Momo

The best strange book I ever read was Momo. It's an out of print book about a band of children fighting the Time Insurance industry. Everyone in the town buys the insurance, and start to owe it Time. You can never catch up. Qualities like craftsmanship are deemed unnessary, because your Time is no longer yours, and no longer enough. Sitting around telling stories or just spending Time with each other is considered beyond wasteful. Practically illegal.

This book is more in touch with the reality of day-to-day life in America than any I have ever read. Our Time is not our own, we can't catch up, we are always behind, and we can't spend our time with our families without sacrificing the heat bill or the rent.

Writing a poem for three hours or three days is the only way to sustain the brain's connection to the powerful truth below the surface. I suppose other people have found other ways. Meditation. Doing anything slowly and well. Gratification and suffering hold hands.

In between the poems, the driving, the schoolwork, the meetings, the sycophant relationships with people, Laura gives me Momo and I am again comforted that others--this writer I can't remember the name of!-- are looking for the odd translation of what is going on.