For many many years I held a practice of carrying heavy things. There were branches, bundles, wheel boroughs, persons, abstractions of course: “the weight of the world!”; the bonds of so many friends, the promise of a purer life, the cruelty of man, the division of our souls from a unifying spirit. There were animals, stalled cars, wood for building, produce for grand parties or huge juicing endeavors. The weight of secrecy, modesty, or personal space, on the other hand, were not burdens of mine. And the weight of a fragile or needy ego appeared and vanished manically for years.
Probably the most significant weight I managed was a stone. I’ve carried a lot of rocks. And I’ve moved heavier ones, bigger ones than this one. I helped Rob Hite make stone benches and stone walls and stone walkways. I worked with stone on Hudson Valley farms by monasteries and trains dressed in crisp autumn days with long rays of sun, perfect apples, beautiful horse girls… I’ve also carried ungodly heavy things that moments before wouldn’t budge by my effort alone, and carried them through spaces too small leaving other beautiful hip women in fashionably adapting ballet inspired clothing jaw dropped – almost in horror by the seeming magick of bending space and confusing mass – the physical tricked only by unreasonable persistence and maybe disenchantment with the so-called laws and absolute truths they had reluctantly abide by. (I don’t remember if they were wearing ballet clothes. I just like to imagine.)
This stone was very much bound by his assumption of being real. It was as real as we assume: stubborn, rough, dense, heavy, mass. The weight – the carrying was bound by – conducted by my brutish self. No illusion. No “cheating”. Just whatever fodder I house that can be related to “man” – or bear and beast. And maybe that thing is gone, spent, hibernating at least. I’d like to think the passive, reflective, and quiet human being I’ve become is something more of a man – not to compete with myself (the time past version). Just a residual clinging to images and definitions of role – tangible ideals, a measurable identity – if only redefining.