Lilith manbarks

Lilith went manbarking today. Up at the top of the cemetery, a man waved us away, wanting to park where we were standing, as I talked to a fellow walker. (It's not as if there weren't miles of parking available.) When we got back from the top, he was putting trash into a container many yards away from his car. He smiled when he saw Lilith, This man with short-cropped gray hair and a sports jersey whose provenance I didn't recognize smiled at Lily. Moved to pet her. She barked. Tried again. Barked again. I told him she sometimes does this to men, though not always. Farther down the hill, we saw the man in black wellies who used to work at the cemetery and is somehow still there on Sundays. He greeted Lilith, who barked at him. Tried again. Barked again.

 

What is it that makes a Lilith walk? This is not one, really. I can't leave out part of the narrative, because that would require me to know what I was leaving out. I'm Lilith's narrative animal; she walks, and I write. But her first year or so is a mystery to me, perhaps to her as well. I imagine she's barking out of that first year of experience, the one I can't write about. But that's presumption on my part. A Lilith walk story needs a turn, a volta (as it were), a haiku-like surprise at the end. This one, insofar as it is story, has none of that. It's a mystery story without the evidence necessary to prove the case. I'm a detective with no looking glass, no fingerprints, nothing but my ears. She barked.

 

Back at the guard shack, Uncle K leaned over to pet Lilith. She was happy to let him.

 

Name into verb

The mortician, Paul, dressed in dull blue scrubs, said he's really tired, they all are. I asked if a lot of people die this time of year. He said yes, they've been partying since Halloween, poisoning themselves, and "the chronic illnesses just drop." I handed him a card advertising _More Lilith Walks_ and told him he was in it. Thanked him. Said that Lilith and I are walking this month for suicide prevention. "I guess you get some of those, too," I said. He nodded slowly. "I'm afraid the rate will go up now," I said, "what with people losing their jobs." He agreed. It's not just jobs and the country, he said, but the world. "I'll have to look into that book," he said.

 

Along the way, S drove by in his John Deere cart. Raised his thumb high. We also ran into the tour bus driver who wears Kansas Chiefs gear, including a #15 jersey. I looked into his bus, said "I guess Jalen Hurts."

A member of the resistance

"I like your shirt!" said a woman with ehu-colored hair, about my age. This month, I wear suicide prevention teeshirts, but those were stinky, so I'd pulled on a psychedelic Harris/Walz shirt. She proved to be something of a despairing optimist, had taken on three issues, all of which are personal to her. Autism, education, trans-rights. She'd worked toward a ph.d. in American Studies at UHM in the 1990s before her marriage broke up and she moved to the mainland, where she worked in seven Barnes and Noble stores. She'd organized the opening of the Kahala Mall branch back in the day, and had also worked at the Ala Moana store. After a while, we exchanged phone numbers and agreed to stay in touch. "Keep wearing your shirt," she said. It's important. I have no idea if this is a Lilith story or not, but it mattered.

Lilith and I are walking for suicide prevention

 Lilith and I are walking 50 miles in February to prevent suicide. If you're on Facebook, you can find our donation page here: https://www.facebook.com/donate/959122402350482/959122432350479/

If not, feel free to give directly to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention: 

https://afsp.org/

After one walk, Lilith enjoyed a kid bath:

ICE cold

"It feels like 9/11 every day," I said to a like-minded walking friend, retired airplane mechanic, today. "I figured out what happened to the plane in Philadelphia," he said, out of the blue (I thought). "It was ICE." "Because the passengers were from Mexico?" I asked. "No, because it was so cold out." He was talking about ice.

 

Whose land is our land?

Lilith and I ran into S. getting out his John Deere cart, holding a flag. He was about to put it up the pole at the cemetery. Spotting me, he said, proudly: "Trump claims this land!" "I think you mean Kamehameha," I said, noting that the flag was Hawaiian (or at least the state flag).

 

"Do you know this guy?" I asked Uncle John, showing him the photo of the MAGA supporter who repeatedly yelled "You're a shit!" at me the other day. "I had a bad encounter with him over his cap." "No," said John, "and we don't condone that behavior. Everyone has a right to their opinion. America will gain prominence again!" That last to get my goat. I have so many of them, and John knows them well.

 

I told him that Lilith and I are walking 50 miles this month in support of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention). "Oh, he said, it's been a thing for a very long time on this side of the island, all the way to Kahuku. I've had friends who killed themselves, and I was there once." His daughter's boyfriend's dad recently killed himself. "No one suspected a thing, because he was so happy, so outgoing, would do anything in the community." I asked him to refer people to 988, the suicide prevention hotline. He knew it already.

 

Lilith and I logged 3.1 miles today.

