Conversations July 22, 2010

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Thursday, July 22, 2010

5:30 AM. Yesterday, as I was very aware, was Hemingway’s birthday. Who would have thought he would come to be so much to me? Finished Reynolds’ volume 1, and started re-reading [Jeffrey] Meyers, slowly, which is more interesting this time than the first time. Have not moved in Baker, waiting to get my questions [to Hemingway] in.

As I have talked to people about what I am doing, the question about certainty has presented itself, or rather, my old knowledge that certainty isn’t possible, only resonance. It’s still conceivable that I’m making all this up, regardless how convincing the contacts feel. And just as I could never prove it to anyone else, neither could I prove it to myself. I am left with Jesus’ test — by their fruits you will know them. So far the fruits are joy as I come to each day’s task, enthusiasm and joy, and insight. Or so it seems. But of course I am aware of the danger of leading myself and others astray.

Continue reading Conversations July 22, 2010

Conversations July 19, 2010

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Monday, July 19, 2010

5:15 AM. Was going to skip this until later, saving my energy, but I guess we’re going ahead. So — what’s today’s theme?

Look to your on-going list.

All right, let’s talk about your relationship to your father. This isn’t quite on my list, but it’s in my mental list, and in fact is in my mind since reading in Reynolds last night. So — your father.

My father. From my perspective now, the subject looks a lot different.

Continue reading Conversations July 19, 2010

Conversations July 13, 2010

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

12:30 AM. Papa, let’s talk about your wounding, the out-of-body (or near-death) experience, the aftermath including light, letters, and Agnes, and fear.

All good topics. [Hemingway biographer Carlos] Baker has his uses.

All right. Your first unasked question is — how much of the story as understood is accurate. You’ve read that I carried a man to safety, and you’ve read that it would have been impossible, and you’ve read that I started to, then was hit again and fell and was carried in. You have become wary of anything I said anytime, because of my tendency to spin yarns about my life and exploits. In fact it was this very tendency and your dismay about it that helped hook us up a few years ago. So I’ll try to stick to the trail of the truth.

Continue reading Conversations July 13, 2010

Conversations July 1, 2010

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Thursday, July 1, 2010

6 AM. All right, I’m ready if you’re ready — or if you- all are ready. Papa, being that tomorrow is the anniversary of yourself-decided transition — and next year makes 50 years since then! — how about if you start?

There will be a time when 50 years as a space of time doesn’t impress you as it does now. Consider how your reaction is different now from even 20 years ago, and then try to see yourself over here for 50 years.

Continue reading Conversations July 1, 2010

Conversations June 29, 2010

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

5:30 AM. “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child” running through my head.

A dream in which I and many others had gone — and paid — to hear — Carl Jung? Colin Wilson? — speak. I had spoken of it to dad and he was there — several of my family were there, I think. Jung, not Colin. He spoke briefly and then disappeared and the audience waited and realized he wasn’t coming back. I went after him, climbing up into the bleachers to try to see where he had gone. Went around back somewhere. Was told he had gone, and felt quite bitter about it — it wasn’t fair that he should arrive, speak a few sentences and leave. I said, I think, it was just what Colin did, or was Colin’s fault (meaning, for letting himself be over-scheduled).

Went out to find my car covered in snow needing to be dug out (like all the other cars, of course).

What was that all about, pray?

Continue reading Conversations June 29, 2010

Conversations June 25, 2010

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Friday, June 25, 2010

5:45 AM. Trees like islands in the milky white fog, layer after layer of them.

Okay, Papa. Let’s talk. I finished Gatsby again early yesterday, and got into Tender Is The Night — 50 pages or so. It certainly starts off slowly. I’m having to restrain my impatience. If I had just picked it up for no reason, I’d have put it down nearly at once. After your prose, clicking and moving, it’s hard to be patient with somebody describing the night sky hung like a bowl from a single star —

Continue reading Conversations June 25, 2010

Conversations June 20, 2010

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Sunday, June 20, 2010

4:45 AM. So, Papa, let me pose the question this way. I am more and more inclined to see your essence as a model — not the only model, but one model — of a complete man, intellectually, physically vigorous. Yet there is the negative evidence, your mental problems, for example. Your inability to get beyond certain fixed ideas — “my mother is a bitch; my father was a coward” — regardless of the facts. I can’t quite phrase my question because I can’t quite grasp it. I’m hoping you can take it and run with it. For all I know, you — or someone but probably you — are suggesting it, in the first place.

No, not Ernest, not at this moment.

Continue reading Conversations June 20, 2010