Rereading the autobiography of Wright Morris whom I've never read before, his novels, rather, 'cept for this his autobiography, A Cloak of Light, when I was in my 30's feeling trapped by New York City. No, wait, not by the city but by myself on yet another shelf even in the most adventurous city in the world, or one of them. And I so wanted adventure thus New York and my Harlem basement room where I "ensconced" reading reading reading as I did everywhere I'd lived, rather, read, on night shifts, and in between shifts, more given by introversion to inner adventures though preachers warned me that these were the worst kind. But the outer ones, the stuff which made/compelled/miseried as my shadow, "will out" but I. not yet ready for the outing, found them in the books I read, and in the twice weekly sessions with Betsy, the patient Jungian analyst, who got plenty of shadow from my dreams. More than once she'd nod out while I was talking on and on which hurt my feelings but I now realize that my shadow was so very big and as yet to be touched that I put her to sleep, made her unconscious, so as to avoid a confrontation with the shadow. I'd silently steal away, ashamed, a personal check on her side table, and walk from East 92nd and 1st Avenue to West Harlem.
Much as I desired a life "in the world" I clearly wasn't ready so in sessions as with books I couldn't turn the pages fast enough to escape a destined, Jung would warn, "doomed" encounter a few years ahead. . .but I was determined to read only about it, dream about it, take notes, keep journals, yet on some occasions late night by the Hudson River near the corner of West 142nd Street I would relent, cave, rave, shout, weep, threaten the water, life itself on both banks, even and especially that Goddamned indifferent sentinel Maxwell House Cup forever tilted with it's petrified drop never dropping, I pledged revenge, retribution, a long list of bullies spilling out of my mouth where they'd at last flounder then flush beneath the dark water charcoaled with orange sky. Only to come to life and dryer land in me again come the morning. Fuck the pigeons. Then. Me and pigeons are good now.
Reading Wright Morris, his travels and dare-thee-wells was greatly satisfying back then. Still is. Now in my late 60's, well into shadowland and vigor mortis I am companion to others who turn pages or count days until the life sentence comes in again, morning after morning, the second act of the play of life trying to play it out, resolve the clot or plot. Or not.
I am nostalgic for another child in me who has yet to be lived, fleshed out, but now said flesh such as it is/I am is on the sag and hairing up gray to white, so what's to be done about it, this urge for lively living, for Blake's lost child?
Last night's dream reveals a golden pickle, yes, golden, and pickle (life's a pickle), unearthed in an ancient Egyptien ruin, that of a king named Horus. I was/am awed by the find but stumped as back then in ancient times, and now still this was/is the Key of Keys. An adventure for sure. But where's Betsy now that I need her, her dead for at last 20 years? Will make do and of it on my own. A close friend nickname in the '80's "McDoo" for "make do". I'm of a practical bent. A later analyst calls it "compensated oral." I'll not quarrel though I could. Perhaps should. The recommended healing collapse on the psychoanalytic menu offerings did not come with three sides nor a bread basket and I, basket, was already "case" enough. Humor in tact though.
The shadow boy's here in this Lorca bit truer and blue balled for LIFE as ever as I turn Morris pages, me yet again living vicariously:
"I am going to ask Christ to give
me back my childhood, ripe with sunburn and feathers and a wooden sword."
This passage, Morris's close encounter with what Jung calls the Anima, a vision real, but the road and Europe prevails so. . . . .
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