fflo | Well, Karl wasn't naked.

Well, Karl wasn't naked.

I saw a movie about Jung once in which they tell of his having come back to his big stone house by the lake after some time away & hearing all kindsa strange noises in the kitchen at night, until he got up & went down into the kitchen & talked to the place, telling the pots & pans & what-all that he was home now, it was okay, they could relax. Something about the film, and the Jungianness of Jung, made it seem not so crazy. And, according to the tale, the pots & pans and such did quiet down after that. Or it least it seemed that way to Jung.

So after seeing that film I did an experiment. There was a particular soda pop machine at the Community College of Baltimore (now Balto City CC) that was notorious for eating yer money, and/or not giving you the right kinda pop---er, soda (it was in B'more). Now of course what pop would come out when you pushed a certain button very probably had to do with how the machine had been loaded by some human being, and whether it would eat yer money or demand more than the stated price was also, in a certain world view to which I still largely subscribe, a matter of mechanical logistics that could be explained most solidly by rational examination, should one care to invesigate, and have the means to do so. But since it was a closed box that responded somewhat mysteriously to stimuli, it seemed as if it had the potential volitionality of thingness that the kitchen has in the Jung story. It was an object for superstition, in other words, or religion, or spirituality, or psychological play. So when I went to that machine next, and it gave me the right can of carbonated beverage for the correct amount of change, I said "Thank you, Machine," as I bent to pluck the can from the depository slot into which it'd clunked.

The next time I went to the machine, it performed perfectly again. I thanked it again. And the next time it was fine, and I thanked it. It kept working; I kept thanking. And the entire rest of the time I worked there, it never ripped me off again. To this day, when a vending machine delivers, I say aloud to it (albeit sometimes sotto voce), "Thank you, Machine."

It's not that I really believe anything "woo-woo" here, dear readers. But there's something about it. Something about the way it plays out in our psychology, if nothing else. Like karma---instant karma, and not-so-instant, not requiring the whole death & reincarnation business, but just playing out through how people treat you in response to your shit, and how you yourself feel inside about it and think & behave in response to that.

What I'm here to tell you about tonight is that I just came in from a short visit to the back deck, impromptu upon going to close the door for the night. I haven't been out there but once, very briefly, since the snow melted off of it---hell, since the snow started snowing on it, way back whenever that was. The big old (and I mean old) apple tree is in bloom, and it smells great out there. I looked out at the back yard, as much as I could make it out in the dark, and felt like talking to it.

I told it I knew I'd been neglecting it, and I wanted to tell it I was back, and that it'd be alright now, but I wasn't quite ready to say that & know I meant it. I'm not quite there, not quite able to commit. So I told it "I'm here now." And I said how great it smelled. And I tried to feel, as I stood there in just my socks, what it would be like if I could really live in that back yard; really stake something there, here; really see beyond hopeless salvaging---and not flee, but settle some place. Settle into that place. This place.

It's been so long since I've been settled in a home. The Michigan taxes' referring to my "homestead" hits me with such bitter irony I want to scream.

I come from people who up & moved & settled down & then up & moved & settled down again. It's in my blood. But I also have the message from one of their dead-before-I-was-born selves that you should live every place you live as if it's the last place you ever will. And not because one day you'll be right: because that's how you should live there. That's how you should live. Lately I've been thinking that it is this struggle that's the worst of the fallout from the nuclear catastrophe that was/is the H-bomb.

For somebody who appears to be pretty certainly destined to be childless---and who values bloodline heritage less than most of the population, I daresay---I think about my dead ancestors a lot, and I often feel the spirit of that notion, from my vague white American idea of "African" culture, that my ancestors have some investment in me, or would give a shit about me if they were here. Or have something to say to me. Or that I can make them do that---have something to say to me. There's a broad human anthropological part of it, but there's a person-to-person one, too.

And of course not all my ancestors are biologically related to me. Sometimes they're just people who wrote down what they were thinking, or lived their lives or told their tales in such ways that the tales have made it to me.

