My single real memory from first grade was a response to one question:
do you believe in God? "No. I don't believe in the devil either".
I kept a diary for a short span, putting to note the great calamities of the day, mother breaks up, someone is a meanie (I am mad, X is bad, I am sad).
I got a rubber typeset when I was small, I made print money and maybe letters. This may have been the beginning of my symbol interest. Every idea might begin in a precious thing. So many in necklaces and rings, bracelets, knots, tamborines. Part of this child died in middle school, and this is when I was introduced to art, actually.
I suppose on another�s insistence I meant to form a club in elementary school of friends, each with a coat-of-arms, meeting for parties and generally sharing mental-stuffs. I imagine now it was for a failure in mental-stuffs that it flew little further. I remember surveying for coats of arms. Eileen wanted sperm whales and I gave her three. I had crossed swords in imitation of Arthur, with a surmounting crown. When I (much) later attempted, alone, to enstate some sort of journal for shared intellectual pursuits at Bard College, for philosophy in particular, I had a sentimental sense of recurence when it flopped (did not occur, as I was over-matched in skills and did not meet with verve or tendency otherwise).
Returning from a Christmas break for the second semester I crumpled and returned home.
I have since attempted in a number of ways to give life to that ancient and youthful force that gave me vitality amongst friends. At the same time I must give birth to the man in me. By agriculture, writing, painting, and therapy I am approaching a new plateau where I have the strength of heart and the history to produce works that speak more truly of my nature, that have substance enough that I may believe I am of worth to the world.
My mother once thought I might write a novel. She knew my willingness, my hope, and that my writing was admired. What she forgot was desperation. This work is my present response to that desperation, the need to be needed as much as any inherent proclivity.
To cut to the quick in a diverted sort of way,
The common impression that personality is a direct result of persistent and specific pain?
What forms of pain have I experienced? To express the balance, another attribute:
Physical: numerous scars, falls, hitting front teeth on coffee table after falling down stairs, skinning thigh on sidewalk when young, skinning legs in front of cinema, nearly drowning twice, etc.
Emotional: Displacement in Venezuela at 3, losing of numerous stuffed animals, including (supposedly) a clown doll on the airplane back from Venezuela, and a shark on a bus after a nuclear armament protest later on (6 or 7?), parents� divorce at 5, losing of at least half of all good friendships at the end of middle school (Eileen, to Venezuela, several others to other countries; Sebastian to Germany, Elizabeth to Austria, Sara to the Philipines)...
I.i Myself Main