As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh

Mary McCarthy can do anything with her smile; she can even smile with it

Only a fraction of me is available to be turned into art

She hid her happiness, challenged me to make her happy—if I could

I can’t drive out my obsession with I[rene]—my grief, my despair, my longing—with another love. I’m not capable of loving anyone now. I’m being “loyal.”

But the obsession must be drained, somehow. I must force some of that energy elsewhere

There is no responsiveness, no forgiveness in her. To me, only hardness. Deafness. Silence. Even a grunt of assent “violates” her.

But it is as indispensable for her to reject me—as it has been indispensable for me to hold on to her

I don’t really accept the change in Irene. I think I can reverse it—by explaining, by demonstrating that I am good for her

Any more than she could convince me—when we lived together—not to need her, clutch at her, depend on her.

an exercise in admiration for the writer my mother had then admired above all others

then living in exile in Pacific Palisades.