Tales like Karl Jung in the kitchen.

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Cool post, L. And I can't help but mention that when you talked to the yard, you weren't just talking to pots and pans. Living, breathing, listening things out there, girl. They'll respond even better than the pop machine did.

Yeah. THink they could be talked into becoming self-maintaining? lol

*grin* I haven't achieved that yet, but anything's possible.

I'm glad to hear you went out on your deck. Put a chair out there. A table too--I think I remember correctly you have some little ones for outside. Read out there sometime. Eat out there sometime. It will give you a lift, and pretty soon, you will be telling the yard that you're back and it's going to be alright.

Thanks, S.

Sorry I woke you up before.

Good ideas, S.

bond with the yard!
your yard is your friend! your hide-a-way!
{garlic mustard, or not!?!}
my lilacs are blooming....

Mine, too, baby.

What a great post! It made me feel really happy to read about that, especially since I've spent a good chunk of the day bedridden (horrible sinus headache that sidelined me last night and didn't let up until this afternoon), staring out my open window, quietly talking with the ducks who spent the day waddling to and fro. Makes me feel vindicated.

Also, it reminded me of a funny quotation from Mike Doughty regarding songwriting: "I'll try to say to a song, 'You're a bird!' and if it doesn't want to be a bird, it'll say, 'I'm a house!' So we'll argue back and forth for awhile and finally I'll come around and say, 'Okay, you're a house.' By which point it usually says, 'I'm not a house, I'm a dinette set!' And then I just have to say, 'I have to put you down for a little while. Leave you alone for a few weeks and if you still think you're a dinette set then, we can talk.'"

Thanks for the post. Really cheered me up a lot!

I'm glad!

I love the bird/house/dinette set story.

When I was young I hated schmaltzy, overwrought touchy-feely art, and I set up camp in the camp of thinky art lovers. Before I knew there were others camping there, even. Sure, it could be ABOUT feelings, but not like them. It shouldn't be created emotionally, I thought, cuz then it just comes out all gushy, like feelings, and Uck.

Turns out the process of making art, as I understand art (broadly---as something made at least primarily for its own sake & the sake of the pleasure or shared pain or shared otherfeeling it may produce, & not made primarily for a utilitarian purpose), is a lot like the process of experiencing emotions. Which we don't get to control. And which are mercurial, sitting there being one thing & then, suddenly, having slipped from being a house to being a dinette set.

There's something really neat about stating intentions, and interacting with inanimate objects. I've talked to my apartment now and then. And my guitar and car more often. It does do something interesting... maybe not outside of myself, but certainly inside.

yes ... it does do something interesting. is it really such a pathetic fallacy? pathetic, yes, ...

hey, you can anthropomorphize with me any time, baby

i remember talking to my house when i got a new roof, asking
it how it felt - if it felt warmer, nicer, happy with the new blue
shingles that matched the sky. eeegads. call me crazy...

you're crazy!

lol

Well, you see, it stands on a line where two different ways I see the world meet up... and don't do so smoothly. I think there *is* something interesting that happens. And that makes my inner scientist roll her eyes and give me a look. :^)

Do you name inanimate objects? I know you've mentioned the Importance of Naming with respect to pets...

I love naming anything, to tell you the truth. The kite is called Amelia, cuz she loves to fly. Friends named my first car "Butch," and the now-ex- named the current station wagon "the Pam Dawber," but, ironically, I never named my beloved Jeep.

Putting word to thing is a thinky thing, left-brainly speaking, but there's something sentimental about it too, that's right brain and goofy. My favorite mathematicians and science folk indulge that other side too. I'm glad your inner scientist scoffs at your whole self self now & then!

I've always been sort of heistant to name things. I'm not entirely sure why. But the result is a very uneven naming of things... i have lone unnamed stuffed animal here, and my car has a name but my computer and guitar don't.

There is definitely something neat about names, though. And a definite place for the goofier side of things. :^)

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