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The Diary Project: 4
Mar. 3rd, 2023 09:15 amScrawled in pencil across the top of the page: “The Past Lives of Annie Besant1”
12 September, 1974
Well my complexion has cleared up—I suppose we must be thankful for whatever sparrows fall. Otherwise—my face is as round as a candy-store valentine2. I should practice dimpling on the long shots. Otherwise—I am a little on the exploding balloon side, folks, fat, fatter (but not fattest), hopefully a cute3 & not chronic condition.
Otherwise—fate has contrived a little game of charades. Two men, one woman—who am I? Of course with none of the sexual undertones that beset the apartment on Hutchinson Street4 but still the resemblance is unmistakeable—it is Ann-&-Reed-&-Jon. And I have out Duerred5 Ann at her own doings—the two rosy-cheeked lads6 are both fledgling scientists &n engage in long meaningless debates whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Meanwhile—the real Ann-&-Reed-&-Jon are preparing to rendezvous in Istanbul 7& I am feeling regret. Meanwhile Luke8 is reading Borges & going for walks in Mount Royal park—and I am feeling regret. Regret is part of my heretige as surely as concrete is—flash on the hot, long, unrelieved stretch of asphalt & brick leading down to Amsterdam Avenue9 we used to walk on our way to school, Roberta10 who is dying of cancer & I who am dying of ennui. “Cancer is caused by a wish to die,” John11 assures me cheerfully, “I am firmly convinced of it.” What does he know about a wish to die? What do any of them know? Only I know, I who have died so many times that I don’t want to die any more so I take on a life that is stasis, no deaths, no rebirths (no deposit, no return)12. Roberta writes in her genteel school-marmish script to my mother, “Could I have the whereabouts of your daughter Patty with whom I was friends from 1961 to 1967…”. Roberta hasn’t changed. She is still the fragile child with the long golden ringlets who got lost in the concrete. She hasn’t changed. She has no wish to die.
Perhaps that’s the moral of the story—that none of us have changed really, we are born into ourselves. We assume with the configuration of our genes & stars, a mantle of psychic guilt & remorse that cleaves to our bones giving us whatever little substance we have. Shakespeare—“our little lives are ringed with sleep”—but I was always a light sleeper13.
_______
1 When I Google this phrase, I immediately run across a link to an essay entitled Memories of Past Lives by Annie Besant, but I can’t imagine I knew about this essay in 1974. I must have thought this would be a good title for a short story.
2 This wasn’t just narcissism! Well. Maybe part of it was narcissism. But I was still doing modeling gigs in NYC, and I was acutely aware I was aging out of modeling, the sheen was wearing off the rose, and I had no idea what I would do for $$$ if I couldn’t model anymore. I was only 22, but in those days, modeling was a very young girls’ game.
3 Oh, look! I am making a pun: “a cute”/”acute” (vs. “chronic.”). What a clever girl I am! 😀
4 The street where Ann and Jon and Reed were sharing an apartment. Ann and Reed were the official couple, but Ann was sleeping with both of them. Reed wasn’t supposed to know! But I suspect he did.
5Another pun! Ann’s last name was “Duerr.”
6 No idea who this refers to
7 After they graduated from McGill, Ann and Reed and Jon took off and went around the world for a year. They invited me to come with, but even though I was sleeping with Jon, I was too in ❤️LUV❤️ with Mark to do it. I regret that decision still! They got to go over the Khyber Pass and spend two weeks in Afghanistan, which is somewhere I’ve always wanted to go. Afghanistan as it was then, before the Russian invasion in 1978, was on the verge of becoming a relatively enlightened republic. Think Morocco today if Morocco wasn't a monarchy.
(Really, though, I wanted to go to Kafiristan! Because… The Man Who Would Be King: “I would have prayed for them, but, that night, a real King died in Europe, and demanded an obituary notice.”)
8 Jean-Luc—with whom I was living (and also sleeping) in Montreal.
9 The apartment I grew up in was on West 74th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue; my elementary school, PS 87, was right off Amsterdam.
10 Roberta was my childhood best friend. A child actress, the sole support of her alcoholic and degenerate parents. I have written about her often in these pages. I was with Mark picking cherries in Oregon when I got her letter announcing she had cancer; I never wrote her back, so I don’t know what became of her.
11 Ah, yes! This would be John Colby. Who lived in the house on Colby Street! Which I thought was pretty funny. He was trying to get into medical school and had concocted a 1/16th Native American heritage to take advantage of the Affirmative Action quota.
