The dream used to scare her with its confusing symbols and its exact
replication night after night.  Now it was simply a part of her life
like the clothes that she wore and the food that she ate.
Begrudgingly she accepted all of these things forced upon her.  She
did not try to analyze the reasons for things or the actions of
other people.  When she began to question things, her queries led
from one to another and spiraled viciously downward to a black
expanse.  That black expanse must contain the answers but she did
not know how to find them.

Once the answerless space had caught her and held her
there...nowhere with no knowledge of how to go further and no
knowledge of how to get back.  The dream had led her out and now she
just avoided the questions altogether.

A frightening place, she still instinctively shuddered at the
remembrance of it.  It was a place without boundaries.  Without
walls there are no corners to back up into and gaze about safely
from.  In that place it is impossible to know if you are insane and
dreaming that you are sane or even if you exist at all.  There is no
one else to convince you that you are not just the object of someone's
nightmare - only to vanish into nothingness when the alarm clock in
their world goes off.

The dream had brought her back but she had not been the same since.
She had gone too far and experienced too much of the uncertainty of
reality to fit neatly into a niche of society.  The more routines
and structures of normality she came into contact with, the more she
shrank into herself, and her soltitude.  That which everyone else took
to be absolute and completely defined could only be one huge
question to her.  Forever unanswerable it called out to her and
pulled her imperceptibly closer to the spiralling vortex of
ambiguity.

What is right?  What is wrong?  Who knows and why?  She pulled free
again and shut herself away alone to recover.  Walking alone with
the wind blowing her hair away from her face and her thoughts away
from her mind.  Slowly, the questions drained away and were replaced
by life in its primitive form.

Lost in the noises of the tree branches holding hands and the grass
leaning over to talk to the ground she didn't pay attention to where
her subconscious was going.  Suddenly it broke the surface as a
completely formed question.  "Why isn't this life?  Why are we so
removed from the actual process?"  Viewed in this context with
moonlight and starlight setting gently on her the question didn't
startle her as the others always had.  What was her life if she must
spend it in a way which wasn't pleasing to her?

She sat quietly for some minutes looking around her and filling her
mind and all her senses with the life around her.  Then slowly, her
eyes closed and her face showing only a smile, she turned her
thoughts towards the unlit void which she had always feared but now
approached eagerly.

Her disappearance mystified and baffled everyone except the very few
people who knew her very well.  They only smiled for her and perhaps
went walking while the wind was blowing...
   Tenar 4/15/82

"No man is an island."  Who said that? Isn't it one of the most
glaringly false statements you've ever heard?  I mean, aren't we all
completely isolated within our minds?  I exist in the universe of my
perception, and no one else occupies it.  For example, I am now
alone in this stairway, even though I am communicating with you, my
fellow peeps.  Would it be different if we spoke, and saw each
other's faces?  Or would we still be isolated, just communicating a
little more information?  Because, no matter how much we share, no
matter that we have similar experiences or thoughts, we have them
separately.
   3/8/85

Unless of course we can come to see that we are all formed of the
same energy and thus are really of one piece.  Three dimensional
space and an overreliance on visual and auditory stimuli have led to
an alienated society.  Perhaps I am touching your arm just by trying
to understand your printed message.  Perhaps you are disregarding
the tingling as instead a case of excema.
   Tenar(trying to make contact) 3/12/85

I love this place.  Of course I love what's written, but I also love
the smell and the music downstairs, the silent humming when the
music stops and even the snoopy tourists.

I remember I used to associate fear with this place.  And I would
run out of the top or through the "shroom room" if I heard a door
open.  I avoided this area like the plague because here I was
trapped if someone came in that main door.

Now...now I come in that main door and I hope someone is here who I
know.  When I'm writing and a stranger comes in I just look up and
say 'hi!'.  I'm not doing anything _bad_ so I won't be ashamed.
But most of all, when I hear a door open I look to see, hoping it's
one of those peeps who I can just sit and talk to.  I don't mind if
they intrude on my soltitude here (even though I love it) - I want
them to intrude.  I never want my time here to end - sometimes I
wish I could stay so long and read everything - usually the time
slips by as I sit contemplating, occasionally writing something.  I
really love this place.
   Vail 5/14/86

