Don’t cry for me…
Argentina….
I had another dream…
We’ll see what this means…
The oldest storyteller is a character that I’m shaping…I saw it from afar…
As a point of view, I get character, I get it as an embodiment of an idea that has sides, its moves, which makes a character thrilling. What makes a good character? Range, I guess, but the Oldest Storyteller could be interpreted in many ways. That’s not my attachment.
I wanted to bring a symbol of duty, integrity, and incorruptibility into the world. You can’t corrupt Death. He’s been a part of every story ever told, knows Man, a mystery, too. A part of, but not human, reflective. Strictly present. It is a strict focus. But that character can react, it can move, in interfacing with a person — a blade. Another quality. Not superior. Doesn’t have to be. Not one step ahead; there are no steps. A truly intelligent character, not human but inseparable from life. In every moment. That’s expansive so maybe less strict. A different feeling. So fast, agile, it lives and breathes.
“One’s imagination doesn’t have to turn against them.”
I have enough flaws/drama…to go around…a teacher. Intimate. Doesn’t have to battle the human condition. A mover, in their own way. It’s not a human character again but a touch ethereal, meeting someone in a place and they don’t know so touching for that reason. In the last original apartment in the Chelsea Hotel, a touch enchanted.
Unexpected choices, right, are going to be made. Compassion, like Death needs a lesson on what that is. A master psychologist, that’s from my childhood, since that character will mostly deal with that, “A rookie psychologist.” You’re not going to outsmart that character. Is that your game? And fulfillment and meaning was the direction…the heart…that character flips it on me as a child…there’s a way out through your heart, I can show you that way.
Wow, I thought, in the Sistine Chapel.
But they’re there regardless of what the room is, the genre is. It doesn’t matter where you go. Funny. That’s an idea that seemed to go along with that character. Humor.
There was enough judgment, drama, arguments, close calls, fighting, mind games, that’s another one of that character’s words, Death has seen them all. “Mind games.” I like a master character, too, but there’s enough in my childhood to deal with. Besides, just the idea that Death is a guide through life…that’s enough right there.
Opening all this up, sometimes the Oldest Storyteller — a ball flying on a curve — carried me with “insert monologue here” across some of these moments because it was an opening…my childhood was coming back to life, an imaginary voyage, too, a sweep. I went through an awakening, my world fell, too, no? The one I built regardless.
I don’t know if that’s unrelatable…coming to moments where you don’t know…where you access feeling…something comes back to life…a perspective dawning…what did it mean to me? Did I have the whole picture? This was a psychological journey.
“Home,” sometimes, I pinned it for later, a treatment, a guide character speaking about the larger significance of all this, universal and personal. I couldn’t talk. That was something else. I didn’t realize how locked away it was…not having the easiest time with feeling, too. Which for me, for people who know me, that might sound surprising, but it’s not. My house came back…it came back…yes, the one. That was where I lived most of the time…I mean, truly. It took time to get here.
I just sat there for a while…
Opening. That’s another dimension to that character. A storyteller. But that seemed to have a function, that’s the direction of the language. There were times, I needed to just sit there, my perspective on Christmas in Naples, even, changing…coming to understand some basic ideas…
That meant rage, too, devastation, a four-year-old, but again, “your whole life flashes before your eyes” was my question, “and what does that mean?” Scary, sometimes, how memories could resurface, the questions I asked myself, and I suppose that character was fearless. I don’t think that would make sense. But I got in touch with my fear, primal.
Power, keep it.
I might not have really trusted “humans” as a child to a certain degree because of the world, too, all alone in my room. “Humans can be scary.” Death isn’t going to argue, necessarily. I was young. I’m also just shaping a character to lead me through that now, who might have a more fantastical high-concept future, I don’t know. It’s one of those…through time…even: extraordinary men, sure.
It was inspiring to think about a character with gravitas even spiritual.
I felt tied, hooks, almost, to all these ideas I didn’t understand. I wasn’t the biggest bitch in the world at four…what is that? All these characters rushing in to defend themselves. Yes, you were. Defending this worldview, can’t let go, “change,” an over-arching question.
I had my attachments.
The moment I challenged this story, simply, I came to understand it was real. Even time bends. That ended up being rather real, like I probably should have seen a neurologist or someone who could have walked me through that. But in this context, in became thrilling in itself, “time,” I heard that monologue too. “Time flies…”
That awesome experience, I could project it to explore what’s possible, actually, from here. I could do something with it. That’s a central image. Editing is one thing.
His, her boots. Just how I led myself through that. Now, sometimes, I get such vivid flashes like that…maybe I’m doing it, in fact, maybe people will look back and say — that was quite a story, a good idea. It’s a character that’s alluring for its language. “I am just a door.” I could have gone to Classical with an idea like that.
Death is real, also. Death is very real.
Dimension. Range.
Character being an embodiment of ideas…
It’s Death on the brink of dawn.
I’m coming to realize, coming out of repression, out of a framework…during a huge year…where I exit into a greater world…where that guide can draw more stories…all those shades, “more stories,” it doesn’t seem to end…but there’s such a thing as a proper end, I had that thought for myself back there. Patterns.
