Sauce*Box 19:Timothy Leary

Timothy Leary
by anah Childes

NCE TOLD BY A Distant Friend of Mine,
"Timothy Leary would have liked you!"

Timothy Leary is a stand-up philosopher. WOW!! Where do you get that title in this world of positions to hold?

A distant friend of mine -- a writer of science fiction erotica, once told me he had known Timothy Leary -- actually had sat down in his home, in Leary's garage, smoked a little weed with the "stand-up philosopher" who had long since succumbed to the dreary recovery of death. The distant friend of mine wrote me also -- "Timothy Leary would have liked you." A HIGHER compliment I can't fathom.

Did I tell you I f-cked a red-head once to satiate two lusts of mine. One, all red-heads remind me of my older brother -- who is brilliant red-head with the persona of a crowing rooster on the exterior; however, all red-heads seem to own his same "whispering intonations" that can lead to seductions and secrets that the roving red-headed face can never cover with careless cajoling. So! A red-head in honour of my older brother.
AND...

Two. I was flipping the pages of one of those coffee table ERA OF THE 1900's and secreted among the famous faces of anarchists was TIMOTHY LEARY, bare-chested, lean, thirty-something, seductive, and red-headed. My red-head, not my brother or TIM LEARY, was f-cked merely to see the coordination between his head hair and his genital hair. "A true red-head!" AND my red-head, not my brother or TIM LEARY , spoke a "line of non-sensical magic" like LEARY. All red-heads should be f-cked in honour of Timothy Leary.

Yes, Leary would have liked me. Perhaps after the f-ck, we could have lingered on Huxley and Hesse, allowing these g-d's of literature and individuality slither off our tongues like ripened sexual fruit -- "finish that Huxley contortion -- Hesse me once more. Ahhh, yes, that is the perfect HUXLEY//HESSE."
At the end of the essay I read by Leary, a blurb purported that Leary, at that time before his death recovery, was developing a line of software that would convey his unique intelligence. The world could use a "bright woman with unique intelligence." My hair has huge shades of red. Men are so easily seduced by a "pretty mind for abstract thinking."

I write to an email acquaintance that my world is not black and white but it is erroneously coloured by such literary GREATS as Tolstoy, Hesse, Cohen, and hell, G-d.

He, innocently returns that he cannot match me in my literary savvy but did recognize two out of the three writers and could name one of their works. I am guessing TOLSTOY, WAR AND PEACE. Hard to hide in the world of literary shelves.

Carelessly, flippantly, condescendingly I frumple back.

"Ok, so you were familiar with two of the three authors -- but I wrote down four.

Leo Tolstoy. Sadly ,I have never actually read a whole Tolstoy work. I did read a fascinating biography of the beautiful boy. Prolific, no dead days, it seemed. Ummmm, dead days? I mean days filled with meaningless j!o!bs of no import. Tolstoys' days were full only of meaningful writing, causes that crushed mediocrity, miniscule moments could hardly be said of Tolstoy. Did Tolstoy understand that the gift of writing, of art is GRACE? Or like a sorcerer from the black forest, was Tolstoy able to conjure up war and peace, mad minds and sane by placing a pen in his hand. (Me? I am awakened at four in the morning with the continuation of my latest writing piece torturing me to up and write…fling words, capture them until they speak audibly back to me.) I have read enough Tolstoy to make me dangerous -- -as a politician, humanitarian, educator, I can espouse Tolstoyan views. G-d how I like how that moniker fits my 21st century womanhood. Please take on an air of elitism to muzhik, 'She is TOLSTOYAN in Major!!'

Hermann Hesse. Finale. There is no finer writer. To read Hesse is to read PERFECTION. Hesse, hiss, hiss, like the serpent to EVE, Hesse comes to me always at the exact stage of life I am 'IN'. I had no intention of buying Hesse when I walked into Barnes and Noble. My SPIRIT did though, walking straight past the magazines, past the poetry, past the friends drinking Starbucks coffee -- straight up, in the eye of NARCISSUS AND GOLDMUND. For $6.95, I walk with the next step stone of my spirituality. As if Hesse hasn't given me enough for one lifetime -- SIDDHARTHA, DEMIAN. Is there really a need for another author in the universe? To compare my one tour de force I am certain to bleed out of me, I say, 'I want to write one simple, singular, magnificent work of g-d, like SIDDHARTHA.' "

(Sidebar to the casual, causal reader.)

Explained, agreed?

Hesse, hiss, hiss, wakes me at 4 am accompanied by a severe attack of bladder infection. I have to urinate one more time. I am in discomfort. I have only had two bladder infections during the course of my forty years here. You don't forget the "nagging pain and bladder insistence." I try to ball up and forget the horrid human condition. Instead I am forced to read more NARCISSUS AND GOLDMUND. Hesse's inspiration brings MY inspiration and I preach new thoughts into a stymied writing, newly inspired, wholly, HOLY inspired. Does anyone really doubt the existence of G-d who knows ART?

In the space of 4 am to 6 am, the world is revolutionized. I gently lie back down. I place my hands over my abdomen containing the infection. I petition. "Universe, heal me."
I sleep. Awaken at 7 am. I feel whole. "A MIRACLE." I believe I have the power to do so but why do miracles always feel so sneak up and surprise to a believer?

