BOOM

He calls himself an Ideas Man. I am an Ideas Man, he says. I make Ideas for you. He walks into interviews and looks around the office. He cups his chin and looks around. He comes up with three ideas. On the spot. And these are new ideas. Idea number One. The coffee table. Stand it on its side. Make it pillar for a blanket fort. Idea number Two. The paperweight. Pin a quilt down onto the desk. Now you've got a backing wall. Idea number Three. The stapler. Staple a few sheets to the sheet rock above the cabinet. A couple more into the plywood bookshelf. See what happens. See what you think. He cups his chin again. Idea number Four. And again on the spot. The water cooler. Make it a second pillar. Fort size doubled. Boom, he says. He stands in the office and looks at the man behind the desk. He whispers, boom.

THERE IS BOTANY

At all times the world appears before the eyes the same. Just how it feels changes. There are bricks and dogs and there is botany. There are bodies of water, straight water, only miles of water. They are sometimes called lakes and they are sometimes called oceans. There are currents of electric frequency everywhere.

What a task. Being human in the middle of it. Dragging the body around. Taking it to places. Making lessons or making war. I used to think holding out was all it was. If you could stand in the river long enough, then something...

Just letting all that weight happen so that there would be the next thing. And the next thing was more weight. So you would hold out. Like a man. Breaking waves with your body like a hammer. Like you were building something. Like that was the next thing.

But I have it right now. I have the thing figured out. I mean in being. Not doing. Christ. Who the fuck knows of doing? Just of being. And even then only darkly. Like some distant ship in the rain.

When you have things figured out within its spirit and above its form, then you have stepped from out of the river. You are now feeling your own weight proper. This is the first time and you are feeling yourself standing on the earth, feeling your body holding your weight up on the surface of it.

And now is that task of walking around with this new lightness. The task of touching bricks and dogs and botany. Godammit, you're on the earth now. That's the next thing now. So you just need to be patient with it. You just need to work it in pace. Just let them figure it out. And remember to give them that space. The space to be and to do what they need to be and do in order to figure out the spirit of it.