There's a difference between communicating an idea or a feeling to
someone with intentions of being recognized as a human being who is
similar and can relate to other human beings.  There's a difference
between that type of "oneness" and exposing your innermost
secret/soul to someone else.  Have you ever felt like you've totally
openned up and shared all your insecurities with someone.
_That_ is a feeling of being as one.  However, if you open up to
too many people, you may feel like all those other people are part
of you - and that they "own" you.  In theory it should work - a
universal oneness, everyone sharing, caring and knowing - but I feel
that in _this_ world there's only so much of me to share with
others and from now on I'm going to be selective who I share me with.
Like you said...it's going to take a while to love/become close to
people.
   Vail 5/17/86

Once there was a man who was so far gone that nobody could see him.
He hid himself away like a precious thought, and refused to let
anybody in.  And then one day he found that he couldn't get out.  He
awoke to find himself surrounded on all sides by monstrous walls,
gigantic barriers springing up at every turn.  And though he tried
so hard to make them go away, they refused, and the harder he tried
the more they fought.  He kicked and stamped and beat the walls, but
they would only grow harder.  He yelled at the walls but they would
not listen and they only reflected his screams.  He tried to jump
over the walls, but they only grew higher and he realized he was
trapped.

The little man sank in despair, unable to fight anymore.  And in his
humiliation and defeat he reached over and scribbled a long, sad,
losing sigh on the wall next to him.  And then he wrote some more.
And more.  And more, until finally he was mercilessly unleashing all
the horrible feelings he held in his chest, all the while hoping
that someday, somehow, it would make the walls disappear.  He drew
pictures and wrote poetry, until one day he found that the walls
were all filled.  There was no space for him to spill his guts,
nowhere for him to pour his heart out.

And in the moment before his heart sank he looked back at the walls
and saw that were no longer walls but mirrors through which he could
very plainly see himself, and he laughed at what he saw.  Suddenly
realizing he was no longer trapped, he stepped through the looking
glass and into a whole new dimension, a realm in which he was no
longer tied down by fears and superstitions, but was able to fly
high on the wings of enlightenment.  And his heart was screaming
laughing dancing, and he was singing all the while a song of perfect
love.
   Floorwriter 5/86

Reflections on the Nature of Wallwriting:

Seems to me that for us peeps, these walls have ceased to be mere
slabs of concrete, functional and necesary dividers, but have taken
a much deeper meaning.  To us, they are symbols, representative of
the mental and spiritual walls that human beings build around
themselves and each other.  We are constantly building walls - to
define ourselves, to define the world, so that we can view the world
objectively.  And like the walls we are surrounded by, they are
functional and necesary as well.  But they are, after all,
imaginary, an illusion of separateness.  The problem comes when we
forget this and begin believing in them.  We start seeing ourselves
as separate from the rest of the world (ie - ego), and by the time
we recognize that these walls are a Big Fat Lie, it is too late.
The walls are real.  Look at the Berlin Wall.  That sort of divider
is a direct result of people believing they are separate, when in
reality there is no difference.  Human beings are not separate and
different, but the same, and hopelessly inter-connected, with each
other and the rest of the world.  So what can a person do when
confronted with the need to overcome those silly walls?  They are
too high to climb, too all-encompassing to go around, too wide to
tunnel through, and too limiting to ignore.  The only thing you can
do is _make art out of them_.  Art transcends ego,
and when you create out of that which is destructive, you
are one step closer to Truth and Beauty.
   PBF/Floorwriter 12/30/87