(On track -- back to the correspondence explaining the four GREATS)

"Sweet, mad L.COHEN. Jewish boy sent to rewrite the HOLY WRIT using references to incontinence and obscure s-xual acts. So you see there is a co-relation between COHEN and me. (Please note my reference to infections and miracles. COHEN saw the relationship ever so simple too.)

Leonard Cohen. Of course, he was before our time, early to mid-sixties. He wrote BEAUTIFUL LOSER. ( I am sure you know the Bob Seeger reference in song.) Leonard, sweet songster -- with a voice that is nineteen shades of black, Leonard, a Canadian writer. Now, oddly he lives in a Zen Monastery in California. As if anything in California is monastic. (Say it ain't so.)

The unseen writer? The unseen writer.

'King Nebuchadnezzar: Were not there three men that we tied up and threw in the fire?

Others: Certainly, O' King!

King Nebuchadnezzar: Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the FOURTH looks like a son of the g-ds.

THE AUTHOR. The unseen writer does keep company in the midst of the muse of fire with Tolstoy, Hesse, and Cohen. They do//would burn in passions to converse with THE AUTHOR. THE AUTHOR.

The same author that wrote the complete works of MAN in all languages, in all confessions of the heart.

THE AUTHOR writing,

"I had a wreck today!!"

The D.J. quizzes, "Whose fault was it?"

Without hesitation, "G-d's fault."

Huge burst of confrontation from the D.J., "Ahhhh, you can't blame it on G-d."

"G-d's fault. Yes, G-d's fault. G-d writes our lives. I did not plan this."

It is just that all the little synchronicities of life point to G-d, THE AUTHOR. I would have never had a need for a new car had I not wrecked my dependable, 150,000 plus Toyota. I don't think vehicles, old or new. But, it was written somewhere into my script. I did not encourage this thought. Though recently I have had this strange premonition that a "new vehicle was coming my way." Not that I was going to work for it, or desire it, but that a new vehicle was coming my way.

Today the need.

Scripted.

G-d, THE AUTHOR, writes all the things we just can't explain.

G-d, THE AUTHOR, wrote the heinous little crime of me stopping in Glenwood Springs, Colorado in 1993 on the return spiral trip back from nine months spent in California, living, where nothing is monastic. G-d, THE AUTHOR, wrote I would be impressioned enough with the Glenwood Springs waylay to think, "I would like to live here someday."

Ten months later I invite a drunk man back from a bar dance to my apartment, read him some of my loose poetry, make him coffee, and allow the flirtation to lead to a funky little non-induced conversation about Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

The drunk man wants to live there too.

FATE, FATE, FATE, FATE. A script's pages are being turned.

I marry the drunk man, leads to the birth of G-d son, leads to an enlightenment through love, leads to Hermann Hesse via a Jewish suggestion on the internet, leads to Leonard Cohen and the Kite poem, leads to heavy-handed abuse, leads to leaving in the midst of the night sans bra, sans socks, sans sanity. Eventually it all leads to upheaval, survival, separation, pilgrimage, rearrangement, rebirth, revival, lost, and life. G-d is THE AUTHOR, scripting my life, allowing me action, reaction, miracle and mayhem, men and memory.

LIFE...

You can't tell the mere mortal these secrets and silences. They remain fantasies, heresy, to most.

BUT...

Whisper this, like a red-head with soft hushed tones before he kisses you, "Tolstoy, Hesse, Cohen were in the fire with G-d."

The reason I know this? The reason I know this is because my distant friend who knew Timothy Leary wrote me explaining, "I'm sure you would have f-cked Leary. Many women wanted to and many women did. He was supposed to be a very good lover." He then went on to add with gentle word caress and a seductiveness alluded to, "Having a conversation about Timothy Leary and Hermann Hesse after f-cking could probably last hours. I feel they were moving. Powerful, sensitive, insightful, extraordinary."

I would add "excellent -- of G-d."

Concluding, "Whatever presence of mind/spirit reading Leary, Hesse, Tolstoy, Cohen may put you in, allows you a oneness -- a f-ck, an intimacy. F-cking them, f-cking you, F-cking anyone that has been in the fire with G-d, THE AUTHOR."

Their writing took them their too. Tolstoy, Hesse, Cohen, Leary, they all went their too. Pinpoint. Center. The lovely spiral of a shell. The burst moment at sunrise. The last thought before slumber eradicates consciousness. The look on the face of your companion at a GRATEFUL DEAD concert.

There...

Singular...

The truth remains, "You get there or you don't." Yet, even if you don't this lifetime. "You get there."

"Yes, Timothy Leary would have liked me." Truth is, we, L.Tolstoy, H.Hesse, L.Cohen, T.Leary, Me, You have formed a cosmic chain, participating in a "Jewish dance" of salvation, or praise, or rebirth, or recovery by death, where our fingertips are intertwined. You can feel the energy of creation -- bursting through our fingertips. Tolstoy writes to Gandhi. Hesse writes to Jung. Cohen writes to me and Leary writes to you.

THE AUTHOR stands juxtaposition to us all, a hum, "WRITE" he wills.
"WRITE."

Your critique of this work is appreciated.
Please e-mail the author.

Return to Sauce*Box, Spring 2001