Thoughts of the Legend: Electra’s dictionary

“So how long do you think you have to be here for?” I ask him

as I watch him prepare to leave for Lincoln Center.

“You mean the philharmonic?” he asks, but talking to his reflection in the mirror

“Yes. Isn’t that why we came back?”

“Oh, that reminds me, uh— “ he tears himself away from his reflection, “can you be here for ....the piano delivery....?”

“Piano....? ....you’re having it brought back here.... so you plan to stay?”

“It’s a different piano,” he shrugs this off as he shakes his head irrelevantly and then nervously goes through his routine again; pockets, time and ....reflection— but asks, looking at himself, “can you? One o’clock?” he asks

“A different piano?” I ask but ....he’s still doing that
“Why a different piano, Jörn? Where do you get the money from?”

“It is not my piano,” he says to himself in the mirror to me and still without turning away

“No? So, you’re renting it?”

“It’s kind of like an AirBnB kind of thing,” he tells me abstractly , “so, you’ll be here?”

“Like, you get their piano and they get....?”

“A review of how their piano performs— so, one o’clock—can you be here?” he asks

“You’re doing a review?”

“Duva!” he suddenly is enraged and turns as he shouts at me, “can you just answer my question!”

“Yes!” I shout back at him and walk away

I start towards the front door of his apartment and stop by the door

then go blank .... and realize something as I stare at the floor

I turn back away from the door to head back in for my phone as I hear him shouting my name

we literally collide into each other and I’m momentarily pinned to the partition between the rooms thrown against it. Which could have hurt if he had not stopped the impact taking the force of it as he asks,

“Are you ok?”

only I give him a dirty look

“I’m sorry,” but he still holds my arm and now looks at it as he runs his finger tip over my skin and too closely he studies a scar. I watch his eyes as he glances away from it to me to read my eyes; I see the question

“Ok,” I say and stare into his eyes. Slowly I say, “you’ll be late.... I’ll be here for the piano....”

but now I see he feels guilty

He starts to say something but changes his mind and says,
“thank you,” but still he holds my arm

“You’ll be late,” I say

He hesitates and studies me,
“I don’t know how long we will be here for, to answer your question, and.... I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“Ok....” I say and sigh but then I say, “what about the table? Isn’t it still back there?”

“Table?”

“Yes. And the safe.”

He looks away and lets go my arm,
“you saw the table....” he thinks now as he says this, “the night you and Andreas were getting high in the farmhouse —that was ....the night of the news— my opera—I completely forgot.... well, they both weigh a ton —they would have to bull doze the house to get it, I had them build a concrete inner wall so.... I’m not worried and I installed alarms and cameras in there.”

No wonder he knew what we were up to

“They.... Jörn.... it’s not just the orchestra you’re here for, is it?” I ask

Jörn checks his watch,
“can we talk about this later?” he starts to reach for his coat and cello but on his way he stops and comes back to me as if to embrace me but stops himself and says first, “will you come tonight?”

He asks now .... even as I have gone to every one of his performances. I wonder if he knows why .... why it is that I go ....?

he says,

“....please,” as he pulls me to him and goes to kiss me

I say,
“yes,” because he waits to hear. And as he goes I remember something else, “when is Hanna coming back?”

“I’m not sure, why?”

“Well, she has some groupies that show up now and I don’t know who they are, but they’re always camped around the lobby downstairs, haven’t you noticed?”

Jörn sighs,
“I’m aware, the doormen mentioned....I’ll find out what’s going on—” he starts for the door but stops as he passes me and says, “will you wear the houndstooth dress?”

****The Next Level Introduction and Opening Scene (note footnote below):

“Wrap me up in always

Drag me in with maybes....

“Breathing underwater

And living under glass....

“The secrets of your dreams ....

“is not quite what it seems

To appear to disappear

Your darkest fears

I believe in never

I believe in all the way

But belief is not to notice

Belief is just some faith

And faith can help you to escape....”

from the Smashing Pumpkins song https://youtu.be/xzZh4fdaUpk ‘Thru the Eyes of Ruby’ written by Billy Corgan from the album ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness’

The Next Level

As we launch into another level within the passages of a mind and past the stages and murals of a dictionary to sketch a casual outline of introduction

We enter Here

There was something that always used to happen in my psycho therapy sessions. I would be saying something and then suddenly I would go blank. I would completely forget what I just said and what we were talking about. And when she pressed me to continue after reminding me what was said, I would suddenly begin to tremble so uncontrollably that my jaw would almost dislocate. Sometimes this still happens if I am somehow put into a sense of the danger

Lately it has been happening and more than once or twice

it is when my mind goes blank that is disturbing to me because I can feel myself doing this; feel the folds wrap around and pull me away as if jettisoned ....it has been years since this has happened and since seeing my sister again after over a decade and my nephew’s suicide, it seems to have brought things up; those long buried dysfunctional road signs.... I had forgotten the fog ..... until this had returned in happening; it is a pressure on the top of the skull and a fog pressing in against the thoughts; like thick cotton balls pressing into the skull

it is what Dr. Rothschild told me was my built-in self-defense mechanism

It has not been writer’s block that has kept me from my words in my dictionary

it is these thick cotton balls

against my skull

and the trembling.... and the return of the anxiety attacks I thought I outgrew. But they are back and taken a firm hold of me

....which is why I knew I needed to paint again

—besides the tactile need I have as an artist to physically immerse into my work, it releases the boundaries that keep me straightjacked within my self imprisonments