It's a hell of a place, that dreams Lost and Found.  My feet are
still blistered from my last trip there, and my nails are bloody
from openning the doors.  Had to walk through quickly to avoid
distractions.  A swimming pool filled with lime Jell-O and Tom
Selleck surprised me until I realized I'd blundered to someone
else's path!  Embarrassed, I quickly found my way, and thought I had
time to walk by the lower stairwells.  Maybe dust off a relic of my
past, maybe just wince at my more foolish lodestones...  I breezed
up two flights, laughing at the walls of curly hair and fifth grade
math, when I was knocked to the ground.  Feeling them before I saw
them, there was no escape.  My mistakes, my misunderstandings, the
wrong times and the wrong places.  An unfeasable chased an
inaccessible.  I was angry and not a little humiliated.  I hate that
place!  I saw one approach me and knew what he'd say.  "I don't
learn from my mistakes, I just add new ones." We mumbled together, a
horrible nightmare I'd tried to forget.  Screaming, I fell through
the door.  Grabbing for perches that couldn't bear my weight, the
woman at the counter was getting annoyed with me.  "Just what do you
want?" she demanded, but I was too dizzy to tell her.  Eventually a
string of music wrapped around my ankles.  I nearly let it go, the
notes were so simple, but in the middle of a hurricane any shelter
is better than none.  Even when you're hanging upside down.  Firmly
but carefully I followed the thread, until the song was hard enough
to walk on.  When my head cleared in the fresh air of the upper
stairs, I found the best music was not all my own, but included some
previous collaborations.  I started walking faster, humming my
favorite parts to help avoid pitfalls.  Those talls buildings are
full of them, you know.  I found the arrow to the upper stairwells,
which is where I am still headed.  So if you'll excuse me, (though
really you're there too...)
   Treble 1/10/88

Stop a moment -

Think of all the thoughts exuded on these walls.  A fragmented tome
- a shattered _War and Peace_ in twelve languages written by a
genius lunatic, with attacks of triteness, pretentiousness, and
inanity.  Brilliant humor and contagious melancholy expressed in a
fugue of symbols by twelve characters with only flat surfaces as
their common bond.  Put us in a room together and in an hour we'd
separate out into groups of two and three - or one.

We sweat words like a fevered child, and linger in the dark ward,
inhaling the warm, cloying fog.  Or we simply pay heed for lack of
an audience elsewhere.
   The Pedant 3/12/85

Silence is grey and grey only.

Although sometimes, like when you're sitting all alone on a
river-smooth rock in the middle of the rapidly running water,
listening to the trickle and gurgle of the little leaping water
falls and feeling the damp wind about you, this voiceless "silence"
   might then be a grey-blue.

Or when two old friends meet again after not seeing each other for a
long time and they realize that they have nothing in common anymore
so neither really speaks but they each wish the other would and all
is discomfort and memories and stares, this voiceless silence
   might then be black.

And when an old man sits in his chair alone without hearing or
speaking to anyone because he is too tired to bother and is busy
remembering his life because it has been full and is almost over, he
smiles,
   because this silence is a
   shining silver.
LGL 3/86

Reflections on an Unknown Suicide of 6:00PM 3/17/85

I don't know your name, who you are...only that you are gone.  A
girl who somehow decided life wasn't worth living...Why?  Why?  Was
life that bad?  That hopeless?  Unintentionally, in your aloneness
and despair...You made us all realize what a human life means.  I
feel for you, for your friends, for your family...You have left a
mark on us all.  Like Judas (The Betrayer) your life was too far
removed from hope and renewal for you to keep going on.  But did you
have to give up?  Oh, what potential untapped!!  I guess, however, I
am on the other side, I do not know what all of this would mean to
you.  And I never shall.  A piece is missing from us because you are
gone...I mourn your loss.
   Diem

(unoffically - "Blueprint for a Long Fall")
What to value something given freely?
No number on the tag...
Priceless or valueless?
Am I fueled or self-consuming?
Where to replenish the store of the given?
Burnout -
To die from the star's disease,
Giving and giving until, at last, even
the open hands give themselves away?
   Darkblade 3/21/85

_T_HERE WAS ONCE A MAN.

He lived in a world filled with pain, suffering, and hate.  The man
knew of this.  He knew it very well.  He saw war and violence on the
evening news, and racism on the streets.  He saw criminals being
plea-bargained out of punishment and into society, and unjust laws
being made without protest.  Worst of all, he saw the very few force
their opinions and beliefs upon the many.

The man knew that what he saw was not right.  But, he thought, what
could he do?  He was but a mere individual, one among millions.  The
man had his family and work to think about.  Then one fine day his
beloved son went to fight in an unnecesary war.  His son did not
return.  The man wept.  "There's something wrong with a system that
would allow my son to die for nothing," he cried.  The man was
right: that something was him.
   Tree 1/20/87

My roommate has discovered a kindred soul.  They call each other
Self and leave messages for Self and all that.  I thought it was
pretty silly at first.  I mean, it's nice to be known and understood
and all, but what would be the point in another me?  One of me is
quite enough, I usually prefer other people to be themselves.

But then we got a new telephone, the kind with memory buttons.

