an american childhood

So, description is revelation, days turn over each other in regular succession, cities of my past reveal themselves to me in lit squares today; (upside down and large scrimshaw-style, like a pinhole camera image splayed on opposite wall).

Full-up with emotion, wound, I sit on this middle point, this precipice, this hinge. Breathing quietly and blinking, I try and remind myself that each day is happening, regardless of me, of my noticing.

I downloaded Annie Dillard's audio version of 'An American Childhood' this morning, and was (again) shocked at our parallel experience of the world, only to be described as topographical. If all other things faded, which city would I see in this over-view, topsail, ambulatory way? If I choose to commit, to focus, what sort of dwelling will I build? I know that I need a house, (again, scaffold), lattice-matrix, a concretized form.

I know instinctively what Dillard describes as the 'building blocks of language': stones, cells, atoms, words. To be a writer, you must love words. It is AT ONCE as simple and difficult as this.