The World Turns
So, after all the wonderful and frightening events of yesterday I came home for an hour and then had to leave . Which is my least favourite part of life, the partings and goodbyes, for however short a period of time. I am aware that I go to school in Baltimore and that it's only an hour away by car, and also that I'll be back for the weekend, probably even as soon as thursday evening, which is now really only two days away, but I guess I have never been good with passages. I begin to miss people with the mere intimation of departure. Things get all mixed up and teary. I remember now that one city in "Invisible Cities" (thanks again, by the way, to Van for that gift), in which each stranger you encounter in the street suddenly bears the face of someone you knew before, so that one wonders if perhaps, instead of entering another living country, they haven't died and entered the land of the dead (which would mean that "the beyond is not happy"). I realized that that particular place is, too, a universal. I know for certain that during longer stretches, and even some short ones, everyone hallucinates just slightly. As my Illusionism teacher said in class today, we are most ready to see what we expect to see. And this is very likely true for what we desire to see.
So yeah, me and my dad arrived with all that baggage, which I don't remember leaving with, possibly because some of it was more than I took, or possibly because in leaving I was quite eager, with fever, to just get the hell home and lie down. I have that day quite clearly etched in my memory, though when I get like this I get generally quite baffled by time and all things seem etched; I keep on recalling everything as though it has just happened, had just been happening, be it last week or two weeks ago or last year or the year before that. I know for certain how the future will be real just as this moment is real, but it seems so far off when every preceding moment has suddenly been rendered so intense. Memory is hard sometimes, I can state, and time is hard, and love is hard, and consciousness is hard, and so basically we can conclude that life is hard. But we enjoy what we can and try and make it worth it. I have to keep trying to live in the moment. As I posted around the same time last year:
"
...
But bid life size the present?
It lives less in present
Than in the future always,
Ans less in both together
than in the past. The present
Is too much for the senses,
Too crowding, too confusing-
Too present to imagine. " (from Carpe Diem, by Robert Frost)
So, let me see...where was I before the long tangent. Yes, the bags were heavy and I realized that I really, truly did lose my Id this time. So that meant we couldn't use the elevator. We lugged it all upstairs and I discovered that my room was locked and the lock, from all apearances, was broken. The hallway was cluttered and apparently mine and Jack's efforts had already begun to show signs of reversal. When the HA on duty came by and opened it, I realized that, for maintenance reasons, I had had to rearrange furniture before checking out, and it was in the middle of the room. There was a layer of dust everywhere. So I parted with my dad, and then began the long process of unpacking and cleaning. I turned that oldies station on, the one that plays the love songs in the evenings (and apparently deep into the night), and listened to the sappy stories and the soothing announcer voice while I slowly tried to establish myself. Though they only played something I liked occasionally, it kept at bay the encroaching feeling that, at what was already past midnight, with all the rooms quiet and the doors shut, I was the only one left in the world. So basically I had a bit of a downward moodswing when I came back to school. But eventually things started to take shape and the immense clutter was sorted out, and the floor was shiny. And Erica and Gabriella came to visit me towards the last stages of my effort, and we stood in the crammed little hallway for a bit talking, because probably I was too out of it and stupid to invite them in more properly, (though we have a terrible shortage of chairs). I finished up and surveyed my wall pictures, and now I remember moving in day at the beginning of the year, and how crappy I felt, and how I spent all my time before sleep putting them up and arranging them. So I showered and took some melatonin and got to bed. As I was starting to nod off, the radio played "Somewhere out There," which was on Andi's love mix CD, and then I had a really rather relaxing night's sleep.
I woke up pretty peaceful and on time, without any issues. I got my new Id, had lunch, called my work study about tomorrow, (I had to leave an awkward message, and my boss, later, left her own, which was two minutes long because she forgot to hang up and went on talking to someone, possibly her husband, for a while after she was actually done). In the three hours after, before class started, I sat in this same computer lab, on this same computer, and wrote some poems. Class was wonderfu, as could be expectedl. It's a continuation from one that I took last semester, so it feels a lot more comfortable, and I love her slide lectures and brain lectures and all sorts of lectures.