12 Whoa! Melodramatic much, 22-year-old Patty? 😀
13 Good ending. I had the flair for writing then. I just didn’t have the craft.
12 September, 1974
Well my complexion has cleared up—I suppose we must be thankful for whatever sparrows fall. Otherwise—my face is as round as a candy-store valentine2. I should practice dimpling on the long shots. Otherwise—I am a little on the exploding balloon side, folks, fat, fatter (but not fattest), hopefully a cute3 & not chronic condition.
Otherwise—fate has contrived a little game of charades. Two men, one woman—who am I? Of course with none of the sexual undertones that beset the apartment on Hutchinson Street4 but still the resemblance is unmistakeable—it is Ann-&-Reed-&-Jon. And I have out Duerred5 Ann at her own doings—the two rosy-cheeked lads6 are both fledgling scientists &n engage in long meaningless debates whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Meanwhile—the real Ann-&-Reed-&-Jon are preparing to rendezvous in Istanbul 7& I am feeling regret. Meanwhile Luke8 is reading Borges & going for walks in Mount Royal park—and I am feeling regret. Regret is part of my heretige as surely as concrete is—flash on the hot, long, unrelieved stretch of asphalt & brick leading down to Amsterdam Avenue9 we used to walk on our way to school, Roberta10 who is dying of cancer & I who am dying of ennui. “Cancer is caused by a wish to die,” John11 assures me cheerfully, “I am firmly convinced of it.” What does he know about a wish to die? What do any of them know? Only I know, I who have died so many times that I don’t want to die any more so I take on a life that is stasis, no deaths, no rebirths (no deposit, no return)12. Roberta writes in her genteel school-marmish script to my mother, “Could I have the whereabouts of your daughter Patty with whom I was friends from 1961 to 1967…”. Roberta hasn’t changed. She is still the fragile child with the long golden ringlets who got lost in the concrete. She hasn’t changed. She has no wish to die.
Perhaps that’s the moral of the story—that none of us have changed really, we are born into ourselves. We assume with the configuration of our genes & stars, a mantle of psychic guilt & remorse that cleaves to our bones giving us whatever little substance we have. Shakespeare—“our little lives are ringed with sleep”—but I was always a light sleeper13.
_______
1 When I Google this phrase, I immediately run across a link to an essay entitled Memories of Past Lives by Annie Besant, but I can’t imagine I knew about this essay in 1974. I must have thought this would be a good title for a short story.
2 This wasn’t just narcissism! Well. Maybe part of it was narcissism. But I was still doing modeling gigs in NYC, and I was acutely aware I was aging out of modeling, the sheen was wearing off the rose, and I had no idea what I would do for $$$ if I couldn’t model anymore. I was only 22, but in those days, modeling was a very young girls’ game.
3 Oh, look! I am making a pun: “a cute”/”acute” (vs. “chronic.”). What a clever girl I am! 😀
4 The street where Ann and Jon and Reed were sharing an apartment. Ann and Reed were the official couple, but Ann was sleeping with both of them. Reed wasn’t supposed to know! But I suspect he did.
5Another pun! Ann’s last name was “Duerr.”
6 No idea who this refers to
7 After they graduated from McGill, Ann and Reed and Jon took off and went around the world for a year. They invited me to come with, but even though I was sleeping with Jon, I was too in ❤️LUV❤️ with Mark to do it. I regret that decision still! They got to go over the Khyber Pass and spend two weeks in Afghanistan, which is somewhere I’ve always wanted to go. Afghanistan as it was then, before the Russian invasion in 1978, was on the verge of becoming a relatively enlightened republic. Think Morocco today if Morocco wasn't a monarchy.
(Really, though, I wanted to go to Kafiristan! Because… The Man Who Would Be King: “I would have prayed for them, but, that night, a real King died in Europe, and demanded an obituary notice.”)
8 Jean-Luc—with whom I was living (and also sleeping) in Montreal.
9 The apartment I grew up in was on West 74th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue; my elementary school, PS 87, was right off Amsterdam.
10 Roberta was my childhood best friend. A child actress, the sole support of her alcoholic and degenerate parents. I have written about her often in these pages. I was with Mark picking cherries in Oregon when I got her letter announcing she had cancer; I never wrote her back, so I don’t know what became of her.
11 Ah, yes! This would be John Colby. Who lived in the house on Colby Street! Which I thought was pretty funny. He was trying to get into medical school and had concocted a 1/16th Native American heritage to take advantage of the Affirmative Action quota.
12 Whoa! Melodramatic much, 22-year-old Patty? 😀
13 Good ending. I had the flair for writing then. I just didn’t have the craft.
