A woman is taken in, keeps house, gets sick, gets better, although scarred, finds her mother who dies, takes care of everyone, then marries the man she loves. That's Dickens.
[pause]
A woman goes abroad, teaches school, loves the doctor, gradually falls out of love with the doctor and into love with the more intense instructor, goes to the dance, marries the instructor, who drowns. That's Brontë.
[pause]
A woman moves back to where she once lived, gets distracted, reads a lot of books, keeps her days full, but forgets the dates, never has time to write what she really should write, panics, has to leave. That's Jacobson.
[pause]
I mean, that's Jacobson. Not that Jacobson wrote it. Because Jacobson isn't writing much of anything right now. Except, of course, NoShame pieces. If only one could get a PhD in NoShame, Jacobson would be golden.
Which is not saying it wasn't worth it. Do you hear what--which is not saying--I mean it. Which is not saying it wasn't worth it, and I'll go to my grave saying this. Right now. I know. It's late. Right now I'll go to my grave saying it. Do you hear? And then I'll go to my bed, because I'm not saying--I'm not--I'm not saying it wasn't worth it.
Each mouthful of cake is two and a half years of misery. At least two and a half days, at least. Each day seems like a year when you have a forkful of cake in your gut. Just don't swallow then. Leave it melting in your mouth, fossilizing against your gums. Caked with cake. If you don't swallow the cake, suddenly time won't slow down the way it does when you swallow the cake. Why cake? You use the goofiest metaphors. I don't know. It's just cake. Not even a particular flavor. It's the most general least specific cake you've ever let sit in your mouth, afraid to swallow. It's the best cake ever, that way. Cake. God. What a fool I'm sitting with..
Which is not saying it wasn't worth it. Do you hear what--which is not saying--I mean it. Which is not saying it wasn't worth it, and I'll go to my grave saying this. Right now. I know. It's late. Right now I'll go to my grave saying it. Do you hear? And then I'll go to my bed, because I'm not saying--I'm not--I'm not saying it wasn't worth it.
When God walks in a garden, he most definitely does make a sound.
Laurie Anderson steps out on a dark stage, instrument in hand. No, only bow in hand. Violin missing. White suit. And in the shadows and the stillness she raises the bow, directs two beats in the air, and suddenly, out of nothing comes the light and the noise. You can't believe how much light and noise. And later I think about how there are dozens of technicians just offstage and behind me, running the show, but at the moment, she has made all this appear out of air.
In Exodus, God repeatedly tells Moses to go to Pharaoh and demand that he let the Hebrews go. When Pharaoh refuses, God tells Moses to hold out his staff, and then God makes the locusts and the hail and the frogs come. Moses holds out the stick, and God, offstage, makes the locusts and the hail and the frogs come. And all the time, it's Moses in the spotlight, beating out the downbeats with his staff.
And in Genesis, when Eve has eaten the apple, and God approaches her, she hears him coming, hears his footsteps in the garden, and this is how she knows to be afraid. The apple has been swallowed, no unswallowing it now. And who knows who God is using to make the sound of him walking through the garden. Some puppet, some early Moses, pounding the sticks of his feet onto the grass. Here comes God, sounding like a man, long before there's any notion of him having a man's body. And the sound of God is only the sound of feet in the grass.
In the beginning was the word. Wait. In the very beginning was Let there be light. Should the spotlight come up first, and then I start speaking? Or should the words first sound out of the darkness.
It's all well and good to make a city in your mind, but just remember that you can't share it with anyone else, and the walls won't really keep out the cold. It's long work, rebuilding the city of your imagination day after day so you can at least imagine keeping warm. And it's long attention that you have to pay to keep it present. It may be that building the real city takes longer, feels harder, but once it's made, materially present, you no longer have to make it every day for yourself when you get up. What's done is done. Cold, kept out. Others, see it too. Can take comfort from your city.
[Lights start to fade out pretty quickly, be completely down by the time the final paragraph is half finished. The piece ends in darkness.]
Which is not saying it wasn't worth it. Do you hear what--which is not saying--I mean it. Which is not saying it wasn't worth it, and I'll go to my grave saying this. Right now. I know. It's late. Right now I'll go to my grave saying it. Do you hear? And then I'll go to my bed, because I'm not saying--I'm not--I'm never saying it wasn't worth it.
[Pause. Lights back up so everyone knows it's over.]
"Snot Worth It" debuted March 14, 1997.
Library]
