Novermber 26th, 2000 - M.M. 3

This became the "reality" portion of Machina Mystery 3, with "The Lost Chapter" comprising the "fantasy" part.

“Yesterday when I was on the bus a purely beautiful man in simple clothes walked on who struck me and that is rare like it maybe happens once or twice every three years, and when it does I have never approached any of them which did manage to breed a tragedy but tragedy has its place as I did it deliberately not wanting to endanger him with my own internal identity crisis (even though it was all dead at the time), which was good because I would have ruined his life when I left the country if I had and I’m very, very glad for the purity of my choices, because I loved him and I knew he loved me.
Anyway I never thought I’d be struck by anything similar ever again but this struck me the same when our eyes caught and even though he was standing furthest behind several other standing people, as soon as I thought, Come to the back and sit beside me, he picked up his bag and did so and I was stunned and even then it took me at least five minutes to initiate a conversation because under this circumstance I HAD NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE. We had a very pleasant conversation normal as can be about our work and circumstances and he was so absorbed (as I) he didn’t even realize it was my stop though I had already told him where I was going. I still left this all to chance (seeing him again on the bus); when I got off the bus I very nearly cried. He was older than I was I’d say 35 and his age enhanced him.
The last three days have all been like this, there has been this massive shift where suddenly people around me are talking to me about their lives, coming forward out of the blue, and I’m starting conversations with them, giving compliments all over the place. All of a sudden it feels like everyone is talking to me when all my life no one did.

When I left the college I heard “I don’t know why you say good-bye, I say HELLO” (The Beatles, it was glorious) blaring from the weight room and laughed very hard.

Last week a painting that has been on my wall since 1997, I knew I had to take her down now (leaving just Dali’s, who was beside her, Christ on a cross in the sky cleaving earth and void sans the blood and nails, who of course will remain in the place of most prominence above my desk), but I was so busy writing I didn’t do it and she fell down off the wall on Saturday [11/25/00] of her own accord. The painting had come to mean a great deal now, (it was the only signifier), though when I had bought the print it was because of how she had struck me, being the only painting that truly struck me, in The Louvre in 1988. It is called “The Young Martyr” [I’m not alone], and really what had struck me about it then was the pure luminous beauty of the water in a layered blue darker than cobalt, the painting’s simplicity its device, preferred over all that overwhelming grandeur, and actually to me it was a shame the subject was a martyr.
By 1997 this had gained a different resonance but I still purchased it in memory of being struck still and of the blue, lost in the bleached muddy failure of the print. Bleak. The Martyr died differently than most in that she is drowned, her hands bound, and what later struck me in a context that seemed so coldly virginal, saintly and youthful (white robe and halo and all that), is that actually there is a gold wedding ring on her finger. Of course. In the painting her executors are barely there, the sun has set and there is just the hint of the opacity of their figures, two of them. One looks like his cape is blowing and his arms are spread as if in some form of exaltation at victory. Anyway I knew the picture had to go because it is no longer true anymore. And of course it fell, of its own accord.

THE SEA JUNE DROWNED HERSELF IN WAS THE SEA OF THE UNIVERSAL UNCONSCIOUS.

I will not describe the others, my room of course is blue, bright and yet muted aqua blue with sky blue trim and a white ceiling (just lying in there is pacifying), there is one poster of the Northern Lights which has the same blue in it, and on an antique bookstand I stripped and painted myself there is a copy Rosetti’s “The Daydream”, but she looks more like me in the copy. Some have even commented on its superior appearance over the original, which I think is artistic expression in its way; its real achievement is that almost no one says this because the alteration is subtle enough that it never betrays the original, most are stunned by its exactitude. Actually she looks considerably like me, it’s the hair that’s exactly the same, black when wet. My eyes are not the same colour as the woman in Rosetti’s, they’re dark brown, nose is a little different, my jaw deeper (chin crooked same as yours), my lips don’t pout they’re perfect (best feature), my hands and feet are comparatively smaller and delicate but like her I am not a small woman, but more slender with a very long waist, (which is nearly a deformity on this woman, he magnifies everything too much), the painter’s muse object likely mistress.
Everything on the walls in this room, nearly every object signifies something like this or marks travel or significant events or I made it myself. For the first there is the “Always” rose, which I took and dried before I heard “I send you flowers, cut flowers for your hall”. Of course. For you, there is the Millennium 2000 commemorative Irish punt which says everything exactly immortalized in mint and of course I was there in order to find you, which I must admit seems pretty weird now. Imagine how I laughed at “The Blind Date” when I found out you’d been there too.

On my way home yesterday I walked and I know how tired I am because I was nearly seeing the Northern Lights when they weren’t really there, this was pulsing off the trees after sunset (luminous blue on blue - of course). The moon just before it disappeared was of course a new crescent, but what struck me was that the clouds had embraced this sickle in a perfect semi-circle, the new moon had been in a dream where the clouds coiled back to reveal it, an elaborate vision I had where I felt the web of my desire threading out unseen but so vastly. This real moon is actually resting, circumference embraced in the perfect semi-circle of cloud. One pure moment.

I am walking through the park of one of my first schools and there are two young men idling on the swings and one of them stops with whatever he is lighting to say hello, and I can’t help staring a moment because his face is almost exactly like yours, hat on (but I’m so sure!), he is staring back at me the same way and the fact is he is young, he must be about 18, and there is this tremendous impact because though he looks exactly the same, this is in pristine youth, there is nothing that marks or scars him whatsoever, it is like seeing a pure vision of you knowing what you truly are. Stunned at the thought of it. It’s the only time in my life I have seen anyone with such a resemblance and the resemblance is perfect. He asks me what I’m listening to and I answered “Radiohead”, which naturally got his approval, but I told him actually I wasn’t listening to it at all. Guess what I was thinking about.

Last night I heard a voice in my head, not my voice, and that has never, ever happened that a voice leapt into my head unless it was indistinguishable (and that only twice, one a fatal implacable statement of future fact that made it a command in 1987, my horror could not have been more complete). However this new voice was male, and what He said as He was leaving was a quip, a targeted jibe, “Now that was painless!”
After that I was woken by the voices [God Speed You Black Emporer]…

On my finger I have a ring, and this morning I changed its place, which I cannot make a habit as that would be weird, but I’m letting you know. As should be it is silver, it is the only one I have and it has always carried a forsaken promise; it was given to me by the first man I ever slept with (while that needs a qualifier that cannot be given, the significance is still true), and he put it on my engagement finger at the time to signify a promise he wanted to keep but couldn’t. I returned it to him in disgust but he gave it to me again the night before I left the country on a quest, the only way I could think of for expressing the necessary commitment. (It performed its function.)
            The ring is Mexican, I will not state the native origin in case I am mistaken but they are known for their silverwork, it is a traditional symbol, and while the beneficiary didn’t know it I’ve been told in separate instances that the embossed continuous wave is their symbol for The Creation and Eternity. Then there’s The Sea, the universal unconscious sea. To me the ring had begun to signify future promise, the gift of it itself had carried the promise of a troth, consummation, now to a sign, water, once I knew.
Nov. 26^th – I walk past the light board outside of a Church announcing Sunday’s Sermon: “The Promise of a love fulfilled.”

Who says they’re not on it?”