4 - “As Much a Part of Things as Trees and Stones”: John Dewey, William Carlos Williams, and the Difference in Not Knowing

Summary

Discovery

She said, do you have any income? I said nope! hahaha I did! I just lied to ’em.I have finished my pancakes and tea. From my booth in the front of the Summit Country Store I watch the cars on route 10 and listen to the old men at the back table. It is Columbus Day, and the weekend people are headed back to the interstate. The old men are gearing up for hunting season. The only reason they even make ’em is to keep Remington in business.I have left my baby for the first time and with this separation bought myself two hours to write. But the world is clouded and there are no words, nothing to express. My transgender neighbor, Katherine, comes in and sits at her customary table, telling the waitress, today's the day the Native Americans discovered Columbus and got killed for it. The waitress, used to this kind of talk from Katherine, smiles with crooked teeth. The waitress's kids are with her at work today — no school. I got a doggie bone! I got a doggie bone!the boy shouts to a customer. I eat these! I think that I can hear the baby crying, four miles away. I cannot imagine ever having written anything. I start typing up the old men's talk. I tell you what, I learned a lot off him. He wasn't perfect, far from it, but I learned a lot off him.On the wall in front of me a giant buck, head cocked to the side, stares unblinkingly in my direction, at nothing. That's a big one he bought. From the road it looks big.

I have a chapter to write. I am thinking about Dewey teaching five-year-olds to bake and Williams delivering babies in dingy apartments, and what relation these activities bore to their writing. You ever go over to Brownsville, on the water there? Spend any time over there? They got the monument, the guys were fishing on the jetty or whatever the hell?I am thinking about what writing is, and what relation it bears to a crying baby. I am thinking about the old men's talk, and what relation it bears to philosophy.