Sunday, June 9, 2013

(I am perturbed by my ability to stop listening to myself, sometimes for months at a time)

I am perturbed by my ability to stop listening to myself, sometimes for months at a time. I am so easily invested in other voices that I can forget about my own. There is reason to believe I was meant to be a hermit.

In some ways I am more of one than I have ever been, though I am living with millions of people in New York City. The street outside is disgusting and grey. There is pigeon excrement everywhere, and pigeons threatening to excrete, and few people seem to care about much of anything, including littering. Three days ago as I sat on the subway on the long ride to work I watched a man toss a plastic bag out of the train as it opened its doors to new passengers. How the fuck is the world going to get better if people can't even be responsible for their own trash. Stick the bag in your pocket, for god's sake. There are trash cans immediately to either side of you no matter where you disembark the train. Throw it away then.

But no! Instant gratification! Any load is too much for me to bear! The world owes me perfection while it is reasonable for me to shit all over it. Just like a goddamn pigeon.

So I make my way to the apartment as quickly as possible and I close the doors and make believe that outside there are flowers and trees growing.


Of course I am painting in stark colors. Of course it is inevitable, were I to continue writing, that they would start to bleed together. Of course we all have bad days and of course there is goodness to this place and of course if someone litters it doesn't mean they are categorically bad and unworthy of love. Still. Don't throw trash on the ground.


Lately I have been feeling angry for the fact that you valued me less than the idea of conception, even though it's been years since I've though of it. You would have left me to labor while you gallivanted through emerald sheep-dotted fields with accents on and a fedora, or left me if I chose not to. At the time I thought my heart was big enough to understand but I see now that you were acting like a self-absorbed ass with a superiority complex and a strong mind twisted by misogyny. I wish you well and hope you are happy, always.

I remember when I allowed my anger. I said, "I need to go vent, now," and I walked outside and kicked the trash cans until my foot was bruised and the bins' sides were dented-- so much that the lids never quite fit again. I felt just fine afterward! Anger is energy! Bottle it up and what are you left with? Confusion and misdirection on the eve of turning 26.

But of course that's not the whole story. I have stopped believing that I have to do it all right now. I've been through a lot and I have a lot of competing visions in my mind and it's okay that it's taking some time to pick and plant my way to where I want to be. It is quite a relief, in fact, to know that seedlings need time in order to grow. That with soil, water, air, and light, they will.


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