Where I will be when I start that, I don’t know. I see this character along the way since I know I’d like to get there. Even my psychicness, this thing. “You're a portal, channel, antenna traveling on multiple planes of existence.” Someone seriously said this to me. Well, you could write a superhero, then, Death does not care. But I had some trouble around that. The approach is energy. There’s another potential field of study, even, do you know what I mean?
Finally, for now, Death exists regardless of the reality — on the page, in real life, in your mind, we tell so many stories. The oldest storyteller in particular…worked…it’s true.
It’s a good fiction.
This real story of opening up my childhood lent itself to psychological fiction.
Healing, that too, and I don’t know why I, myself, pull away from that word though I did, that would apply, to feel relieved at the end of that.
It amazed me what I came to discover. Like at four, I expected anything but kindness, that rattled me, coming to grasp what my expectations were…what would a higher perspective be on all this? But it’s not above or below either since Death is looking right at you. That’s real.
I didn’t get I was a child for a long time, that’s something else.
That’s me, someone older and wiser looking back on this…all this…the adopted narrative vanished, you see, not completely. I could do so much with that…it’s not the same debut. My parents were sick.
The idea is — we all have access to wisdom, it seems, we are a part of something greater.
Stories are so human. Meaning such a need. That supersedes an individual’s point of view, which is valid, too, I think. I’m hoping that the feeling I have is true…I wanted to be a good storyteller. What a story is…what does that mean? This is a master, no? That’s the idea. That one really does seem to work.
Before I woke up this morning, it surprised me — again.
I wrote some scene to be reworked in January, in the middle of Christmas, I don’t remember when, and there was a time when my literal, factual attachment to the truth became hilarious, silly, a wound. I am not a liar. I had “a liar” fear.
I wonder about this too, what makes a scene resonate? Why that one? Even simple moments. That seems to be part of my wisdom, something I’ve learned, personally, even thinking about Hades coming back when I closed the door gently — gentleness. People talking. A guide through life. That’s already something.
I’ve seen different ends, flashes, to this story…just wanting it to be done.
Hopefully, as I go along, my idea will mature, how I put the story together. That’s also the point. What makes a story really sing? What’s that feeling, my mentor was right, what’s the feeling? Joy. That’s my mother’s name. Scope.
This is a lunch.
I dash to the square to meet my cousins to go to Emma’s for lunch in Naples and I still have that militaristic “on time…” on time. I had to beat the clock. A game. We drive through Naples, have a celebratory meal, just a Sunday. My cousins are talking, even about the church kidnapping some girl, they deny it, a truly terrible idea. We walk the streets of Naples, I see Sophia Loren selling black market cigarettes where she really did. We arrive to the seafront for an exquisite sunset, a man facing nature, his nature, the end of a day. Another family photo, I hang back.
Right. It’s alright. I had a posture.
I’m just remembering it right now so this is…to skip to the end.
In the car ride back around the cliffs of Sorrento at night…I couldn’t believe it…it’s don’t cry for me Argentina. What’s passing by, the language for that, I’m singing again and that was their whole point — you don’t sing anymore…? Around the fountain, the piazza, my father’s phrase that opened up a book, the one I’ve tried to revise came to me. “Each moment holds all eternity,” passing that final image, “though very short.” It does. It’s over. Joy, it was for joy. Ending on that note, my mother’s name, more or less…and that’s ten years later…joy…
”Sparkling on high, joy, joy is time’s material and the essence of the instant,” Agua Vida, one of my favorite lines. Clarice Lispector. That’s the feeling. Christmas in Naples. At the end. Ten years later.
Huh, I thought, waking up…that’s an Oldest Storyteller moment, how funny.
Taking me through that.
There are different masks, right? It’s everyone.
But that character inspired me for that intelligence, maybe that’s someone I’ll meet too…maybe many many people who are drawing it out of me…maybe I’m passionate about that question — what is a story, what makes one resonate since I want to write stories that do.
If you’re an artist, it’s craft, point of view, no? Why else are you doing it? So of course, being in my heart ended up being rather wise since that’s what I lead with, try to, that’s where I am comfortable. And a story is…that. A heartbeat, a journey. That’s what it is, quite simply, so if you don’t want to be moved, in a sense, what moves you? It’s true though. A story moves.
Just laughing, Death in the back of this car, discussing this.
So maybe that will be the end for now. I’m not the same, right? Ten years later. Still not over. An epic night.
Right? Really? There? I woke up.
I rushed to my computer.
I’ll keep that in mind as I steer…I’ll see what happens.
Who gives a shit about the airport? That’s the other thing. I like this character saying things like that but it doesn’t typically curse. Hopefully, there’s no limit as to how good it can be, and the o sole mio moment I saw might not be the end…what’s an end…?
I feel like I’m learning a lot.
So, that’s my interest. Good to know. More so than family. Even if that was such a theme, just such a theme in my life, it’s more storytelling, narrative.
And when you meet me in the beginning of The Oldest Storyteller, it will be funny, someone who doesn’t know what they can do, which is probably most people. I wanted that, I’m still where I’m at, but I wanted to see what I could do. Joy.
Thanks for reading…I’ll plug in that ending…and see how that turns my wheel.
I gotta go sing a little.