Future and past blurred; what he had already experienced and what he would eventually experience blended so that nothing remained but the moment.
―Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do accept finity.
—Simone de Beauvoir
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The first time I saw Blade Runner in 1986, I was 23 years old. I owned a VHS copy and watched the film over and over on our thrift shop TV in the living room of our messy two-bedroom home in Long Beach, California. The premise of replicants, bio-engineered humanoids, who long to live beyond their expiration date. A longing to stay alive.
At the film’s end, Roy tells Deckard, the blade runner hired to track down and “retire” the replicants who are on earth illegally:
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time… like tears in rain… time to die.
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Dr. Lee was a beloved poetry professor when I was an undergrad. A Rajneesh devotee in the 70s, he continued to wear the same saffron-colored shirts with mala beads around his neck. Mark, Adrian, and I—three hopeful, dreamy, and sometimes neurotic friends—would visit his office after class asking questions about the meaning of it all. One day, with a shaking voice, I told Dr. Lee how the night before as I was falling asleep I had witnessed the void, the emptiness, and how terrifying it was. An infinite space where I was floating, ungrounded. With shining eyes he exclaimed, How glorious, how lucky you are!
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I’m sitting at a table across from my friend Heather in a big red barn, the high-peaked ceiling strung with white-yellow lights. The air is cool and blows against my legs. I’m here for two days at Straus Home Ranch in Marshall, California. We are here to write. Today we pick blackberries in the blackberry labyrinth on the property, try to avoid thorns and bumblebees. In the kitchen of the shared house, Heather makes a warm jam with the berries, lemon, cardamom. Surrounded by coast live oak, evergreen.
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Two nights ago: my husband Tom and I are in a Marriott hotel room outside of Sacramento after a pool party with his musician friends. We are tired although it’s only 10pm and decide to watch the original Blade Runner on the large-screen TV. Every five minutes or so, the movie is interrupted by a slew of loud commercials for comfortable bras, insomnia medications, detergent pods. Then, the final scene with Rutger Hauer as replicant Roy Batty whose life has finally come to a close, a white dove released from his hand, rain pouring down onto his head.
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Mark and his husband David can see the North Star through the skylight above the bed in their cabin at The Sea Ranch. Symbol of constancy.
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We are writing at a long wooden table in the ranch house. A lunch of champagne grapes, gouda on seeded crackers, strawberries. Another warm breezy day. Four writers working on our poems and stories. Silent together with an occasional dance break to 80s songs initiated by Heather.
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I’m thinking about my friend Chris who suffered a stroke in February in front of his home in Oakland and is still in recovery. I recently visited him at a shared warehouse space. From his wheelchair, he unlocks and pushes open the heavy front door with his right arm, the one that still works. I bring him carrot juice and salads, blueberries and ice cream sandwiches. I read aloud poems by Fanny Howe after one of our conversations admitting how little we knew about her work.
Excerpt from The Definitions by Fanny Howe:
Monostich: a long sentence
Sternum: a little chest
Heart: upside down
Location of the unconscious:
Empty window seat
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A bishop pine with its bright green spines: resilience.
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I walk up a low hill past a small garden abundant with yellow squash and pink roses. I can see cows on another hill grazing in slow motion under a greying sky. That night, we receive multiple phone alerts warning of a tsunami caused by an 8.8 earthquake centered in Russia.
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One night Tom and I are on the upper deck of our friends’ houseboat docked at Lake Berryessa. We stay up much of the night and look at the evening sky, attempt to identify different constellations our astronomer host had pointed out earlier. Hydra, Virgo, Pegasus. For a moment, I recall that fear of the void I had shared decades ago with Dr. Lee. That night on the houseboat, I dreamt that he walked me to the edge of a volcano’s crater.
Tom and I witness three falling stars before midnight.
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Sunday, August 31. An event: Paintings for Trees. Mark Dutcher’s statement attached to a pine tree to be read as the guests arrive:
“No one else will ever see this. Breeze on skin and hair as I sit on moss root. A Grand Fir. Painting for a tree. I left my studio in Los Angeles. Dispersal of a life. Paintings abandoned in alleys, on street corners, against graffiti walls. What does it mean to give everything away? To be in nature? Forget my life before? Start over? There has always been horror. Bad men. Bad humans. Hollow Terror. Paintings for trees. The light filters through deep green. Bishop Pine. Tan Oak. Wave a flag. Hide away in deer nest. The aloneness of being far from youth. Now 62. Painting trees. David and I live in a house he designed at The Sea Ranch. 23 years together. A life. Sun reflected in sag pond.”
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In Blade Runner, genetic designer J.F. Sebastian, employed by the Tyrell Foundation, has Methusaleh’s Syndrome, a premature aging disorder and, like the Nexus-6 Generation replicants whose life-span is four-years, his life will be cut short. He lives alone in the Bradbury Apartments among his many organic and robotic creations, his friends, Bear and Kaiser.
Slanted light through the sheer curtains, dust motes, ticking hearts.
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In the 90s, Chris lived in a van while he was in Los Angeles because he couldn’t afford the rent. He had a piano in his van and would park in lots and perform songs by the Velvet Underground, the Kinks, and other bands as the Piano Van. Folks might pay a couple of dollars, musicians would join in.
Post-stroke, he’s trying to play the piano again, regain muscle memory, find the music still within his body. We decide to start a band called The Velvet Kinkos and perform songs by The Kinks and the Velvet Underground. Sometimes we “rehearse” over the phone, his raspy voice, my wobbly voice, the sound of the piano keys as Chris plays “Days.” Thank you for the days, those endless days, you gave me…
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A grand fir opens to the night sky: possibility.