clear is that the young ANC, like all the young, wants to distance itself from the old. Finds the talk of revolution embarrassing, outdated. Sees a different world.
Of course, the different world they see came about because of the sacrifices of the old, I think they do respect that, but they are hungry to make the world their own.
My Gran sent the new ‘special branch’ some money to buy Champagne, with a letter wishing them well and sending her fondest regards. They bought Champagne and read her letter out, and they toasted her, she tells me. She is made happy by this. She was never much good at meetings, she never had much to say, she says.
She held her tongue in prison. She left South Africa rather than testify against her friend, Joe Qgabi. Though in time he was assassinated by ‘the special branch’ of apartheid South Africa.
My Gran is an old woman, who has lived and fought with great sadness for much of her life. Terrible things have been. I see her now before the shadow. She is the kind hearted woman who took me to the zoo, who encouraged and listened to me when I was a hurt little boy, she is the woman who, without affectation, gives to those who need. She is what love means to me.
[Update 2012: She is still going strong, in hospital again currently, but doing well. ‘Old age is not for sissies’, she tells me]
Pakistan’s blasphemy laws have reminded me of an idea I had for a short story some time ago.
http://www.rationalistinternational.net/Shaikh/blasphemy_laws_in_pakistan.htm
So this is a reminder to me to write it.
The title will be Bieberville, or similar.
Tonight I had one of those conversations. You, know, where someone wants to know about what you are writing. And you (I) become evasive and shy.
I am not playing coy when I demure, I genuinely find it excruciating to divulge the thoughts and ideas that I have nurtured and which I hope are imbued with enough worth to justify their being.
Wait a minute, you interject, slamming your Toby Jug on the table. You expect to (unlikely, but hopefully) be published – for the world to have access to these PRECIOUS ideas? And yet you shy away from talking about them?
Pah! You, antagonistic reader, sneer at me. Perhaps rightfully so.
No, not really, that’s part of the problem. I know that I can write, well enough to concoct at least a barely passable story, characters, dramatic arc, exposition, descriptive flourishes etcetera. I am not sure I can bear the scrutiny, the exposure.
Well, just write things that are less exposing, you wisely suggest.
It’s not possible. Everything comes from the twilight between conscious and subconscious. Nothing I am writing is biographical, but by being brought into existence I own it, and it owns me. I am responsible for it, and must justify it.
So, I told my companion this evening about my early work, (alluded to some posts previously), about the disillusioned Astronaut. She encouraged me to tell her more of the story, which I did. And I found myself defending – justifying? – philosophical positions, ideas, that I considered when I was a teenager, and that I see in a different light.
There was something fragile for me even in telling the story, let alone defending it. I must be more robust, more pragmatic about these things. More committed to my own creations.
You see, when I first wrote that story, a friend of mine took it from me and sent it to a literary agent. She wrote back that it contained some lovely writing but did not work as a novel, but that she would be very interested to see the next thing I wrote.
I was 18, and I could only see the rejection, I could not read the constructive (and flattering, encouraging) rest of the letter. It took me many years to see the truth, or at least to see beyond the negative. To see that it was a rejection, yes, but one not without hope.
I will open myself up to criticism, to encouragement. Perhaps that will be a constructive fire, a forge, rather than a pyre in which I die.
