It was cold out, which became part of what I thought; but I wore shorts in spite of what I thought to be “cold” and “out”, which became a part of what I thought. Now I had Shorts, Cold, and Out, in what I thought.
My hat, and its type; my coat, and it’s thinness (but not in its type); my sockes, how many (somewhat of their thinness and thickness, not much of their type, mainly “how many”); (and the answer to how many was four — though “four”, while known, was never quite part of what I thought — “two” somewhat more than “four” was a part –I would think “Two” –that I had two socks on: “two on each” — I did not have Four socks on: did not have “four socks total”); and all pertaining to my clothing became “part of what I thought” as did part of what I thought (here something kaleidoscopic is envisioned). (I thought that I was wearing them or thought often they were there as well.)
*&*&*
(When I saw someone who wore their hat and their coat and their purse and wore a backpack, perhaps it was theirs, perhaps it was a backpack they borrowed; when I saw they wore what was theirs without seeming to think of it, without it seeming to matter to them, whether or not it was in my thought, or whether or not it was what I or another might have preferred to have had in their thought) —
And I thought that what I thought was contained by what I didn’t want to be described. (What was that? Did I know what I meant?) (I clearly didn’t know what I meant) On the one hand, was what I thought; on the other hand, was that I “did not want to be described”; “I was the describer; the descriptor (the describer) the Describe (as distinct from the Scribe),” I at one point put to myself. (Did I know what I meant?) (That consciousness was an act of description, was perhaps what I had meant, and so there was much I was aware of, which I was yet not conscious of, because it had yet to be described; these were like words one knew to write but had not yet physically written.)
Just as I couldn’t help but think, I told myself, I wanted not to be thought of. I sternly told myself: maybe if you didn’t think maybe you wouldn’t be thought of. (This was a version of ‘Judge not that be be not judged’ I said to myself). You would certainly not think you were thought of. I told myself: the fact that you think is proof that you want to be thought of. (“I think therefore I want to be thought of,” I later jotted down.)
One person I saw in front of me walking could not have cared less. That person had “snapped out of it” whereas I had not snapped out of it yet, I confessed: though I needn’t have confessed (as it was quite obviously a part of what I thought.)
I happened to have found myself walking behind a woman in the afternoon, and when I stepped on a fallen leaf loudly (this was the Fall) I wondered, would she hear it and would it cause her dismay to know a person was walking just behind her? A person whose “mighty step cavernously crushed so loudly these leaves?” as I later had it.
But she gave no such sign — she wore a scarlet coat. And when I passed I saw she was holding a baby to her chest: some sort of harness that held the baby there. That was where all her attention was. None of her attention was on the sound of a leaf that had been crushed by someone walking behind her in a quiet neighborhood. That had seemed to me quite strange: that she had failed to attend to the sound of my step. Even had I been someone completely different, stepping on a leaf, I do believe she would have taken no notice.
.i`` * ^ / . . . . . ` `~ 