And memory button number three is for Self.  And I look at it every
time I pick up the phone.  "Self."  Just by pressing a button.  Dare
I try it?  I can see the phone ringing, my hands reaching for the
receiver.  "It's for me," I would say.  "It's for you," I would
agree.  And our laughter would run together with the cabbages and
kings.

Memory button number three...
   Treble 2/18/88

Tonight, the soltitude is lonely.  Outside the door a _massive_
gallery reception is in full swing.  The voices and the laughter
echo all the way to the bottom.  There's no escape without
leaving...I'm not leaving.  Not yet.

My mind wanders and I recall long peep gab sessions and the echoing
laughter of friends.  Any minute I expect them all to
materialize...Well maybe if I wait long enough just _one_ will
walk through that door.

I remember being 17 and standing at the bottom of P&L listening to
people laughing and singing all the way at the top at 2 in the
morning.  I remember seeing the writing in AP&M and H&SS and telling
myself - "One day..."  Now here I am, leaving my mark.  Sometimes
it's fun, sometimes it's painful.  Sometimes it's all too much and I
want to run.  But I don't get far.  Before I realize I open a door
and the wall-writing, no, wall-music, hits me in the face like a
refreshing blast of cool air on a warm day.
   Morgan 5/15/86

One cannot hate.  One can only hate one's acts, maybe dislike a
personalitiy.  But _hate_ is too strong a word to be used so
often.  Besides, it causes a lot of problems.  Look at someone you
"hate."  Hate implies that you loath the very thought, sight,
mention of them in such a black way that you yourself become evil.
This is destructive.  One must _look_ at the person.  The action
that caused this feeling may cause strong negative feelings, strong
dislike.  But even if the action is _hated_, it is only one
action of many this person has performed.  These actions are not
_all_ bad, so the person is not _all_ bad and not deserving
of _hate_.  Just dislike.  Why am I babbling?  I hate this!
   LGL 4/86

I hope someone opens the door.  Sometimes I don't feel so safe with
my own thoughts.  Why do doors close so loudly?  Why am I trembling?
What am I doing here so late?  Probably what you have done a hundred
times.  Are we "allowed" to write in here?  Just wondering.  Also,
what will happen when this stairwell is full, like the other one?
And all the stairways are full.  And no one paints over me for
someone else to write - and we start writing on the outer walls and
the sidewalks for the sake of "art" and everyone sees it.  Will
someone come along and, seeing it for the first time say, "What a
disgusting thing to do???"  Everyone doesn't see it like we do, do
they?  Even if they could resolve themselves to writing on the
walls, they wouldn't be here like I am at 1043PM after crying on the
steps, would they?  Now - I'm afraid to go out there, but no longer
afraid to be in here.  I'm also afraid that if I don't go out there
now, I never will.  But I don't know if I can do it again.  "Out
there" wasn't always so bad before I could come "in here," was it?

And now, on my knees, I realize I'm in here only because there is
something inside of me that cowers at the thought of being
confronted like that.  I'm the one who always does the confronting,
you know?  It's hard to write on the wall - to _face_ it - when you're
the person who puts your back to it most of the time.
   Azorin 10/22/86

There once was this little boy.

Everyday he'd go to the woods near his house.  He was looking for
something.  He never even knew what he wanted, but he'd search and
search and along the way, when he'd meet someone, he'd ask, "Have
you seen it?"  Puzzled, they'd only stare and remain mute.
Frustrated, he'd dig and climb.  Sniff, taste, touch, listen.  Full
of desire, out of breath, one day he sat on a rock.  Away from all
else, all man, all man-made, he sat.  And he listened.  He'd heard
his heart.  And he sniffed.  He smelled his sweat.  And he licked.
He tasted his tears.  And he touched.  He felt warmth.  And he
thought.  He was happy.  He found what he was looking for.
   Woodstock

He looked into her eyes and was drawn into them like metal to a
magnet.  He gasped.  He flew into the deep blue of her eyes, and
found himself in an ocean, alone with her.  He saw his past,
present and future.  Emotion throbbed in his mind and body, adrenalin
rushed through his veins, his heart pumped like it had never pumped
before, but he could not move.  He felt as if he would EXPLODE, but
he did not care.  His eyelids would not blink.  Goose-bumps
criss-crossed his skin like a fishnet.  In her (beautiful) eyes he
saw life after death, love - all meaning, all purpose.  A sense of
relief ran through his soul, a huge weight was lifted.  He breathed
again, almost came out of his stupor and she glanced...away!  No!
NO!!  His mind screamed into the dark corners of his brain.  But he
could not move, his feet were frozen to the ground.  OH GOD NO and
she ran to him
   Tree 1/21/87

To those who care,

"Peep" may be derived from its verb form meaning "to disclose
oneself slowly."  Perhaps a "peep" is one who does so through a
gradual accumulation of writings.  Then again, maybe someone just
liked the sound.

