Oh, Virginia. You give me the most beautiful headache.

One reads, one is certain, the prose of Virginia Woolf --its meanders, its asides, its parenthetical interjections of thought and comment, its refusal of omniscient narration-- as one thinks: always distracted; always commenting upon what is with that human dissatisfaction with mere observed reality, as though the senses are neither dependable nor productive of interest without judgment; always more entertained by chatter than by any terse and dry observation: indeed, her place in the history of the novel is at that juncture when the form shifted from depiction of heroic historical moment to a new fascination with the workings of the mind --especially the reading and writing mind-- itself.

Ferral Lyman, Kolob, Utah, February 15

Editor's note: Mr. Lyman agreed to have me record this story. I have transcribed it nearly verbatim. In a few places, I have condensed particularly discursive or digressive language in favor of a more linear monologue.

One thing is in Kolob some don't know the day we was born. It wan't the custom to keep that day, and all I know is I was born this month, February, in 1923. My mother always said they had lost track of the day which they could do in them winters that was so cold and snowed-in. They could go a month without that anyone came by and in them days there was no 144, just the old cattle trail over to Youngville. It could take a day to get to town and so snow on the ground kept us at home. I was born in this house. I was the second youngest and now the only Lyman left, unless my boy is still alive.

As a boy I mainly remember ranch work. We had the biggest outfit this side of the mountain, maybe four thousand head after the war for a few years. Sometimes I rode to town for mail. That was all day riding, then get the mail from sister Larsen, then go up to the schoolhouse to see if there was some kids there, then spend the night at my cousins' house, where the yurts is at now, then ride home the next morning. I did not see people except my family and some ranch hands, only in town now and then. There was ever so often a dance in town, and one time a year we rode over to Youngville, too. Them times was what we talked about and looked to all year, when we saw other young people at the tabernacle. There was a picnic and all the cars circled and still some wagons and many horses. Horses was how we went over the mountain and did most all of our traveling seeing how the ranch is mainly ledge and steep, all rock and tumble-down pine and too rough for cars. So one time a year we rode over to Youngville. That took a hard two days each way. The ride was part of the excitement, spending two days on the mountain with the other Kolob families, all the mule trains, a few wagons. The riding and talking, the campfire, the music and dancing. I knew the Kolob families more from fetching mail and crossing to Youngville than from being neighbors. Now with 144 paved and driving I can see people every day, though I choose not to. I got used to the quiet and alone.

Them dances in Youngville was so exciting! Families went from Kolob, like I said, and from the crossing, and Cedar, and even four days' ride from Castleton and John's Flat. I think it was five hundred people one year. This was between first cut and when I and my brothers went for firewood, so June. We didn't know how alone we was in all this country till we saw all them cars and horses and the dust and so many people, each one with his town's color on him, a bandana or a scarf. Yellow for Kolob. We watered down the tabernacle horse lot so's there's not so much dust and we set up shades and passed the time talking and eating and flirting, getting reacquainted with them's we hadn't seen since the year before, and music and dancing at night. We was all in the church in them days but there was some drinking though you could never see it, just its effects, some of the men got pretty loud and boisterous and to carrying on. But I think the bishops pretty much just looked the other way. I remember once this old boy got to yelling and swung at Joseph Richards and the boys took him and throwed him in the ditch to sober him up. The dancing went all night. When I was sixteen there was girls' choice and I danced with Lena Young and I thought about nothing else but them two minutes for the next year when I found she was just married up to Cedar. That broke my heart.

In '42 I got called up. It was a letter in the mail. One for me, one for my big brother Hyrum. Mainly, we did not hardly know of the war. There was no news except rumors, and we was the first to get called up in Kolob. We just read them papers and didn't hardly know what to do. It said report to our post office, which in them days was just sister Larsen's front porch. We had to leave our chores and go down. When we got there sister Larsen did not once stop crying and we learned we had to report to Salt Lake, which maybe we never would of gone but we did go. We had two weeks I think, then rode over to Youngville with my little brother William so he could take the horses back. We rode in a government car with some other boys to Salt Lake. I was sick scared, I admit, but I kept it hid. I was over Lena by then, but leaving my mother crying broke my heart.

Once I had seen a picture of ZCMI, but it was so big and pretty I just stood there and about got killed by a delivery wagon, I was such a country boy!

We went to bootcamp and trained and got split up. The last I ever saw of my big brother Hyrum he was in a line going into a tent. He was a big man. I remember I was encouraged by how big he was in that line of skinny boys, but he did not come back from the Pacific. He was killed on Midway.

Me, they sent to France. I was a shooter. It was the hunting they said. Thing is, I was never much for hunting. We had more beef than we could eat. Now there's deer everywhere on the ranch, but in them days they was mostly gone. I shot some when they got in the hay, but there was little call for it. But the army thought I was a shooter, so I did that. On this, there is not much to say. I saw some Germans at a distance a few times, but they was always heading away. I did what i was told, but there was little action till Paris. It was the end of the war, which, now, we of course didn't know, but we walked into Paris and there was some shooting, but in the morning they was gone. I got the job of guarding a line of Germans that surrendered. I just had to stand with my rifle and watch those boys. They was in bad shape and I have to say I was praying they would not run because I would hate to of shot them so close after seeing how regular they was. I had to watch them for a week. Every day a pretty girl walked by and the Germans watched her and pointed and whistled and some called to her in French. She ignored them, but she smiled at me a few times. Now, one thing is that the Paris people appreciated us Americans and we took that in and we did get so's we wore our helmets at a tilt, and carried on like peacocks. Even the shyest boys winked at the Paris ladies and strutted like roosters. Some of the boys got girlfriends. They couldn't talk French, but they was everywhere American boys with Paris girls on their arms. Off duty at night there was dances and lots of drinking but it was not like them Youngville dances back home.