Lilith and the man in the MAGA cap

I leaned over to take photographs of a broken monitor with leaves scattered on it. The man who'd just gotten out of a van came toward Lilith and me, saying "it can probably be fixed," though he changed his mind when he saw it. He was a Hawaiian man, carrying a guitar case on his back, wearing an Inauguration 2025 MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN cap. I said I was sorry to see his cap, as Trump is leading us to ruin. 

 

"Oh no! Biden's one socialist. They're communists! The media doesn't report that the last election was stolen." He put his face in mine and yelled obscenities. I called him on calling liberals "pussies." He looked and pointed at the relevant point of me, said "women have them." I said that if you use the word as an insult, you're being misogynist. "I can't use the N word, but a Black person can," I said. "I call a N----- a N-------, because that's what they call me!" 

 

We walked to the Hui Iwa crosswalk across Kahekili; we were both crossing, and the light was against us. He started yelling at me about my privilege (he's got that right) and my living in a fucking castle and how I don't know anything. He gets his information on the internet, he said. I asked where. "RUMBLE." He's going to put his podcast there. I said I would look for it. He started to walk into the highway and I cautioned him, as the traffic was going by. "I take care of MYSELF," he said.

"There are all these people on the streets," he said, "poor," and said Biden had never talked to a homeless person. His son was convicted. He pardoned him. I asked if Trump had talked to homeless people. Oh yes, he saved some of them. I told him I'd had a grandfather who was homeless. "That's your grandfather, not you. You're shit."

 

"I bet you don't believe in God, do you?" he demanded. "I'm a Buddhist," said. "I knew it!" As Lilith and I continued up Hui Iwa, he turned up Kahekili toward the cemetery. I could still hear him yelling. "You're shit!" 

 

At the light, I asked if he heard himself. At the light, I asked myself the same question. I had yelled back.

 

Lilith looks for chem-trails (but it's cloudy)

 

As Lilith led me by (her) nose to the guard shack this morning, S. popped up from his seat where he often sits out of sight. "Keep your eye on the sky!" he said to me. I felt confounded. Say, what? "Keep your eye on the sky," he repeated. "What am I supposed to see?" I asked. "Chemtrails," was his answer. Big streaks across the sky--"you haven't seen them?"--that don't disappear but get bigger. He held out his hands as if holding a large balloon. "Elon Musk's rocket?" "No, that's such a fake." He laughed at Musk's "backward rockets."

 

He was surprised I hadn't seen the trails. "You're one of the most observant people," he said, "holding up an imagined camera." I assured him I hadn't seen them. "Having a hard time breathing lately?" he asked. Yes, from the vog. He gave me a sideways look. "My mother-in-law can't function when there's vog," I add, but when there isn't any, she's as lively as they come. His side-eye was so wide I saw his profile.

 

These days, Trump gets folded into the grand theory. "There are four Trumps, you know." I said I do know that there's more than one Melania. Well, S doesn't pay much attention to her. And there are SIX Bidens. "Have you seen the Biden who's 6'6"?!" He repeated yesterday's news that Musk now appears taller than Trump in photographs, though he isn't in real life.

 

I muttered something about Monday, about all the billionaires at the inauguration. S. noted that I don't seem to trust Musk, though he didn't buy my suggestion that Musk wants our money. That's just the start, he said, as Lilith and I headed up the hill. From behind me I heard, "You're making progress!"

 

Up the hill I ran into K, snuck a picture of him weed whacking (I love the way workers resemble monks in their protective outfits). To his, "how you, aunty?" I responded that I'd been fine until I heard more conspiracy theories from S. K. said he enjoys the theories. But he held his head like a a balloon, and then showed it exploding.

James Berger takes on my work

Jim Berger has written an essay on my work, especially about the Lilith walks. I fear this Diogenes is growing weary, no longer knows where to shine her lantern, or be led by her dog's bright eyes. How do we write from inside this moment, or this cluster (with an f) of moments? Is it possible? Does it require indirection, like allegory? It will certainly require flotation devices, lest one drown. (And other protection against other elements, like fire.) Grief generally works to contain loss; what can we do when it's so uncontainable? Anyway, more on that another time. Here's Jim's kind essay:

You can read it here: https://jacket2.org/article/date-diogenes-and-dog

Who's a lunatic?

 

S--who told me yesterday about the Cabal--was driving off in his John Deere vehicle. A younger man was sitting in the guard shack. "Don't believe anything S tells you," I said. "I don't believe anything anyone says," he responded. This set me back on my heels a bit. "His ideas are lunatic," I said. He looked me in the eye, said, "and your ideas?"

 

It gets harder to write from inside the moment, when the moment itself seems infected.

MORE LILITH WALKS

 Imminently from BlazeVox, and available for pre-orders.

https://www.blazevox.org/shop-1/p/more-lilith-walks-by-susan-m-schultz