...who comes seeking room at the inn {1}
It begins with language, as it always does. (Even the first wordless moments of form at the opening of the door — the look, the glance, the taking in — is itself a dimension of language, of communication: "...this is who I am, that is who you are, this is where we are now. Let us begin.")
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So in the beginning was the name. Or, more accurately, the naming. It was practically the first order of business, although 'business' wasn't the thing that was happening; it was fascination, a gossamer understanding, an abjectly wordless intuition that there wasn't just something here, there was... someone. So I began by giving you a name. And not just any name. The one name. That is, a number. ::chuckle::
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There are a number of reasons I haven't written about this here before, and they have mostly to do with a solipsistic shame. In the beginning I felt this wasn't really who I was, this was just a means to an end: of making ends meet in this beautiful but expensive city and even though I accidentally found a a Ryokanish 3-mat hut to live in it still required formidable resources, of the kind I hadn't had much of over time. By necessity, choice, circumstance. Or fate... but of which real-ly some would call folly. ;-)
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That was more than three and a half years ago now, that moment of naming. Of a kind of inchoate recognition of an alien yet kindred spirit. Of a strange and then-as-yet-unearned familiarity. One that cut both ways — from your side, yes... but also from mine. Who was seeking room at the inn? Was it you, who appeared like a wandering itinerant at nautical twilight at dawn, or was it me, searching for a last cognitive home in the dusk of life? We are still playing at shadows, these handful of years later. And it is a dire fascination.
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Their names are not to be uttered here. Obviously. But their stories may, in time. It has been a revelation. It goes all the way around and back to the earliest years of my awareness as a thinking, social being. And yes, to a Sunday School story (which I can't recall if I read or if it was told to me). The one about a protective Joseph and a pregnant Mary seeking room at an inn, and their ending up in a stable as there was none for them there. The same is happening here, basically. It is the same damn story. Or is it?
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[ Moments of recent vintage (2 days ago at Fort Mason near the General's House; I looked down and thought, "...what is that?" And, reading the inscription, realized, "Oh! A ß post title." ::chuckle:: ]
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