•
In
a room we sit around a table.
The
table is dark wood.
It
has thick legs.
It
is a space for gathering with a boundary of wood.
•
In
another room, in a hotel room, we hurriedly undress.
•
We
use the table as a barrier and we rest our things on it.
We
value the table as decorum.
A
table that is wood, that is hard.
•
A
bed is soft and we, the two people in the hotel room, run our hands
over each other’s bodies while reclined upon it.
We
like the feel of each other’s bodies.
This
is pleasure.
This
is also speaking.
•
We
in the room with the table speak over the table.
We
in the room with the table gesture.
We
debate how to want action.
We
point.
We
speak of uninvested discourse.
We
confess.
We
trouble.
We
speak to each other in elaborate patterns of sentences.
•
We
who come together with some difficulty or we who haven’t seen
each other for some time thus desire each other all the more on the
bed in the hotel room.
This
desire takes the form of one person having one leg on one person’s
shoulder and the other leg stretched out and twined around the other
person, moving back and forth.
•
We
gather at the table to hear opinions.
We
gather at the table because we are uncertain about what is right.
The
table is where we go to speak of uncertainty.
We
gather to discuss.
We
gather to pass and shuffle papers.
We
gather to use words like ethical responsibility.
We
gather to advocate silence on issues as we speak out on certain others.
We
gather to wait.
We
gather to speak of our own difficult history.
We
gather to read and discuss.
We
gather to puzzle.
We
sway and are swayed.
We
long for fluency.
We
confess.
We
trouble.
We
speak again of ethical responsibility.
Or
again of uninvested discourse.
We
claim rationality.
We
claim what is useful or what is not useful.
We
learn.
We
exchange.
This
is thinking in exchange.
The
love of wisdom.
•
In
the hotel room we are different.
One
of us is lighter, one is darker, one is paunchy, one is thin, one
is wrinkled, one is resilient, one is hairy, one is smooth.
These
characteristics are combined on each of us in a way.
We
run our hands along each other’s bodies and have one person with
one leg on one person’s shoulder and the other stretched out
or twined around the other person in the hotel room.
This
position is difficult.
It
is not an easy position for our bodies, our desires.
This
is interaction.
This
impossible position.
This
position that does not even give the most pleasure.
And
yet we place all our hope in this touching.
As
touching, gathering, happens in the most difficult places at the most
difficult times.
•
In
the room with a table we are uncertain of what is what or which is
right.
In
the room with a table, we are heavy with things to do, things to say.
They spill out of us.
We
passionately desire this space, the table space, to be necessary.
To
be productive.
The
table allows us to get the ideas of those we would not let into our
bed because they are not darker or are not lighter or are not paunchier
or are not thinner or are not more wrinkled or are not more resilient
or are not hairier or are not smoother.
The
table lets us get the ideas of others and we desire this.
Yet
we are unable to get comfortable around the table.
So
mainly we limit.
We
limit the possibility of the love of talking.
We
say it cannot be. Or should not be. Or must not be.
We
forget the thing, the darker, the lighter, the paunchier, the thinner,
the more wrinkled, the more resilient, the hairier, the smoother in
our bed together so we can no longer tell who owns what.
We
get confused by contradictions.
We
forget for this moment interaction.
We
are uncertain of action.
•
What
I mean to say here is that I am confused.
I
am part of a we and then not part of a we.
Or
what I am confessing is that when I am lost simple juxtapositions,
like comparing people in a room with a table to people in a hotel
room, feel like sense.
Like
truth feels.
What
I am saying.
I
am part of a we and then part of a we.
I
am confused.
I
am meditating on the word we like we all are all the time.
I
am confused.
What
I am saying.
I
want the switching yet I am confused.
What
I am confessing.
When
I am lost simple juxtapositions seem to make sense.
This
is because I am lost between two places.
I
have abandoned sureness.
•
What
I am saying.
The
problem is how to we all together now.
How
to speak around a table as if one leg is on one shoulder and then
the other is stretched out or twined around the other person.
How
to get we here then together in the same room.
How
to undivide them.
How
to join them.
How
to no longer keep all our transformative possibilities in one small
little room.
How
to speak around a table as if one leg is on one shoulder and then
the other is stretched out or twined around the other person.
How
to speaking.
How
to speaking.
How
to speaking as our bodies come together and recline.
How
to put one leg on one’s shoulder and then the other leg stretched
out or twined around the other person and still enjoy the table, the
neutral, the boundary.
How
to messy and can’t be stopped.
How
to not that one is right and the other is wrong.
How
to go to bed.
How
to go to table.
We
wait.
We
long.
And
this is it. And so it goes. And as we move. We have learning. This
is it.
How
to this is meaning.
How
to work it all.
How
to learned and to have gained.
How
to this is it.
How
to all its forms.
•
I
know this.
I
am in one place and I am longing for the geography of the other place.
The
softness or the boundary.
I
am in days wanting it all.
Oh
love for all.
Oh
love for everything.
The
moving back and forth.
Here
is the way of it.
It
is the way of one leg on one’s shoulder and then the other leg
stretched out or twined around the other person.
It
is the way of the mind.
Around
the table we are moving, moving.
We
need the leg of our thinking on one’s shoulder and then the other
leg of our thinking stretched out or twined around the other person’s
thinking.
In
the leg of our thinking we need the table’s questions, its protections.
•
So
we gain and we claim.
So
we learn and so we are.
I
have this thinking.
The
public table thinking.
The
private bed thinking.
All
this putting one leg on one’s shoulder and then the other leg
stretched out or twined around the other person is the love of trying
not to make one better than the other.
Both
need each other’s rigors, each other’s practices.
Yet
I am confused.
How
to make meeting in invested discourse. To make fluency. To make flourish
in both. A wrought iron trellis in both. A place for suspended and
dangling by one’s hair in both. A place for plastic flashing
red light that represents the heart in both. A place for love of nature
in both. A place for cloudy, muggy day in both. A place for detailed
and intimate writing of graffiti in the steam of the bathroom mirror
in both. The way in both. The durable in both. All together. Both
swelling and touching. Both listening and changing. Both separation
and joining on the flat places of this, our world of daily occurance.
•
Oh
one of thinking.
Oh
one of desiring.
Oh
one of making and of doing.
This
madness of love and madness of thinking and thinking of love and loving
of thinking and loving of maddening and thinking of maddening.
This
is the lovely part of it.
This
the way we learn to thinking.
This
is the way.
So
it is.
So
it might be.
So
it is in this way.
It
is all weighed down.
It
is ours to keep.
It
is ours.
So
it might matter.
So
it might matter.
•
So
we switch and the person who has one leg on the other’s shoulder
and the other leg stretched out or twined around the other person
moves so that the other person has one leg on the other’s shoulder
and the other leg stretched out or twined around the other person.
We switch. We switch from table to bed. So it is what lasts if only
for a moment of coming.
•
If
only for a moment.
So
it is what remains.
So
it is switching.