PREFACE
A Lifetime Journal – Page One
My gene pool, my stock, this tribe, arose in the veldt. I began as a predator and have always known this, in every sinew of my body and every synapse of my brain. I feel the excitement, the fear, the sharp concentration and flesh ripping success of the savannah, the pride, the sharing, my love of family and young. The savannah holds and informs me, accompanies me in my journey from the savannah into the world beyond. I trace my roots to the savannah. To know me, know that I begin as nomad, as hunter and gatherer, that I fashioned hand tools, ran hard and fast, lived life in the raw, protected the communal fire; that I have brought all of that with me, as I do the fear, the watchful eye, and the stalking skinny hunger. There is also peace on the savannah. The sun is warm. The water is plentiful. The soil is soft beneath my naked feet. My belly is full and my mind at rest.
Odd, how every time I ever try to speak about my origins I succumb to a demand that I find the sentence that preceded it, and the sentence before that, and thus I find myself here, standing in blood, drawing on the cave wall with chewed twig ends and fingers, speaking long heartfelt sentences well before the red paint dries. Crying. Chanting and moaning. Listening to the drumbeats as I draw the slayings on the wall. The hunt. The dead big creatures. I am proud of our kills, frustrated by my drawings. I want to show the smiles on the faces of my family and the full bellies of my children, but all I manage is the dead animal, its great heart, and our men with spears.
Which brings us, if you travel with me through the veil of time, to the twenty first century as measured by modern men and women to the purchase of foods with no odor, wrapped in plastic, boxed in cardboard, in supermarkets where dull music is played, and where I pay for all of the goods and services which keep me and my family alive with little pieces of rectangular plastic. No spears.
Between my death on the savannah and this first newest breath of "my" life is a time inside of which was no time, no days, no light, no darkness, only time. And then this stirring in warm and tasty seas, in a cocoon, as in the beginning, a sense of comfortable boundaries, of there being no boundaries, of all being one and one being all. I was happy there. Careless I think.
THE FIRST 48 HOURS
November 12, 1940 - Day One
My passage into this world was quite lengthy and strange. I remember thinking the sea in which I floated was running out a dam and that I was at risk of being left on dry land. I became quite woozy, which I've never liked. My head was squeezed. I felt tremendous pressure. I was expelled into a world I had never imagined. I was slapped and twisted. I drew something cold inside my chest, not unpleasant, but rather cool. I hadn't even known there were outsides and insides. It was chilly outside my form. The brightness bothered my eyes.
Everything was blurred and indistinct. My arms were pinned down. It was extremely loud. Temperature regulation was a hassle. I was cold. I was hot. The soft thick fluid was gone. Fish on a beach I thought. I wish I'd stayed inside I thought. I was very frightened. I wanted things to be as they had been.
Having said that, it was also tremendously interesting and different, enlivening. I had an awareness of other forms, which I’d never had before, a sense of my separateness, my empty aloneness, and my hungry vulnerability. All of my movements were jerky and unsmooth. I hardly knew myself and was in control of nothing. Trust was a big issue then … and would ever since. Life is such an improbable challenge. I wondered where I was before, before I was inside. I have absolutely no memory of that time, then or now, other than the blood, which makes me feel kind of lonely.
I felt lost. Not in pain, but vaguely uncomfortable, physically and emotionally. There were long periods of unconsciousness that were so familiar. It was the awareness that startled me. I waited. I waited a lot. There wasn't much I could do about anything anyway. I had concerns and gripes, but was clearly where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to be doing. At least I thought so then.
Nov. 13, 1940 - Second Full Day
Nothing much different than yesterday, it seems, the same mix of pleasant and unpleasant sensations. I like being held and purred to and don't get enough of it. There are others like me, crying separate forms. It's not like the big forms want to hurt us, but we were left alone and unattended more than I like.
At times I suck on something that releases a warm sweet substance into my mouth. It is my best experience, absolutely amazing. I hardly have words to describe it. I like the sucking. And the taste is fantastic. And the sensation of that stuff going down my throat was just so wonderful and sensual, unbelievably sensual. I loved it.