A Mi/ Ah, Me

What is the mud-clumped root of the hesitation you grasp Window watching above the computer screen Not wanting to write nor edit but not much wanting anything else either
Or perhaps, as is shown right now, escaping with write, but being picky in what is written

Is that so bad? Well, yes if you have a project, a goal, no income, a book that must be finished and bound and held against my lips like an inanimate cross between baby and lover

Less bad if I were hourly-waged to just sit and write, turn in all the day’s work at the 5 o’clock bell Paid regardless of quality Is that what a grant is like? Pre-content payment to be free to type absurdities later?

[And the overarching truth is that my hair falls straight in these climes, so it isn’t just a new work-me here in Princeton, but a new mirror-me as well, and that does take some self one’s getting used to]

The problem being, as if explaining it again makes it solved, is that a character lied to me, and this I find shameful

I sat down, just like this, months ago, and she whispered to my fingers what to push and I obeyed, only to read it Monday and not believe what she had said! If I weren’t so distressed by why she misled me I’d be quicker to amend the chapter, but the sting of her misrepresentation is too much What reason did she have? Perhaps she was unsure of what her actions were?

It was a highly charged moment, around 4pm in 1958, if the note led her to vomit upon first sight, of course she might have considered several courses of action after that and mistakenly, rather than purposely, allowed me to write an untruth of fictional history

Thus I provide her with a gracious way out, and her and my relationship is salvaged (and we do need to remain on speaking terms, at least for a few more months) In general I just can’t trust her, she has so many faces depending on who is doing the looking. Mary. You are a problematic homemaker, drinker, planter of tulip bulbs!

I may, nay, will! wrestle the truth of what happened that day. And if she wont tell me, Judith will, for I find her to be more reliable a witness to what only takes place in my head.