Lyn Hejinian, My Life
Note: This is the sixth section of My Life,
"marking" Lyn Hejinian's sixth year, 1947-48. It appears on pp. 19-20 of
the Sun & Moon
edition (1980). An overview of My Life and an introduction to
the idea of the non-narrative or anti-narrative prose-poem memoir,
an audio file that includes a partial interpretion of this sixth
section, is available here. For more information,
see the bottom of this page.
![](http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Images/hejinian.JPG) |
Lyn Hejinian
- photo credit: Carolyn Andrews
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The obvious analogy is with music
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It was a mountain creek, running over little pebbles of white quartz and
mica. Let's say that every possibility waits. In raga time is added to
measure, which expands. A deep thirst, faintly smelling of artichoke
hearts, and resembling the sleepiness of childhood. At every birthday
party that year, the mother of the birthday child served ice cream and
"surprise cake," into whose slices the "favors" were baked. But nothing
could interrupt those given days. I was sipping Shirley Temples wearing my
Mary Janes. My grandfather was as serious as any general before any
battle, though he had been too young for the First War and too old for the
Second. He carried not a cane but a walking stick and was silent on his
walks except when he passed a neighbor, and then he tipped his hat and
said, "Morning," if it were before noon, or, "Evening," if it were after
noon, without pausing his walk, just as nowadays joggers will come to a
stoplight and continue to jog in place so as not to break their stride.
Then the tantrum broke out, blue, without a breath of air. I was an object
of time, filled with dread. I lifted the ice cream to make certain no
spider was webbed in the cone. Sculpture is the worst possible craft for
them to attempt. You could increase the height by making lateral additions
and building over them a sequence of steps, leaving tunnels, or windows,
between the blocks, and I did. The shape of who's to come. For example,
the funny prefamily was constant in its all-purpose itinerant ovals. It
should be completed only in the act of being used. While my
mother shopped, I stood in Produce and ate raw peas. The lovely
music of
the German violin. Most little children like beer but they outgrow it.
![](http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Images/mylifecover.JPG) |
cover of the Sun & Moon
My Life
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Unseen, just heard, hard to remember. My sister was named "after" my aunt,
the name not Murree but, like marriage, French, Marie. The first grade
teacher, Miss Sly, was young and she might have been kind, but all the
years that she had been named Sly so had made her. A man mitt. I had "hit
upon" an idea. Penny, buster. Uneven, and internal, asymmetrical but
additive time. A child, meanwhile, had turned her tricycle upside down and
was turning the pedal with her hand to make the front wheel spin. The
solemn, flickering effects, not knowing what you're doing. In your country
do most of the girls do this. A cold but exhibiting hypothesis. I couldn't
get the word butterfly so I tried to get the word moth. The man with the
pinto pony had come through the neighborhood selling rides for a quarter,
or as he said, "two bits," and it was that "two bits" even more than the
pony that led the children to believe he was a real cowboy and therefore
heroic. He was a trainer of falcons, scornful of hunting dogs. The body is
a farmer. From the beginning, they had to drive the plow through stone
eggs. She pretends she is making popcorn. The boats appeared to have
stopped on the water, moving only as if to breathe. It seemed that they
had hardly begun and they were already there. We were sticky in the back
seat of the car. In the school bathroom I vomited secretly, not because I
was ill but because I so longed for my mother. Now, bid chaos welcome. It
requires a committee, all translators. Undone is not not done. And could
it be musical if I hate it.
There are two editions of My Life so far. The first (Burning Deck)
edition of 1980 was written when Hejinian was 37 (it was first written in
1978) and is composed ot thirty-seven sections of thirty-seven sentences
each. In the revised edition of 1987 by Sun & Moon, there are forty-five
sections of forty-five sentences each.