When my stepgrandson was six, he lived with us for the summer and he was very welcome. There was a run-off ditch just across the road along the house, which was the boundary street of the town. The ditch was necessary because Browning was built in a swampy meadow because, they say, of the beautiful flowers blooming there in the spring when the Indian Agent in charge saw it. (Because at that time all Indians and reservations were assigned to the federal Department of War, the agent was a military man.) So on the hillside that was the north side of Willow Creek, he built a parade ground where mounted cavalry could practice maneuvers, ringed it with buildings, mercifully putting the hospital at the top of the ridge. In the wind.
Ancient Blackfeet Fertility Ceremony just south of Willow Creek.
Why am I telling you all this? I started out to write about “friends” and (verb form) “friending” which is different from “befriending.” I wanted to say that this tow-headed boy saw the rafting possibilities for that slowly moving stream of ditch water, maybe three feet deep because it was spring, and his grandpa helped him built a raft. Every few hours he came into the house dripping because he fell into the water. It was ground water, uncontaminated, I thought. We had no clothesline so we just draped his shorts and t-shirt onto the low fence. By the time he was soaked again, they were dry. At suppertime he announced, “Today I made twelve new friends, counting dogs.”
We suspected the friends were thinking of his raft. The dogs had purer motives. Sure enough, a bully took his raft.
“Friend” in the age of internet is a term that leads to complex and unfortunate events. On one level it can connect people with deep affinities who would never know of each other without the keyboard. On another level it can make you carrion, fed on by jackals. Which end is commercialism? Is an acquiring editor or agent REALLY a friend or aren’t they just making a living in the culture of the Ferengi where everything is measured by cashing out or cashing in.
The most dangerous are the innocents who romanticize writing almost as much as those who romanticize murder and war and get rich by feeding off both. Aren’t I feeding off that by watching CSI programs? Aren’t all novels really CSI programs, dissecting the crimes and deaths of ordinary lives? “Trace” they say, the tiny bits of giveaway that a good writer slips into smooth sentences, then dumps out onto the page-as-couch, justifying “feelings” that everyone was reading in order to “feel.” “I feel you.” “I feel just like you!” (NOT.)
Innocently, the forum leader urges us to “write together” and there are, if you google, lists of advice about how to “write together.” I once got interested in the Progoff journaling movement which structured group efforts in workshops that timed and suggested and urged metaphors for segments of your life. Someone stole my journal. Not the ideas. The physical journal.
Human beings are biological predators and barnacles, using both and being used by both. When one reveals the most hidden things and stands naked, the only result worse than being eaten on the spot is discovering that all thirty people in the room are exactly like you and we are all attached to the hull of the same doomed ship of fools, all out of control, all liable to be scraped off as unwanted.
Writing is merely putting letters in a row so they form words, and then words in a row so they form sentences and so on, cumulatively, until you have a school of thought. But writing is really the dark concept-shadows in the mammalian (possibly reptilian) pre-cerebrum brain, a little stem like that on a gooseneck barnacle, connecting ideas to the sensorium that we so constrict and neglect, because that’s the way you sell things. When you get to that level, “friendship” is a whole different thing.
We need a new word. “Soul-mates” is claimed by the Christians and too suggestive of marriage or at least romance, too much bait for sad pubertal girls with their hearts and rainbows. Ambiguity means people will tell you what you mean, really. Dark and painful will attract those same pubertal girls, this time wanting to put wet cloths on your forehead. Getting gender out of the picture is impossible.
One strategy is to just eliminate the “picture” thing. Let it all flow through you, acid and turbulence and laughter as it comes — accepting it all, no matter how much it rips your guts with doubt. Leave the questions unanswered until they don’t matter anymore. Extreme wrestling. Cage fighting.
I sound too female. “You’re so HEALTHY, Marie! Like a peasant!” “You’ve got balls.” “Did you stay in the ministry?” “Your job is to give me what I need.” “Going to a fancy college means you’ll never be our friend again.” “We think you’re so un-cool you must be crazy.” “But why aren’t you published?” “Calm down.” “Why don’t you take care of yourself? You have a pot belly and your feet stink.”
You know, when you type a free-association list like this, as you go some of the phrases will make your eyes sting. Those are the ones to address or avoid, according to your strategy. My minister said, “A really good shrink will probe around until he [male minister assumes male shrink] finds the place that makes you scream with pain and then dig in and dig in.” A rich man asked, “Why do you always do hard things? Why can’t you do easy ones?”
My cousin said, “Why can’t you write amusing little pieces about kittens?” Offended, I rebuked her. She said, “I wish I’d never said that.” I said, “I wish she’d never had that thought.” She’s a constant reader and does not read about kittens — she’s only presenting a front, hoping to appear conventional and harmless when in fact, she’s always in fear herself. She’s afraid I’ll see her and turn her out of her pillowed retreat. She’s dangerous but thinks it’s a secret. She wants to stay dangerous.
I wouldn’t join a group that would have me. It’s not low self-esteem but something more like arrogance. History has taught me that others don’t see me accurately. Sometimes this is like my cousin, who wants no trouble — please, no trouble — and sometimes my counter-phobia demands that I charge and unmask those mistaken people who think I’m helpful, intelligent, well-intentioned, "a real achiever who refuses to achieve so why don’t you stop being so self-serving and do some good in this worthless world because I think if you finally tried you’d be really wonderful and it would all be due to me because I saw it and prodded you into achievement."
Got voices? All the pubertal girls will say yes. Angels. The answer to an angel is a sword. Take theirs away from them and use it on them. Both angels and swords have names. “Oh, and would you like to be my little writing friend, my little buddy? What did you say your name was?”
"Stay on your raft, Huck honey. Keep moving and take the dog along. I pay attention real good, so I’ll stay here with the cats."
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