There was a time when peeps roamed the halls late at night - some in
odd costume or carrying staffs (like Tolkien characters almost).
Anytime a door openned to the stairwells, one or two could be found
"reading" the graffiti - all very discreet, those bygone writers.
Many people hate the graffiti.  They strike back by writing on the
walls themselves or by painting large blotches over it.  Why they
prefer blotches to graffiti isn't clear.  To each his own, I guess.

The origin of P&L's graffiti has been asked about elsewhere on these
walls.  I've never seen an answer.  There is a little history
recorded here and there (like the famed Blackbeard days).  I suspect
that the days of continuing conversations are over.  No one seems to
have solved the problem of clutter.  There's little to distinguish
one quarter's writing from another's.  Sometimes new peeps answer
questions from years ago.  This lack of space fools them.  Much of
what is here is very old.

Some of the graffiti is nice.  Some entries evidence wisdom.  More
often not.
   In memory,
   CSL 9/24/84

Dear Wall,

Please forgive my incessant ramblings on these sacred surfaces.  Oftentimes
what I say is not truly what I mean.  It is easy for me to deceive.  My eyes
are quite opaque, or mirrored, so hide what is inside.  Occasionally this
deception turns manipulative, and the pain and frustration inside increase.
What am I to do?

You.  Yes, you who are reading this.  I love you.  Now what?  It's more of a
given than anything else.  And it's not the kind of love that will grow if
nurtured.  It's a love that's universal.  But I want that other kind of love
_as well_.  Why is it so difficult to open up in that kind of way to
people (or one person over there)?  Where?  Oh, never mind.  It's all so
confusing.  I don't need much anymore. (all I really need are my dreams)  But
I want to need _more_.  Some would call this trap complacency.  I really
don't think it's that.  It's something far more philosophical.  Perhaps it's
something akin to a wait and see attitude.  How long to wait?

Oh wall, I tell myself things that are not true in hopes they will become
true.  Maybe one day I'll find meaning in it all.

   Thanks for listening,
   Psimon 1/12/88

There must be something almost masochistic in anyone who confronts an
enourmous blank wall with nothing but an ultra-fine point pen.  Surely
nothing but a perversion of the strongest of drives - the sexual - would lead
anyone to make the attempt.  And for a Freudian, the symbolism is direct and
unambiguous.  The pen is undoubtedly phallic, and the writer takes on the
masculine role.  The passive, receptive quality of the wall leads one to
conclude that it symbolizes the feminine.  The act of writing can only be
interpreted as being symbolic of the sexual act.

What, then, might we conclude about the poor soul who makes his attempt with
nothing but the smallest of pens?  Two different, but perhaps related,
interpretations of his act can be found.  The first, as previously mentioned,
is masochism.  The writer dooms himself to failure, and the psychological pain
that his failure entails.  His chosen tool is almost completely inadequate for
performing his chosen task: filling the wall. (Symbolic, you understand, of
fulfilling his sexual partner's desires.)  The second interpretation is a felt
sense of penis inadequacy.
   Sir Spirit 11/81

In grade school I knew a girl named Jasmin.  In first grade we wore sneakers,
all of us, and she wore Birkenstocks.  In second grade we were all told to
bring a baby picture one day for Show and Tell.  Hers showed two young people
with _long_ hair holding a baby (Jasmin) in a tye-dyed diaper.

Children are very cruel.  Jasmin said to give peace a chance and the bullies
pulled her long hair and threw nasty taunts every time they saw her.

She was never befriended by anyone then; none of us was listening to her.

She went to high school with me too.  By then she was so changed that I would
not have recognized her.  Her short, permed hair and Reeboks denied the
tye-dyed diaper origin.

