Patience Gray: Honey from a Weed

Having become adult in the late 1960's/early 70's I am now wondering, how weird were we? We wanted to write and make conceptual art and music; some of us stayed with painting, there was still enough room for everybody there.

Now at age 60-plus there are some nights I go to sleep feeling like I've hidden something somewhere earlier in the day. So I get up in the dark and walk around my sweet, sweet house looking for it. It is usually just a string of words that woke me up in the first place with a voice of their own, saying something like, every man wants to feel his life is the best possible life for him, even with all the trouble spots...

I now do my best work between the hours of 2 and 4 a.m. when no one else is awake. I slide into my solitude like it's a little cafe with one booth of red naugahyde and a waitress who knows me well enough to leave me alone. It's here that I write stories no one else will ever see. One of them begins, You say you love me, but I don't know what that means anymore. Does it mean that you refuse to see me for days at a time and still presume a connection? Am I supposed to understand that as love?

By now I've turned off all devices that could possibly keep me awake at 4 a.m: yes, the still small voice can sound like a glowing cellphone or iPad and act as the false stimulant the idealist and romantic spends most of his or her life fighting.

Now I need a good book to read, but good books can sometimes be hard to find, especially the really good ones that stand the test of time because there's nothing to compare them to. Reading Patience Gray (Honey From a Weed) brings all sorts of new things to the table, including this: Eccentricity: living according to priorities established by one's own experience.