UPTIGHT

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble. Dr. Johnson

“Last night I had a chill dream about celebrating my birthday with the Hartwicks, a family I never felt approved of me. I was supposed to appear on the balcony of a lavish art deco opera house with them for some formality—photographs? But I got lost in the crowded hall and couldn’t find the right stairway. Eventually I came upon an odd narrow staircase with unnaturally high steps, which I began to climb. They became narrower as I went—and slanted, as well. Still I continued upward, though there was hardly space for my feet and I had to cling to a ridge overhead to keep from falling. When I came to the last step, I found I had climbed a huge gilded frond, that was purely decorative—and ended dizzily high in the air, several stories above the floor. Now, cold with fear, so precariously balanced that I knew that with one false move I would pitch to my death, I began to inch my way down again with excruciating care.”

                                                                              …

“The huge gilded frond did actually exist—two of them, in fact, on the walls framing the screen in the art deco California Theater; they reached all the way to the top of the balcony though they didn’t have staircases.

On rereading this last entry after several months have passed, certain words strike me—formality , unnaturally, lost, gilded, decorative. Trying to integrate my impressions: the Hartwick family seemed admirably traditional and “formal”—pillars of the community—to me as a child. From the time I was young I was distressed by some of my own impulses and aspired (the staircase) to be correct and virtuous like they were (I’m going to join them on the balcony). My reward is conspicuous respectability (the photographs). But my outward adaptation to conventional mores proves a difficult way to go (unnaturally high steps, narrowing, slanting) and ultimate a false way—form, no substance (the frond is gilded, not gold, and merely decorative), and I find myself so alienated from my true feelings, so “up”tight, that I feel in psychological peril (I’m on the verge of falling to my death).”