Anyway, last night I brought her here hoping to revive some of the beauty I had
seen but not known as a child.  We killed it;  she did not feel the shine in
these walls.  I am so sorry Jasmin.
   La Boheme 4/18/87

The tapping of the water droplets echoed down the dark, lonely hall.  I
crouched back into the shadows, trying to slow my racing breaths and pounding
heart.  I could feel his hatred coming closer and closer.  My eyes blurred and
burned in fear and I knew that I would never see him in time.  My mind raced
wildly; first there would be the glint of his knife and the raspiness of his
breathing, and then, before another heart beat his knife would already be upon
me.

The tapping of the water seemed louder all of a sudden.  I peered into the
darkness, waiting, praying.

A flash of light hit my eyes and something twisted.

"Hello, my friend," he spoke silently, like a snake.

"Lord save me!" and I leaped for him.
   W. Mitty 4/19/85

In the days before I began writing here,  I was extremely frustrated.  No one
seemed to be seeing me.  Come to think of it, I wasn't seeing me.  I felt
like I was failing to communicate.  In the words of Flutegus Kuitemer, I felt
like a neurotic geek.  All my life has been a search for communication, a wild
attempt to make other people see what I've seen, feel what I've felt.  And I
was failing.  Oh sure, my art, my music, my writing; all that was improving,
seemingly without effort.  But on a human level, face to face, socially, I was
blowing it.  No one can understand what that feels like.  Physical and mental
tension were tearing me apart.  I was drowning, but one thing kept me up.  My
art.  And pretty soon all my energy was heading in that direction.  But here
again I ran up against another block: I wasn't really communicating through
art, or at least not the way I wanted to.  The teacher would take my stuff
and hang it on the wall so everybody could see it and they'd say, "Wow!  He
did that!  And all by himself, too!" and then the inevitable, "Gosh, I could
never do that!"  Art should be like a smile that you put your heart into, not
a silly contest to see who's best.  If somebody smiles at you, you don't just
walk away saying, "God!  I could never do that!"  You smile back!  So I felt
that I had failed.

Following up a long lost memory, I returned to one of my childhood haunts.  I
found a place where people were communicating.  Really communicating.  I liked
having people who listened and understood, and I liked being able to have
relationships in a non-social way.  I don't know why.  But it fit me
perfectly.  But I was still wary of being set apart.  I wanted my
accomplishments to be everybody's.  I wanted there to be no authors.  No
owners.  I wanted to be only one expression of the universal consciousness.
Silly me.  This is a world made of dualities and inequalities.  So I have
made the monumental decision to adopt a name.  Only I haven't decided what
yet.  I have decided on a symbol, though...

I am very grateful for the companionship and understanding I have found here.
(I will never forget the time when, on a spontaneous impulse, I pressed my
body up against the walls, shut my eyes, and felt human life coursing through
the veins of this place, vibrating with emotion and awareness.  Thanks.)
   Floorwriter spring/fall 86

Damn, 3 o'clock in the morn, 'nd someone is pounding on the door.  Struggle
outta bed, open the door 'nd no one's there 'cept this jet black chicken.
She walks in, grabs herself a beer, sits on the couch like she owns the
place.  Wait a sec, a chicken?  Drinkin' beer?  Funniest thing I ever saw.  I
just stood there dumbstruck.  She'd balance the bottle over her wing, make a
seal by sticking her head in the opening, 'nd tip the bottle to drink with
her foot.  I shook my head twice to make sure.  That's when the door handle
melted.  Ahhh good acid...
   Chacalron 5/3/81

I just about live here lately!
   The Raven 5/18/88

Are you finding this to be a problem?  With spring quarter apathy at its highest,
it is not surprising that many otherwise unoccupied individuals turn to venting
their creative output upon barren walls.  To quote a great philosopher, "It's a
thing."
   /
  /_
    /
   /ATD 5/26/88

Which great philosopher was that?
   Psimon 5/26/88

Sounds like a really famous one!
   Peace Pirate 5/26/88

Thou art correct, Peace Pirate.  The philosopher was indeed great.  As a matter of
fact, I believe it was the same one who once warned his comrade, "If I have to grab
your tongue, I'm going to rub my hand all over my foot first."
   /
  /_
    /
   /ATD 5/27/88