This is when I met Clothilde. She was the one I mention, a pretty Paris girl that walked by my guard station every day. So I was at the dance one night and I saw here there, and I don't know what got into me but I walked up to her and told her my name. There was nothing we could say, what with my no French and she being a French girl never been to school neither of us. She was so pretty. Her dress and shoes was worn down from the war and living poor, and she was too skinny, but I fell in love with her that night. She was small and chestnut-haired and always about to smile. I hardly know who I was them days after that dance. I learned a few words of French. I found flowers out of that city that was mainly empty of what to buy. I got her a cake and she was so pleased. I was there maybe one more month. I proposed we get married and she agreed.

Then I had to go back to America on the boat to New York. But then I went back and the Colonel married us. She was not allowed in our camp, so we saw each other only walking around the city. It is hard to remember now but I about died of not being with here all the time, of only holding her hand and dancing with her. It was some time and then we went on the boat to America. We took the train to Salt Lake, then got a ride to Youngville, and all the time she got quieter and quieter. Then the horses back to Kolob. This was a bad time, as Clothilde never had been on a horse, which I did not consider, and I could see she was scared and sad. I did what I could, trying to make her smile, bringing her flowers, but when we got back home here she was not talking.

Neither would my mother she was so angry I got married to this French girl not of the church without even her blessing. It made the family very upset the way I come home with Clothilde. We moved into the cabin out back. Clothilde stopped talking at all. Then the winter, which was more quiet and alone than ever I remembered after the war and Paris. Most days Clothilde never once out of bed, just lying facing the wall. In the spring our boy Hyrum was born, named for my big brother. In that June I was haying some long days. When I come back to the cabin one night Clothilde had taken our boy. I rode up the mountain looking, but she was gone. That was in '46. I never seen her or our boy. Hyrum is old now hisself, I think 67 years old and I don't know him. All the days of my life I miss him and his mother. My family is dead and buried on the ranch now, and I have lived by main force of hoping they would come back. That and that I like my work here. My dogs, my ranch, this good life. I just wish they was in it.

My Ridiculous Suit

In the spotlight, in my gift, I blushed
and squirmed and stammered. Mumbled
out a few choked words. Failed
to dance. The audience still and hushed,
then glancing, embarrassed, as I failed
to shine.

How did I, of all people, open this box,
wrapped in red foil, big and heavy?
Unfurl this shining suit of charisma
and silver words, and the golden mean?
So obvious as it waterfell from my
raised hands to the floor
that it was not for me.
It would never fit. I would never
grow into it.

So plain to my gathered family
that its lavish fabric, it borders well embroidered,
its fine cut were meant for another.
A prince, maybe. A brilliant golden godling.
Only prodigy could fill it.
But I put it on. I rolled up the cuffs.
I paired it with sneakers and a toolbelt.
Everywhere I went heads turned.
People laughed at me.

Later, when I was too old for playacting,
people shook their heads. They said I was crazy.
I've never grown into it. I am plain
and now broken, but it is still brilliant and regal.
I am so embarrassed.
I am squandering it.
The spotlight follows me, expecting a show.
Everyone wants the prince's favor, the godling's blessing,
but I want to crawl under a rock. Or run for the hills.
I want sun on my skin. I am a good carpenter.
And I like working in the restaurant a couple nights a week.
I like to walk in the desert.
Back, back, back... An irretrievable moment
of switched labels.
My jeans and flannel given to some beautiful,
brilliant, godlike boy, now crushed by
stultifying labor, and his ridiculous golden suit
sent to me, who craves aloneness, and making and
fixing things, and to watch and listen and drink beer, and
have a kind wife in a little house in the trees.
A friend calls me the "blueblood redneck",
mistaking my silver tongue for good breeding.
I was sharpening a chainsaw when he said that.

How can a windfall make such misery?
I have a very gentle heart.
It is still so open, even in my middle age,
that I cry when I miss my children.
I am full of doubt.
I know the world through my hands.
But people see me as arrogant, in my
big, regal suit.
I slouch, but they see me strutting.
I'm shy, but they see me preening.
When I read, which I do for pleasure and instruction,
they see an aloof intellectus
living the life of the mind.

The mind gives me great trouble
because I think, of course, with the great
perfect words that belong to that poor beautiful brilliant
laborer, who thinks in mine.
He must sometimes wonder, dimly,
through the brown scrim
of the words that are rightly mine,
why his life is so dreary.
Why he has these unmanly urges to the spotlight,
to sing and declaim,
to take applause,
to be adored and garnered,
to shine.
And I hold this pen with fingers cracked and calloused
from carpentry and dishwashing, trying
to escape architecture and theory
and the ideal of the perfect essay,
the heady burgundies,
the endowed chair,
the witty comrades that should, supposedly, be mine.

God, if you're up there, or Santa Claus -giver of gifts-
take from me this finery.
Leave me alone. Let me be.
My mind is close to breaking.
My open heart too flawless and pained.
Get thee hence, or bring me my flannel and jeans.
You've messed with me since I was a boy.
I am so sad and tired, so full of love.
So disappointing. I am embarrassed.
And in the night I long to be free
of this ridiculous suit.