Wednesday, July 10, 2002
After any extended time away from the iBook, I get antsy. There's a dread, that I've lost the rhythm. That finding it again will be very hard. But today set my fears to rest. I did 1,357 wds. on Chapter Ten in only about three hours, and I did it with a headache, which usually shuts me down. And I think I've found the solution to the Matter of Great Importance. I think, ultimately, it was simply a matter of allowing myself to understand that this is the only proper way that the story can end. Every story may seem to have an infinity of conclusions, an endless parade of alternatives, but that's really just an illusion. The more I write, the more I understand the illusory nature of these alternatives. A story may go down a million paths, but only a few are true. Maybe only one is true.
And on a note that may, or may not, be completely unrelated, I thought that tonight I might relate a couple of very recent and strange little incidents. They aren't quite proper "ghost stories." Just little things that have seemed inordinately strange. I seem to be "blessed" with such experiences on a fairly regular basis, say once or twice monthly. There have been so many, I generally let them pass without comment.
First, on Sunday, I was, as mentioned in the entry for 7/7, lying on the chaise near one of the big windows in the front of the loft, listening to a Bjork CD and enjoying the clouds drifting by overhead. They were very high bluewhite clouds in a hot and hazy sky, and it was good to be watching them from a cool place. Kathryn, visiting from Rhode Island, was in the kitchen. We'd been talking, joking about something. I forget what. Anyway, as I lay there, I realized that she was whispering to me, very close to my ear. Because we'd been joking around only a few minutes earlier, I decided to be difficult and ignore her for a bit. I watched the clouds and listened to Bjork, but the whispering finally became so loud and insistent that I turned my head to respond, though I'd been unable to make out a single actual word she was saying to me. But. She was still in the kitchen, at the sink, with her back to me, and the "whispering" ceased immediately and did not resume. I thought it might have been something in the music and I played the last song back, listening closely, but the sounds I'd heard, which it had seemed were being spoken directly into my ear, were nowhere to be found on the track.
Then, later that day, I found it necessary to remove all the jewelery from my ears, something which I only rarely do. I have three rings in the right lobe, the topmost being a small gauge captive-ball affair. Monday, when I put them all back in, I was having trouble getting the very tiny onyx ball into the ring. I finally asked Jennifer to help, but she couldn't get it in either. I was feeling impatient and finally said never mind, we'll get it later. I placed the ball safely inside the whorl of an iridescent glass sculpture of an ammonite in my office and forgot about it. Then, last night, Monday night, I was watching a DVD and, as I often do when watching television, fidgeting absent-mindedly with my ear piercings. And suddenly I realized that I was playing with the captive onyx ball. I had no memory of getting it back into the hoop. I checked, counting up from the base of my ear lobe, to be sure it was the third piercing. It was. I thought about going to the mirror to look at it, and about going to my office to look in the ammonite sculpture, but by this point I was feeling a little silly about the whole thing. If I got up, I'd miss part of the movie, and, surely, I was only being forgetful. Sometime during the afternoon or evening I'd put the ring back together, or Jennifer had, and I just didn't remember. It's a small thing to forget. I continued to play with it for five minutes or so, then the movie got my attention again and I stopped worrying about it. But at breakfast this morning, Tuesday morning, I was once again absent-mindedly fidgeting with my right ear lobe and realized the ball was missing. Because it was still in the ammonite, where I'd put it. Because it had never been set back into the stainless steel ring. So, I can be absolutely certain of two completely contradictory things: first, that the ball was in my ear on Monday night, and that I played with it while I watched television; second, that it remains there in the glass ammonite on the bookshelf, right where I placed it Monday, and from whence it has not yet been removed. I've been trying not to think about the possible significance of the ammonite itself, of golden curves and the like. These other things are enough for now.
It's the little inconsistencies I find so fascinating.
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