metaphysical crises or semantic fugues. Maybe, lacking real religion, I found comfort in totems, artifacts, and talismans. Or maybe the fault is solely mine—a daydreamer, a slothful, lazy person who loves to commune with marbles and beads. I allowed myself to be porous, to become things, to be transported wherever they lead.
Years later, the marble remains in the ORIENTAL TOOTH PASTE jar ( “CLEANSING, BEAUTIFYING, PRESERVING THE TEETH AND GUMS ~~ PREPARED BY JEWSBURY & BROWN” ), with its gray and white marbleized surface. The rim of the jar is chipped from when my cat once knocked it off my desk. Now I accept such flaws and inconsistencies in things, in people. In me.
Yet on days when the earth seems paused on its axis, or when the day moon fails to rise, I remove the marble from its nest. I savor its cool wonder in the palm of my hand.
Prepositioning John Travolta
Major things are wind, evil, a good fighting horse, prepositions, inexhaustible love, the way people choose their king.
Anne Carson
Perhaps it’s because you recently moved to Texas and can’t figure out if you live in Galveston or on Galveston Island that you begin to confuse prepositions. In any event, the first serious outbreak of this prepositional virus blooms at (during?) the time you find yourself, rumpled and damp, before (against?, beside?) the barrette counter in the “notions” aisle in the un-air-conditioned Woolworth’s. You believe that if you purchase a white silk camellia—a clasp attached to its short stem—and use it to pin up the left side of your hair, away from your face, that you will resemble Stephanie, John Travolta’s love interest, in Saturday Night Fever .
No, you will actually be Stephanie in Saturday Night Fever .
But—what with phrasal prepositions compounding your problem—will you be her in addition to yourself? In spite of your own obvious self? Apart from yourself? Or with the exception of your rumpled and damp self?
Maybe an unhappy marriage, maybe the fact that you gave up a good job on Capitol Hill to move here for (with) your husband, maybe Galveston’s humidity that clings to (upon) your skin like a moist membrane, or maybe simple longing contribute to the prepositional crisis that causes you to stare into (toward) the tarnished, wavy mirror, fasten the fake camellia, and hope for the best.
You tilt your neck to catch a different view of yourself from (in) another mirror, one aisle over in “makeup.” This double, wavy image casts you, you’re convinced, in a more romantic light. A soft-focus-publicity-photo kind of light. Which helps.
Because the thing is, you aren’t particularly upset to find yourself floundering in this psychotic-cum-prepositional break. In (inside, within) this break, or during this break, you can actually believe that this warped wood floor in Woolworth’s is mere prelude to the neon dance floor of 2001 Odyssey, the disco in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Surely you already smell polyester-y cologne, taste Seven and Sevens, inhale salt-grit air rising around the Verrazano Bridge, all more pungent and real than this dusty Woolworth’s.
In other words (or toward other words, or concerning other words, with respect to other words), in this prepositional confusion, you actually feel a modicum of comfort by reason of or with respect to the fact that reality, even in the best of times, is slippery and unpredictable. Not unlike prepositions.
At the same time, however, here in notions, because of this prepositional impasse, you’re not, ironically, able to consider the notion that it’s as if you, yourself, are trapped between (inside, within, against) two tarnished, wavy mirrors. Prepositionally speaking, you do not see that your love of (for) John Travolta occurs in spite of your trapped life. Or is it on account of or due to it? Do you love him in place of any other life whatsoever? Love him in lieu of a life of your own?
In short, in this prepositional chaos you don’t see the
Years later, the marble remains in the ORIENTAL TOOTH PASTE jar ( “CLEANSING, BEAUTIFYING, PRESERVING THE TEETH AND GUMS ~~ PREPARED BY JEWSBURY & BROWN” ), with its gray and white marbleized surface. The rim of the jar is chipped from when my cat once knocked it off my desk. Now I accept such flaws and inconsistencies in things, in people. In me.
Yet on days when the earth seems paused on its axis, or when the day moon fails to rise, I remove the marble from its nest. I savor its cool wonder in the palm of my hand.
Prepositioning John Travolta
Major things are wind, evil, a good fighting horse, prepositions, inexhaustible love, the way people choose their king.
Anne Carson
Perhaps it’s because you recently moved to Texas and can’t figure out if you live in Galveston or on Galveston Island that you begin to confuse prepositions. In any event, the first serious outbreak of this prepositional virus blooms at (during?) the time you find yourself, rumpled and damp, before (against?, beside?) the barrette counter in the “notions” aisle in the un-air-conditioned Woolworth’s. You believe that if you purchase a white silk camellia—a clasp attached to its short stem—and use it to pin up the left side of your hair, away from your face, that you will resemble Stephanie, John Travolta’s love interest, in Saturday Night Fever .
No, you will actually be Stephanie in Saturday Night Fever .
But—what with phrasal prepositions compounding your problem—will you be her in addition to yourself? In spite of your own obvious self? Apart from yourself? Or with the exception of your rumpled and damp self?
Maybe an unhappy marriage, maybe the fact that you gave up a good job on Capitol Hill to move here for (with) your husband, maybe Galveston’s humidity that clings to (upon) your skin like a moist membrane, or maybe simple longing contribute to the prepositional crisis that causes you to stare into (toward) the tarnished, wavy mirror, fasten the fake camellia, and hope for the best.
You tilt your neck to catch a different view of yourself from (in) another mirror, one aisle over in “makeup.” This double, wavy image casts you, you’re convinced, in a more romantic light. A soft-focus-publicity-photo kind of light. Which helps.
Because the thing is, you aren’t particularly upset to find yourself floundering in this psychotic-cum-prepositional break. In (inside, within) this break, or during this break, you can actually believe that this warped wood floor in Woolworth’s is mere prelude to the neon dance floor of 2001 Odyssey, the disco in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Surely you already smell polyester-y cologne, taste Seven and Sevens, inhale salt-grit air rising around the Verrazano Bridge, all more pungent and real than this dusty Woolworth’s.
In other words (or toward other words, or concerning other words, with respect to other words), in this prepositional confusion, you actually feel a modicum of comfort by reason of or with respect to the fact that reality, even in the best of times, is slippery and unpredictable. Not unlike prepositions.
At the same time, however, here in notions, because of this prepositional impasse, you’re not, ironically, able to consider the notion that it’s as if you, yourself, are trapped between (inside, within, against) two tarnished, wavy mirrors. Prepositionally speaking, you do not see that your love of (for) John Travolta occurs in spite of your trapped life. Or is it on account of or due to it? Do you love him in place of any other life whatsoever? Love him in lieu of a life of your own?
In short, in this prepositional chaos you don’t see the
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