Transitions transcript

(Below are segments of writings from various sources that were spoken by two voices overlapped with parts repeated in different combinations. They are not transcribed here necessarily in the order used in the film.)

Barbara Sternberg, journals:

Through winds of change, by changing repose-in stillness pause submerged...

She'd come into my room and sit on the edge of the bed and stroke my forehead gently, left, right...

I can still feel and smell her bed, my mother's face gentled with sleep, the bed warm where her body was...

...sheets warm where her body was, pillows propped up, she'd show me: 'See how I've got mine.'

I sit on the edge of the steps and call out Mom, mommy... No, its no use, she’s not there anymore-I can't even pretend.

I've got to get up now-

What am I going to do today? Don't think about it-

I've got to get up now-It's windy, I think I'll go to bed.

I'll get up in 5 minutes. - 5 more minutes-I'll get my coffee and ...

What to do, what to do

I have to choose. I have to decide.

I can't fall asleep-I know I won't be able to, I can tell.

last night in bed again-it comes in a sudden shock wave, pulse, obliterating, dominating all...then slowly as it continues more evenly almost enjoyably thought can return, less focused, single-and then beginnings of sleep-only for a thought/sound/partial thought to precipitate another shock wave to rise...

If I could describe to you what you'd be doing 40 years from now - namely, exactly what you're doing now-would that bother you?

...that's the way life is-it's not that bad-So he says he's going to his parents- even if they are as you say it doesn't matter-he's your husband and they're his parents...

wind whipping hey formless will shape

being has becoming and winding winds-windind winds windless mindless

rootless journey winds-don't wait...

It's windy I think I'll go to bed.

Feel the wind!

Feel the wind. Feel the wind.

The wind is trying to wrest it from me. I hold on tight.

I'm walking along the road. I can feel the road beneath my feet as I step 1-2-1-2- push off, heel toe

I feel the gravel beneath my foot as the weight goes on to it.

Tim Crawford (self-bound book, "Love's Shoulder" 1978):

in the morning it seems to slip between my fingers

it turns suddenly

there is an answer

let time unwind its foolishness

No. this is a race to the finish

something comes when nothing seems possible

Virginia Woolf, "Orlando":

...as she was thinking this the immensely long tunnel in which she seemed to have been travelling for hundreds of years widened; the light poured in, her thoughts became mysteriously tightened....

...at the same time her hearing quickened; she could hear every whisper and crackle in the room so that the clock ticking on the mantlepiece beat like a hammer. And so for some seconds the light went on becoming brighter and brighter and she saw everything more clearly and the clock ticked louder and louder until there was a terrific explosion...In fact it was 10 o'clock ... it was the present moment."

Allen Ginsberg, "Laughing Gas":

The universe is a void

in which there is a dreamhole

The dream disappears

the hole closes.

It's the instant of going

into or coming out of

existence that is important...

changing from dream to dream,

the constant farewell

of forms...

St. Augustine, "The Confessions of":

It is now perfectly clear that neither the future nor the past are in existence...

We measure time as it is passing...

It is measured while it is passing.

Do we need to be aware of every moment...

Physics textbook:

Is time a kind of reality that is measured by motion, or is it rather a measure of that motion that is real?

Time is a derived order of being: it is the mark of rational order in spacebound change.

Antonin Artaud:

A man possesses himself only in flashes, and even when he does possess himself he does not quite overtake himself.

Anais Nin, "Seduction of the Minotaur":

Lilian was journeying homeward. She had begun to accept the gift of presence, the immensity of the persona, the heraldic proportion of things, events, relations. Life moves out of the picture frame.