oh for gob’s sake

b-c-d-e is the way it goes i-s-f-g while I’m at it but the point is b-c-d-e not that complicated really and an interesting look at body memory---my hands knew the case before I did, still do, my hands, especially if I’m distracted know right where to go to find just the right letter, so as my father might have said, erroneously carried out action and the imps and inklings certainly would second that, suggesting Gob and not God was just the word I was looking for

so we’re invited to a reception by the canadian consulate for my brother’s film about the grassroots env movement in china, imagine not being able to go because we may not have the proper clothes...on two levels, not having them, and needing them, and imagine to how many folks this happens in ‘real’ life, folks not welcome not seen not tolerated because they don’t have the right clothes, and evenworse those getting ahead because they do

very odd. was when I was a teenager, is now that I’m an elder.

why can’t I wear my hiking gear, it’s clean. 

ego a funny thing it standing in and up for things I’m sure I don’t care somuch about anymore in the worth fighting for category anyway in the scheme of things as they are now and especially based on what I hear myself say about being seen as, or recognized as some big important mover and shaker or name in the community of writers bookmakers artists la la la 

it’s like rule # 2 says, if you’re trying to be cool you’re breaking rule #1 which is have fun 

yeah

the rest is just nonsense, leave the air for the art

the point was made in the movie that the environment was a good place to begin the democratic process because it is not political, wow even china gets that. so the GOP doesn’t get the environment doesn’t get birth control (they just get viagra! wonder if they get the punchline?) which brings us to decency which clearly they don’t get either. so they should lead us, justexactlywhy? 

one of the other points made by an elder chinese insider was, having only one man who has the power, not to mention the power to know, only works if he is right

today is his birthday, the first I hadnot remembered (thankyou FB) and after the first ohmygod excitement the first time I feel a little urge to um not jump right upend use the excuse for a brief contact as if the not sending a message would be somehow louder than any I might, as if it one way or another would matter and simply said obviously it does to me, for reasons which are not the least bit clear, I wonder if that’s true. meanwhile I’ll just eat breakfast, update my safeway club card and put wood on the fire

so how did we decide to go I ask and he says we haven’t which is a crock, just because we haven’t decided how or when doesn’t mean we haven’t decided I said on one of our field testing walks dressed in my new boots, new stick in hand wearing my new base layer, under my nylon pants which next I need to try without the leggings, wearing my new wicking shirts, hat on head, I think we decided I said, just like when we decided to hop freight trains; we were goners the minute the idea crossed our viewscreen

equipment failure drum banjo crowe artist poet writer editor charge nurse father dad balance 

it’s trust and an assumption of a large enough pool or arena of commonality and likemindedness which allows one not to specify each and every nook and cranny and it is life and learning friendship and community which works out the details, common understanding is no default, no easy task never quite done

yes I said each artist could sign their work as they saw fit, but I also made mention of keeping in mind common spaces, and spoken or not there is the large whole

a catlike creature takes over my lap 

it was the boxy apartment and the white rock bit wall texture that woke me up

she quickly lost her newfound balance being paid for your art is a heady experience, by which of course I mean recognition 

success is something else altogether

and there is always an underbelly, life changing is life changing

the job of an editor is to edit. I knew the job was dangerous when I took it, 

and (factis) my perspective is a little longer now, and to that extent a little shorter now, the paradox of age

the moon was full yesterday but it is a perfect oh! that greets me this morning 

the rainbow and its order informs her use of color, she said. 

I’m guessing like anything else it’s a matter of play and exposure practice and experimentation; time to get out the colored pencils, time to take responsibility for what I do and don’t know…

my feet have found home in the boots now, though I still wrestle with the lacing

imagine that gray is full of colors not just black and white I was going to say as if white isn’t, you see

the towhee is back or has come again, yes

I think it’ll be important not to freeze to death in the Pyrenees 

home is where the boots are, heart will follow

drum. banjo. crowe. words, yes words is what I was looking for

I’m learning not to make it all so complicated, in the not taking care of sense, by which I mean trusting allowing insisting yes there it is insisting that others will take care of themselves I can simply say what I have to say. wow 

drum. banjo. crowe. words

 bring warm clothes, comfortable boots, and a song

dithering

to dither

in a dither

more like hithering&yon

there needs he said to be the possibility of failure for one to soar, it’s about risk isn’t it

