15
Made it, last night, all the way to ten, watching TV, without a hot shower, then read more than I read last night, and felt a little better. I don’t know what exactly made this possible, or what, exactly, the previous nights, made it so difficult, but I thought it had something to do with this writing, integrating my experience, and letting Jesus occupy my body. It’s 7:57, now, and I’ve downed one cup of coffee, and the plan, today, is to drink three cups of coffee, two tea bags of caffeinated black tea, and one Dr. Pepper. But I might have two Dr. Peppers depending on what time it is. Then, the plan, if possible, is to do what I did last night: three episodes of Blue Bloods, a show about a New York City police commissioner and his family, then read for a half an hour. Maybe that’s wishful thinking—so many things could go wrong, but that’s the end game—that’s the routine I’m trying to establish, a routine that should work for the rest of my life—with or without a partner.
Going to sleep around 10:30, then, and getting out of bed around 7:00 was the ultimate plan. That gave me an extra hour that I had to fill—up to 4:00. Normally I would work until five, but because of my neck injury, I’m trying to take it easy. Anyhow, that’s an extra hour I have to fill right now, and, in the long run, that’s two hours I have to fill beyond what I’m doing right now. I can’t write any more than I’m already writing—a novel, a book length poem, a regular poem, a short poem . . . I spend about an hour or so revising physics work—don’t want to work on physics anymore for much longer than that, per day—painting a good painting only takes about an hour and half or two hours—so the only thing left for me to do is write more songs, and more music. But that’s really bad for my neck injury, so I’m at a loss, right now. So I can pretty much play through the pain, and hope my injury, given the adjustments I’ve made, will still get better; or I can try to watch even more TV—but that, I’m afraid, would make it more difficult to make it to 10:00, which I need to do, considering that, apparently, I no longer needed more than about eight and half hours of sleep.
I’d also decided, in the past few days, to quit looking at Facebook and Instagram before going to sleep. My work wasn’t getting a lot of attention, and hoping that it would, on such and such occasion, get more attention, proved, often enough, to be a letdown, and I didn’t see the point in disappointing myself, and scrolling through a bunch of stuff that I didn’t really care about, before bed. Sure, it was nice to see some paintings, but I had to sift through so much other stuff, and I’d seen so many of the paintings already, that, I thought, I should just spend an extra few minutes scrolling through Facebook or whatever when I post, in the afternoon. The book I was reading, A Wind in the Door, a young adult science fiction book by Madeleine L’Engle, was pleasant enough, but I was getting a little weary of the young adult stuff, and I didn’t know if I was actually going to make it through a bunch of Madeleine L’Engle books like I had originally planned. Maybe—I’d read several of them, already, in the past, and, frankly, I don’t remember liking any of them as much as I liked A Wrinkle in Time, so we’ll just have to see—which means I have another conundrum—what am I going to read? My plan was to look at a New York Times book review, that listed what it deemed the fifty best thrillers of the 21st century. I hoped that would do the trick—as I didn’t want to ready some boring Nobel prize winner or an uppity drama about the human condition. I wanted something more commercial than that—if, that is, I couldn’t find something that spoke directly to me.
Well, I had been at the computer for about 50 minutes, now, and I could feel my neck injury a little—it was there, even just from typing, already, and I was on my third cup of coffee. I chanted a little, in my Nashville uncle’s voice, or the voice I’ve imagined, over time, to be his, this morning, but I’m losing him, a little. His voice sounds so much like my voice and the voice of my internal narrator—and I don’t have any way of hearing his voice anymore, so I don’t know what is going to happen. I guess I will keep projecting his voice, and listening for his voice, with the hope that his voice won’t get completely drowned out by my voice—that it will remain it’s own channel, it’s own frequency, the frequency used by someone, across space and time, that I am communicating with. So I had six total telepathic voices in my repertoire: my Nashville uncle—associated with Shakespeare; my North Carolina uncle—associated with alcohol, literature, math, and physics; my Idaho uncle—associated with songs and song writing; my great grandfather, using a second cousin’s middle English sounding voice—associated with someone from the future, and, a little, with Picasso; my voice—associated with my 5D self; and Anna’s voice—associated with my partner(s), also known as Ursula. I had, on occasion, used my father’s voice, but not much, but, anyhow, that voice, in my mind, was a little associated with literature and music. I have to say, however, that my strongest connection seems to be with Shakespeare, as, for whatever reasons, he seems to be represented, at times, by my North Carolina grandfather, uncle, and, also, my father.
Incidentally, Bill, my great grandfather, said, You have me now, here, with you. So I was listening, now, for more than just Ursula. I was expanding my horizons. That’s partly because I’m bored with reciting Chevy Chase, and, because I’m not longer doing that, I haven’t been using these other voices, and I want to maintain the connection, so I’ve decided to chant, some, in their voices, in the morning, before or after my prayer, if I say one, and listen for them, here, at my computer, when I am writing. I might as well just use their real names—as that would be the least confusing for me, since, except for my Nashville Uncle, they have no particular identity, and, as such, I have no reason to name them something else—its not like with Anna and Ursula, for example, where, in my mind, I sometimes speak to Anna and I sometimes speak to Ursula, and Anna may or may not represent my Ursula in one particular form. For a time, many years ago, I associated my North Carolina grandfather with both my father and Shakespeare, and I associated Picasso with my great grandfather, and I imagined that I had a connection with them, my grandfather as my grandfather and my great grandfather as my great grandfather, John and Bill, or Will and Pablo, so there is some history there, but, when it comes to my uncles, at least, I don’t imagine speaking to my uncles hardly ever, so their names can represent, for the most part, the people I do imagine myself speaking to, people that are ahead of their time, people that, in my mind, are more telepathic, and more talented, than others.
The question for me, right now, is this: if Craig, my Nashville Uncle, represents Shakespeare, and John, my grandfather, represents Shakespeare—what does that mean? What changes when I use one voice instead of the other? Am I speaking to different aspects of Shakespeare’s personality? Am I speaking to Shakespeare at different points in his life? Does Craig represent the 4D Shakespeare, and John the 5D one? I don’t know if I can answer those questions, but, in thinking about it, and how things played out in the past, it seems to me that John might represent the Will that I interact with in 5D, and the person, in 4D, a little apart from the creative process, whereas Craig might represent Will when he is working—but I don’t really know. Anyhow, my relationship with John seems much more personal, whereas my relationship with Craig seems much more impersonal—after all, my memory of Craig is listening to him go on and on about banks, checks, and routing numbers. So I consider, for now, that Craig, as Shakespeare, represents a working relationship—a relationship dedicated to making it though the day, and calming each other down—a meditation based relationship, a kind of doctor—whereas John represents my family, and the person that I entertain myself with. In that sense, I suppose, when I am watching TV, and trying to calm myself, I am John, and Craig is working, and when Will is trying to relax, he is John and I am working. As such, when I am relaxing, I am one with John, and when I am working, I am one with Craig. So who will I listen for, when I write? I suppose, in order to develop my relationship with Shakespeare, in full, I will add John’s voice to my repertoire, and listen, on occasion, for both of them.