1983-1984
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Saturday April 22, 1983
Hyperion Ave.
Los Angeles
Dear Deidre,
The following two pages are what I first wrote when I sat down to write you.
Love George
Abandoned by me? I thought I had been abandoned by you, which now of course makes perfect sense. As much as you perceived it I perceived it too, and understood it additionally since my last letter to you went unanswered. That was the one I wrote in response to the news of your mother’s illness. That’s where we left off then, letterwise.
My memories are fond as well, but thanks for being the one to bring the subject up first and put us back in touch. As a matter of fact, and I didn’t set this up either, there is your Morocco photograph, the Market, above my desk as I write. It seems you’ve always been one of my household gods even when I was unaware of it.
Your image has been set up here in a land of philistines and hypocrites and me of course. I feel that Los Angeles is a kind of harrowing hell for me and is something to be transcended (perhaps transfigured and apotheosized) rather than inhabited.
But this is where I am. Hyperion Avenue, Los Angeles 90027. It’s locally known as a place called Silverlake. I live on a hill above a street called for the son of the sun, was he? On the hill, I have
created a vegetable garden and a home with a dog and a cat (I can hardly believe the description myself) and a companion, Marcus.
The – god willing – hot months, I hope to be working at the beach as of June in a truck catering out of the popular café I’ve worked the past months.
I’d like to hook up, physically, again. It’s the next step, I think. Could you come here; would you want to? I’d come to see you in May if I had the money. I’m taking May off from all routines, work included, so I’d have the time.
Saturday May 6
Hyperion Ave.
L.A.
Dear Deidre,
Can’t come. No money. Some prospects but no money. Probably no money for travel until the fall and then perhaps no time.
Marcus and I have accidentally started a baking business and it’s catching on. We supply a local café
currently and have appointments this week with a greasy spoon and a bulk natural food grocer, both of whom approached us.
We’re nursing the idea now of bargaining this enterprise into a café of our own by the end of the year. It’s something to do, the impetus of which is invigorating. In the same way that the vegetable garden is a reward, the process of gardening itself a meditation. I’m snail farming. I’ve become a heliciculturiste, or an escargot raiser. A cage rests now above the garden housing perhaps seventy snails in a controlled environment replete with cornmeal and damp and shade. Who can tell where this will lead. I’ve committed to these projects of mine of making money while I am not more humbly employed for someone else.
Presumably the foregoing has sounded distant. This seems to be my signature tune, especially when my manner is contrasted with yours. I love you Deidre and a summer on a hill with snails and eggplants and a burgeoning muffin business is something to think about.
And just because my approach is different doesn’t mean I care less.
Love George
Monday June 13
Dear Deidre,
Apparently you were hurt by my letter and the retaliation was very effective. I felt as though a wall of bricks had toppled on me and for days afterwards I was black and blue with guilt for evoking such a response in you.
But I was also angry. I wanted to retaliate with equal ferocity. I wanted to tell you: a.) fuck yourself, b.) why did you suspect my intentions in the first place and lash out in the second, and c.) there wasn’t any good reason for us to be in touch because nothing had changed and I wasn’t going to tip-toe around the dragon anymore living in fear of fiery reproach.
I considered that my anger was a substitute for guilt. Oh god, I thought, perhaps I had, unconsciously, accused you of blithering idiocy and you, accurate as radar, had picked it up. Then the pendulum would swing me free of remorse back to righteous wrath when I would feel compelled to retaliate with vindictive vindication. I was gripped by the same emotions you had been when you penned your searing response.
I felt at the same time I could watch my reaction from the vantage of a separate reality. Like watching a maelstrom from the quiet of one’s room. As much clamor as there was, from this perspective it seemed imposed by a suddenly militant minority, emotionally, and although I wanted to vent my anger in a letter right away, that separate reality advised me to wait out the maelstrom a few days and act after reflection.
Which I did.
One evening subsequently I calmly asked myself what I wanted out of this. Sweet revenge? The delicious release of righteous indignation? That seemed to me an application of the same principle that will beget annihilation in the upcoming nuclear armageddon. Retaliation would be living the same maelstrom and no matter how justified, it would actually be an act of self-destruction.
After contemplating this truth, that evening I sat down and framed the letter you received. So what do you think?
love George
Hallowe’en
Dear Deidre,
Marcus and I along with Pete the dog are leaving Los Angeles in five days to bicycle to Oregon via Death Valley, San Jose, San Francisco (by Dec. 10), Mendocino (by Christmas) and points as yet undecided.
Here are a few volumes you might enjoy. I’ll write from the road. I think of you regularly, and realize how I do love you deeply.
George
January 13, 1984
Mendocino
Dear Deidre,
Boy was I panicked last week when at general delivery here I had a returned letter I sent to you in early December. I thought you’d flown the coop expressly to kick me, like dust, from your heels. But I merely addressed the letter incorrectly.
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Freed of Los Angeles and traveling again has released a pleasant wash of memories, many of us traveling ourselves. Of us in that hotel in Damascus by the railroad tracks where I gallantly rang out your all-cotton dress so it was a dense network of creases; walking you to the tube in the snowstorm in London; of yelling at one another in the Place de la Concorde over the most effective way to dodge traffic; waking up in the back of the van as we approached Emerald City II (Zaragossa – Mantua was I).
We are staying in a one-room converted tool shed on the edge of Jackson State Forest (mostly Sequoias). This is four miles inland from the coast where the town of Mendocino itself is, sitting on cliffs above churning surf. Although it is out of the way it is not remote. We are not on a through highway route; once you turn off it is a smooth ride past vineyards and farms over the coastal range and finally to the sea. Days spent making bread and fires in the woodstove, repairing the bikes and campstove, building table and chairs, have succeeded one another for over a month.
I would like to see you again. I’m afraid of the dragon though. The Saint George in me has lain down his arms and my dragon wrestling days are on the wane. It seems that you’ve undertaken the wrestle yourself, which is beautiful; it’s what will heal you.
I think actually that the Saint George in me is being concentrated on the dragon within myself; on that fierce compulsion to be alone; that fiery spot that kept everyone driven away by the iciness they felt surround me. I feel the need of some healing too, and life in conjunction with Marcus has provided the chance for this.
Please write me here.
Love George
February 17
Mendocino
Dear Deidre,
I was so glad to hear from you. Now I have a known address to send more books to. Hot on the heels of my “I’m sick of your defenses” postcard, I’m sending you two volumes.
I imagine us walking arm and arm through rose gardens in the autumn of our lives, each gently holding the other up, going gently down the paths. When I have an address I’ll write you. If ever, when ever, you are welcome to come share my life and whatever I have.
I am, in fact, waiting for you. You really churn up my bile AND I love you.
Love George
P.S.: Write me your own favorite set of travel recollections. I’ll be in Mendo till the Ides of March and I need to laugh.