and degree of difficulty and does the piece hold itself up in either sense

so, we’re another step closer, his pack came and it fits,

I’m just the right amount of nervous, in just the right dither which is just right, otherwise no risk, no genius, there it is…

he talked too about trust, trust needed in collaborating, which of course includes respect and a certain likemindedness which isnot necessarily tribal

wind. word. brook. song

drum. banjo. word. crow

like the wind. I’m there. on terms no one understands

insisting. yellow

light fog snakes along

riverbank egret heron killdeer

osprey vulture swallows

leaving house&home (order) is the hardest cats banjo self as if and because there will be no coming back, one needs to leave, if one is leaving, as if there is no coming back and one just the same needs to go as if coming back is part of it

and yet there is no not going, we’re already on our way

home is where the boots are

it was a nailed evening of poetry and theatre the not uptowndowntown crowd with more heart than craft but they want it bad you know and there’s lots of air in the room and, a refreshing willingness many read at the open mike leaving as micah pointed out no one to simply holding the audience spot is what I think he said, lends a different ear it does; less critic more student, confederate

for my part less dithering worked just fine, and in spite of my own initial grumbling about god knows what, it was excellent was what it was.

funny what you can do, what I can do when I get passed/past I can’t, like I can’t draw except I did draw the perfect crowe  like bird (yes I know it doesn’t have an e but my sense of the word includes an e, like olde) with feathers every which way mouth open surrounded by fuss and caw, wow

fuss and caw, that would be grand name for a press, as good almost as here. say. 

anyway the critter is the second chop if you will for my press, the first one of course being my banjo

what’s next?

you’re doing a great job she said, (of editing eRrAtiCa  letterpress work of & by the goddamn c◉◎p) and I appreciate your enthusiasm&excitement which is contagious, you should know she said because it’s a lot of work&worrying,

I’m good at holding structure within chaos; and creating the edges against which people will rail and rant and say aye or nay; and better these days at not taking it, the good or the bad, the credit or discredit personally

it’s certainly one of those endeavors in which along the way agreements and understandings need to be realigned

the light in the woods across the river is still there! 

in a house that was new some ten years ago and an affront there in my woods across the river where there was before only trees I guess I’m used to it now because I’m glad to see it as if a reminder I am not alone in the dark there is a light in the woods across the river and of course the same could be said from where they’re standing

what I see in the dark is not the same as 

what I see in a light

I finally finished writing the 3rd book in the trilogy, and have even composed well on paper the colophon and since instruction will be necessary and I aesthetically dislike too much information in a colophon it will force me to leave out all the esoteric information about typeface and paper and ink. now it needs a title

a trilogy exploring circularity---no matter where you begin when you get back   there   keep going it promises not to be the same

written, designed, handset & handprinted on vandercook press by author

here. say.

judi goldberg 

printed at Iota Press, Sebastopol, CA

2012

it keeps coming back to why would we do it, fair question since it won’t exactly be just fun,  like riding the rails; or trekking in thailand with totally blistered feet, or wilderness canoeing for two weeks in quetico or hooking up with paul in the first damn place, or him hooking up with me, moving to the river, working at sfgh  butand it’s what we do, who we are, walking edges because we’re intrigued because we wouldn’t be who we are if we didn’t

for me walking the camino is a perfect metaphor and (still) an age-appropriate challenge

it doesn’t to without saying she’s sad and has never been good at it so there will be ample distraction ample fuss and caw as I may just develop a wont to say but it doesn’t go without saying there’s enough to go around and each can do his or hers as is their pleasure so it doesn’t go without saying keeping each other company is one thing, but arguing about a fix is just more cuss and faw

meanwhile it’s the middle of the damn night and I’m wide awake, well lying in bed I was anyway, you know

thing is, I’m not pleased with the page as is, it doesn’t sing to me, and I allowed myself to be moved off my mark; not altogether true, true as far as it goes, I was moved off my initial course and deferred, am in deferral; as familiar as I am with my process it still surprises me, catches me I mean to say, offguard--- 

though I hear myself say it won’t be ready to print until it’s printed and I get to dither hither and yon until such time and now it’s time to shit and getoff the pot

