yet, i'm still here. traveling on impulse, i can't say i've planned anything. when i travel, i simply go, guidebook in hand, and explore the territory i know absolutely nothing about. and when i did a production of Racine's Phaedra, my mentor said, 'i'd never tackle anything like that. it's way too tough.' i've never really asked if something were possible or not (except the immature desire for a mate). i launch, and look for wings on the way down.
that said, i have been working on a closer relationship with my guardian angel. climbing into my car to drive the feather river canyon, i ask the flighty one to put his pinions around me and i feel much better with the white feathers tickling my nose. true, i know the poor fellow will have to give up some day and let me go. imagine the loneliness, the lack of a job, the loss of face.
i do, of course, believe in the power of circumstance. true, as a child and tiny god, i knew nothing could phase me. lately, i've been doing some pretty stupid things, like eating grapefruit, when the label on the cholesterol medicine says explicitly not to. that happened last week and i don't know what stratosphere i've inhabited these past few days. and the worst is, i didn't notice a thing!
i do have to admit, a friend of my mother told her 'he will be alright. he has common-sense.' where she got that idea, i don't know. living in a divided berlin basement, chancing unreliable sexual adventures on a greek island, spending forty years writing poetry, doesn't sound like a healthy and balanced mind, which, by the way, is filled with equivocal memories of the dastardly sort, close encounters of the weirdest kind.
sitting alone on a mountain day after day, forgetting the sound of my own voice, wavering in and out of dreams, last night i wandered through my invisible city. i call it new york. no, it bears no resemblance to the real thing . my three years on manhattan didn't teach me a jot. in this dream town i'm always learning lessons, like don't lend a lame man my camera, or stay out of the shower when there's shooting in the hallway.
geeze, how many times have i fallen asleep at the wheel: in the wee hours, in broad daylight, swinging back into my lane in the knick of time? i've often thought human beings so careless and stupid, they couldn't be surviving on their own. i don't know my guardian angel's name yet. individuality of that sort seems forbidden. i've threatened to give it one and, boy, do those feathers tremble!