The symbolisms of pictures are ways to hide within designs and illusions

....become clear and present;

it is where I live

I know that the story has lead its way up here and lead us intentionally here —and like my methods of trusting blind direction in how I work both visually and poetically

as directed from the center

because that is the madness which cuts the path from its obscure source

As part of the maze; this labyrinthian spiral to the lost center of Celf; as the dictionary moves into the deeper cross section of cerebral passages through the Waters of Lethe, I find I keep reflecting on the summer and the year after which started to change things .... the year after my freshman year of high school as it occurs to me how this subtle change was an indication to ..... how everything that happened and.... was all part of the dominos crashing down like a henge of stones

the story levels as symbols and symbols of levels of walls

Like BC and AD, the dawn before the assault and the dawn after .... were night and day; it changed me drastically in how I looked and dressed, my mannerisms, my shame and the way I guarded my body and my sex

that was what he wanted; to ruin me.

before it happened, even as I was always shy, there had been offers; a part in Swan Lake, modeling, literary publishing

He wanted to shut me away not to outshine her so he taught me a lesson in humility to know my place

On the other side of the wall —his side; we see her as the hated bastard of a notorious man and a constant reminder of his wife’s infidelity ....

only back then I did not know this was what I was and until years later,

but I did know that I did not deserve to be there; in his house, or wearing new clothes, breathing, no basic right to eat food, nor taking up space

my intuition also heightened after the experience

.... what Retnuh Nevek said to me about my father during the night of horror

I knew

I think it was my pride that forced me into the silence I withdrew into for months after

months. years. and always

And people never question what they can’t see..... withdrawn to the silence of shadows, this dawn was not meant to ever see the light of day, was never meant to be seen nor heard and so, eventually it became the ammunition and safety that I chose to remain within because I built inside a fortress nobody could get in made of murals and smoke and mirrors. This wall, though it is invisible, is as impenetrable as steel; it is invincible

****************************************

Opening Scene of The Next Level; View from a Window

the NY view never changes; like those endless streams of red and glaring white lights of vehicles that sliver through the streets; that inconspicuous snake-in-the-garden; the vertebra of an endless spine that builds with the bones upon which it destroys to support a self serving system. And so in parallel, I think of a snake.... another snake ....a snake in the grass with her demon flesh; one that it seems should not get away. I watch with my views, I watch a view and see the frauds pretending as everyone pretends along because those they enlist are afraid to say what they think and are afraid to think for themself; like the secret handshake which I never got; nor the accent

their smiles are as sincere as their inflicted contracts of catch phrases, hurled as small talk that is their self appointed right to threaten you with

still, obviously, it is me who is the freak ..... I pace back and forth as if I feel the venom that eats at me

I can accept that I am a freak

“What are you talking about?” Jörn asks

“Did I say that out loud?”

“You mean about last night?” he asks, “yes, actually, you’re right —you are a freak,” and laughs

He wears running clothes that make him look like a ninja as he stands by the sound equipment listening with the headphones on.... or so I thought

He puts them down and walks over to me ....it is strange to be back here— especially now as we are finally alone for the first time in months it seems —yes, it is months, actually

Everyone has left now; that is, Josef and Elsa returned home and joined the rest of the family for Christmas

he is more relaxed with everyone gone I have noticed.... he is not as quick out of bed

And Andreas ....spent Christmas with —his ex instructor ....that seems to be signaling that things are more serious than we realized between them as she has now left her husband

“The age difference!” Jörn says now

“It’s about what ours is,” I point out; he gives me a sharp look and then goes back to his sound mixing and then I think he has dropped it when suddenly minutes later he counters,

“but you’re not my instructor!”

in its own odd way, makes me think about something his mother said to me .... it was at the airport just before they left.....

but he —interrupting my thoughts— adds,

“but then you look fourteen.”

“Great—ja jag är den ultimata femme fatalen, tack så mycket—at least we’ve moved on from the toy-poodle-handbag-accessory and preteen-fashion-remarks-committee.”

he doesn’t hear me, not even paying attention as he goes to look over some sheet music. I watch him write down some notes and then walk over to the window to absently think —but then pace back again to where he began

I ask, because I’ve been wondering this,

“does it ever bother you how fucked up the world is?”

“Why do you think I’m a spy?”

“I thought you said you don’t call yourself that.”

“No, but you do,” he says, back to scribbling notes, “why don’t you tell me what is bothering you?”

“I thought the reason you’re a spy is because you like picking things apart and decoding riddles.... Jörn—do you think, ever— as artists.... like, as you write your opera —you speak from the human soul or heart? Like —to the humanity of your audience.... ? —and not just —this—way, but also through what you try to convey when you are performing?” I search his eyes to see what he really thinks behind the dazzle of slate kryptonite

“You are such an idealist,” he says simply and then he gets distracted “.... but you just made me think of something,” he says now stopping what he’s writing and mumbles.... “undermedvetna social skuld .... han skuld....” his expression changes as he sinks into thought.

And after some reflection he says, in English but, still mostly to himself, “the dove.... she is his penance —for his savagery as a warrior.... his guilt ....over what he did to her family.... the responsibility —you have just given me an idea.... it totally changes the tone but it makes sense, the battlefields and the awkwardness of plunder; like an embarrassment of riches....” the intensity of his look increases as he stares at me with a kind of enigmatic wonder

“What?”

“I know how to end the opera .....” he runs his fingers through his hair wildly in a manic kind of way before he says, “now I have to rework .... the entire opera....” but then laughs with a kind of euphoric madness as he grabs hold my face, and with an exaggerated, intended, loud smack, kisses my mouth, “you are a genius, duva,” and then leaps to his cello, grabbing his bow, pen and blank sheet music pad

****pardon errors; some I corrected but as I am dyslexic, I don’t always notice ‘auto-correct’ often changes words and tenses which can severely mislead my intended meanings. And I know I have a tendency to leave out words or repeat words as dyslexics do because the letters are always moving, I don’t see what I write