Suddenly Now

And what an encounter like this means, then, I cannot say precisely except to say that it is suddenly now. Suddenly real. Suddenly not stray chatter in my brain but actual. Real. Another. The Other.

Not so much a way as a destination. Not so much poetics as a poem. Not so much a theology as a story we find ourselves in. With real people. A real person. The actual story of our lives, for example.

A subtext that is where the story really happens. The story within the story. A story in which we poke around, trying to understand the characters, for example. Where they are. Where they’re going. What they’re up to. The ideas. What are the ideas here, for example. What are the ideas that motivate these beings. This author. What kind of world is this anyway. How does it work. What are its laws. What is its behavior. And what is the tradition it comes out of. Or what traditions. Because it does have many strands, does it not. Many narrative and lyrical and historical and philosophical and. Well you get the idea. Strands.

But mainly the method is to live in this story. To act. To discover what’s next. To jump in with all the fingers and toes at one’s disposal and to grab hold. To look around. To listen. To jump into the middle of things. Not to hang around the perimeter of the dance floor. But to get in there and dance. So what if one’s dancing is a little wild. So what if one’s dancing is a little improvisational. A little inspired. A little quirky. A little funny looking. So much the better is what I’m thinking. So much the better.

To keep one’s eyes open is the thing. And one’s ears. And one’s nose, for Pete’s sake. And. Well. I go on and on. And then suddenly. Now. As I look. As I listen. The room changes. A sense of who is here and where and what they’re all doing changes. Someone seems to be at my back as I type on the keyboard here. As I write these words. Someone who seems to put his hand on my back and on my shoulder. Someone who likes to look in on what I’m doing. What I’m saying. And there’s a sense of confidence here. A sense of confidence from this God being with the large hand. The warm hand on my back and shoulder. A sense of confidence in him for what I’m doing here. A sense that this is what he’s got in mind, more or less. That this is okay. That this will work for now. That we are both in this together and will sort this all out together. And he will be with me as I make my way through this. As I follow his lead, whatever that means. Wherever that may take us.

Look, Buddy. He seems to say. Or not say with his mouth. But say with his mind. Mind to mind. Look, Buddy. Just keep writing. Just keep that up. It may wander around some. It may not be strictly speaking one hundred percent logical. One hundred percent perfectly crafted. One hundred percent normal or marketable. It’s not going into a museum, for example. It’s not the well wrought urn, for example. It’s not one hundred percent aesthetically pure and holy. Neither is it going to be a best seller. It won’t make the New York Times best seller list. No. Not by any stretch. It won’t give you immortality, and it won’t provide you a retirement in Tonga. I’m telling you right now. So don’t get your hopes up. Don’t get your spiritual or commercial greed juice going. Your fantasy island juices.

That’s not what this is for. I’ve got other ideas for this. I’ve got other ideas in mind for this baby. So make sure you stay out of my way on this one, Bill. Billiam. Old Billabong. Old Billibillions. Billibilbo. Billibrobdingnagian. Billiboat. Billigroats. Billibodacious. Billiloquacious. Billibally. Billisilly. Billibully. Billineologistic. Billispastic. Billiplastic. Billihooligan. Billitickytacky. Billiwilliwacky. Billiwilliwonkazonka. Billibazooka. Billipalooka. Billiumph. Billiomphalos. Billiomphaloskepsis. Billibrink. Billistink. Billirinkydink. I’ve got bigger plans for this than that. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. About that end of things. Nooooo. Don’t even think about it. No. I’ve got plans you have no way of understanding. No way of. Look. Let’s just say that it’s kind of like quarks. Okay. Quarks. You have no idea what they are or how they work or what they’re for, do you. No. You don’t. But you manipulate the matter of this world every day. Every stinking day. Without having the faintest idea what’s inside that pen you’re twiddling. That pocket knife you obsessively open and close. The paper you print stuff out on. What quarkdoms exist in there. What’s happening in these quarkdoms. What these quarkdoms are for. Who does what when and why in a quarkdom. You have no idea.

So don’t worry about my plans for these writings. Or any of the others. Any of the rest I put here in your head like so many embryos. Gestate and bear. Gestate and bear. That’s your job. Just keep writing. Writing. Working. Working. That’s it. That’s the ticket.

And then he gives me Godel’s Theorem. He gives it to me on the screen here in front of me. The clear, glassy screen. So to say. He says, look. Here’s this idea, see. The idea is that there are things that are neither true nor false. Neither true nor false, according to the explicit system statements. Things that can be proved neither true nor false according to the rules of the given system. But the ace I’ve got up my sleeve is that I’m, strictly speaking, outside the system. I come in here to say what these statements mean. If they’re true, I’ll tell you. If they’re not, I’ll tell you. Simple as that. One way to think about this business, anyway. Just one way. There are many others. Many others. Count the stars, for example. Believe me.

Remember the guy who kept saying, billions and billions. Billions and billions. On TV. Funny, really. He didn’t realize it, but I was the one who put the humor in there for him. It’s funny. He couldn’t help himself. Big numbers are always funny. I made them that way. Boggles the mind. Do they not. Of course. Of course, they do. And that’s why they’re so funny.