I’m funny. I need to stop taking so much motrin, not that I’ve taken motrin so much as enteric coated ibuprofen but I’ve taken a lot of it and for a very long time and of course it carries with it especially at my increasingly tender years of bleed out and kidney failure and such is the curse of course of all nsaids but there are those who insist they are not all made equal and so as I said it’s time to switch but damn, the side effects scare the hell out of me, as if they were anydifferent

printed that goddamned page that has been giving me gas for the last month, funny how all the dithering and yon hithering boils down to the same thing each time and how I always forget that when I get so twisted around it’s because I’ve lost track of where I was going and what I was trying to do, the old ‘what is it you’re trying to say’ thing, and somehow mistaking the explorations of possibility for not knowing what I in fact do have in mind

and so I simply did what I had intended in the first place

so when all was said and done and tried I simply did what I had intended in the first place, use the great block of text as part of the paper, as part of the backstory, and so the twists and turns and not being where it was I was going again had to do with the poetry of it, now the actual carrying out of it, again a reminder that the real bottom bottom line is still the poetry and music of it, and the visual accents cannot, do not take precedence, are not on the other hand illustrative

of course it’s raining the pear blossoms are setting 

I wonder why I’m not mentioning my predilection for built in ways out, I wonder if it was always the case, I wonder if it is a style or simply another way of saying perfection, or winning or being the best or the prettiest or the smartest or the bossiest god knows is not my way of organizing goading tricking motivating myself,

I remember when we were taking statistics together after the first test he asked what d’youI get, I answered I’d only say I was pleased, or not, no contest.

6 miles with pretty much a full pack 

we could be walking along I said, we are he said and we laughed as if well yes as if we could be walking along and for all of it we still haven’t committed, one way or another, each with our own doubts, each with our own ways of deciding his about whether we can do it, once on our way there’s no turning back,  mine mostly about leaving home, leaving the as is, and the cats. either way in short it’s about the risk, and each our way of facing it

it’ll be the dayafterday of it, and of course 6 miles isn’t even half the distance we will cover in a day, and yet though we haven’t decided to go, we are not deciding not to go, or we are already on our way it not being so much a decision any more to make as a discernment about a decision already made, already we are different---it is a proh-cess oh yes, like making a book--- 

he’ll make it because he can’t turn back

I’ll  make it because I can

& we’ll make it because of the other guy

is the river up she asked not yet, but it will be and it is, high as it’s been all winter, except it’s spring… it’s flooded in march once during our tenure, it was winter march, but the second flood within 6 weeks, we were just putting our house back together, collecting our stuff from yon&hither, new carpet, new furniture, new every damn thing except for one rocking chair...anyway we didn’t flood tagain but our next door neighbors did

the river is only at 24 ft at the Guerneville Bridge, no worry only mud & we needed rain badly

as if I’ve never printed tomorrow, or it’s mysterious or I will encounter problems I’ve never solved or as if before I do anything I can’t and it will be wrong I’m enjoying or backsliding to a state of anticipatory anxiety that doesn’t get me up for the game, it’s really rather wasteful, especially since basically I well know, as do we all it ain’t a wrap until it is and part of the fun, just like at the restaurant you don’t know what you’ll really order until you do

meanwhile I worry about the impression, no really, and boundaries(!)

M&B she said (longstanding tender sweethearts) divorced, he fell in love with someone else, walked away leaving her everything, and also I heard this week with the same amount of tongue clucking J&T (more chaotic but equally passionate, 2 kids, a house) separated, she had, so goes the story, to find herself. tongue clucking notwithstanding each merits its sadness---

butand, it’s aboutthat time, and if I remember there aren’t necessarily good or bad guysand we do all change, or not

so as my mother would’ve said, noneofthem should take any shitty garbage that doesn’t belong to them

3 pages down, 1 to go

it worked out just fine, and in fact was very straight forward, maybe the worrying made it easier. maybe I wasn’t worrying so much as problem solving, though there was a hitch in the get along, the rollers were not set properly and so the forme was not inking, so we went through that again, and I believe next time I can probably even do that myself 

and I still haven’t talked of how I always leave myself a way out, a thing another one of my greatest teachers taught me

thank you richard

so, do I take a month of and pony up to the challenge of a poem a day, whetting that whistle, perchance composing some at the case as the case may be reminding me again poetry can be many things and among them fun or do I do both or do I not decide today

meanwhile I’d like to finish up the third in the trilogy for the Quicksilver event whether or not I choose to sell them there, so I need to finalize my sense of the poetry and the colophon so I can set the type

ok then