Dreams have this way of helping to make everything leak out and ebb away. Through the night and during those other times it happens that our heads slump forwards, and we nod off. It is during our waking hours that we seem to get caught up into everlasting uncertainty and agitation.
It is only me. It is only us.
What a state you are in, she says.
Yes, there is a disturbing uncertainty. About this meeting with her, what does it all mean? With this woman it could turn out any number of ways.
For one thing I am still not sure who she is…
Have we been introduced, I could say but that sounds like a feeble opener. I think better of it. Keep smiling.
She seems truly veiled at this moment. Almost hidden. So that I am now not even sure she is the one I have been so desperately wanting to see. Emma? Or whatever your name is. It is become sort of virtual. But not really. She is no allegorical figure. This woman is flesh and blood. Spectral maybe. But properly constructed. Real raw curves.
Yes, there is a disturbing uncertainty, a dislocation. I don’t know how it will end, but I have this sense – No, it is stronger than that, because it is mixed up with my desire for her – that it is going to end badly. I am not talking about being pessimistic or simply a little less than my normal wildly optimistic self. It really isn’t about me at all. It is just that during this state of exception, this state of emergency that has been in force since I honestly cannot remember when – it seems like forever for all of us - our lives have been subject to an irremedial exposure to the violence of history (BY ORDER.: signed Pinky Camisole et al): Bash! Bing! Bang! Wallop!
According to Terry Eagleton (WB, or Towards a Revolutionary Criticism. 1984) Uncle Wally has been telling us for quite some time about these endless cycles of violence for which we have three options:
1. Regress to an imaginary past – find somewhere to escape to – like “La-La Land”.
2. Maroon oneself in a symbolic order – like therapy that works but… – “… demystified, but to the same degree impotent”.
3. Somehow acknowledge our crooked positions AND – strangely simultaneous this possibility! – enter the domain of political and ethical acts
Yes, there is a disturbing uncertainty, a fissure, a gap. She is waiting. Oh dear, she has been waiting for such a long time to see what I am going to do. And all the time I keep looking over my shoulder at the “what has been happening in my life”…. because – Hey! – it is like watching a crash in slow-motion on a motorway. The mayhem! The harm and hurt. And then there is the thought that maybe she could stop it. Yes, that she really could. Me getting together with her. She being the angel of history, and real raw curves. Once and for all, me and her, put a stop to it. But…
But there is still a disturbing uncertainty. Either. Or. Either as a result of our getting together she becomes mixed up in this whole process of creating violence endlessly herself. Or as a result of getting together with me she is distracted from sorting out the past violence and putting things right, which is what she is here on the world to do.
You wanted to see me?
Yes, I am looking for a way out.