Unfortunately, I don't feel so good right now. Kindof sad again. Don't know what the deal is. Sometimes I just get like this, and I guess I really just need to learn how to deal with things better. There is hardly anything to be sad about, but for some reason I have this sinking feeling. Like that one time when I was little and we went to the Dacha of my parents' old friend, in the coutry. It was so wild and sad and mysterious and I felt like something was missing or else encroaching. I got this very same feeling of "melancholy", the same one as now, and my mom talked to me on the bench about how sometimes that just sort of happens, and I cried. I want to read "The Little Prince" right now, because this same feeling seems to exist, beautifully, contained in that book, and it is soothed, with the explanations between the words and lines. But I left it at home. So I will have to reread it this weekend, I guess. Tomorrow will be a busy, busy day, which will hopefully get rid of this feeling, though it isn't so bad, I guess. It lets me know that I can still feel and be human. It lets one know for sure that they exist. Claudia, I think I might be stealing your words, but they seem very good and true words. However much it hurts, it affirms as well. To miss someone, for instance, affirms love for them.
So, in conclusion, I love you all. I will see some of you soon, and others I will hopefully speak with soon. Now, probably, to retire.
So yeah, me and my dad arrived with all that baggage, which I don't remember leaving with, possibly because some of it was more than I took, or possibly because in leaving I was quite eager, with fever, to just get the hell home and lie down. I have that day quite clearly etched in my memory, though when I get like this I get generally quite baffled by time and all things seem etched; I keep on recalling everything as though it has just happened, had just been happening, be it last week or two weeks ago or last year or the year before that. I know for certain how the future will be real just as this moment is real, but it seems so far off when every preceding moment has suddenly been rendered so intense. Memory is hard sometimes, I can state, and time is hard, and love is hard, and consciousness is hard, and so basically we can conclude that life is hard. But we enjoy what we can and try and make it worth it. I have to keep trying to live in the moment. As I posted around the same time last year:
"
...
But bid life size the present?
It lives less in present
Than in the future always,
Ans less in both together
than in the past. The present
Is too much for the senses,
Too crowding, too confusing-
Too present to imagine. " (from Carpe Diem, by Robert Frost)
So, let me see...where was I before the long tangent. Yes, the bags were heavy and I realized that I really, truly did lose my Id this time. So that meant we couldn't use the elevator. We lugged it all upstairs and I discovered that my room was locked and the lock, from all apearances, was broken. The hallway was cluttered and apparently mine and Jack's efforts had already begun to show signs of reversal. When the HA on duty came by and opened it, I realized that, for maintenance reasons, I had had to rearrange furniture before checking out, and it was in the middle of the room. There was a layer of dust everywhere. So I parted with my dad, and then began the long process of unpacking and cleaning. I turned that oldies station on, the one that plays the love songs in the evenings (and apparently deep into the night), and listened to the sappy stories and the soothing announcer voice while I slowly tried to establish myself. Though they only played something I liked occasionally, it kept at bay the encroaching feeling that, at what was already past midnight, with all the rooms quiet and the doors shut, I was the only one left in the world. So basically I had a bit of a downward moodswing when I came back to school. But eventually things started to take shape and the immense clutter was sorted out, and the floor was shiny. And Erica and Gabriella came to visit me towards the last stages of my effort, and we stood in the crammed little hallway for a bit talking, because probably I was too out of it and stupid to invite them in more properly, (though we have a terrible shortage of chairs). I finished up and surveyed my wall pictures, and now I remember moving in day at the beginning of the year, and how crappy I felt, and how I spent all my time before sleep putting them up and arranging them. So I showered and took some melatonin and got to bed. As I was starting to nod off, the radio played "Somewhere out There," which was on Andi's love mix CD, and then I had a really rather relaxing night's sleep.
I woke up pretty peaceful and on time, without any issues. I got my new Id, had lunch, called my work study about tomorrow, (I had to leave an awkward message, and my boss, later, left her own, which was two minutes long because she forgot to hang up and went on talking to someone, possibly her husband, for a while after she was actually done). In the three hours after, before class started, I sat in this same computer lab, on this same computer, and wrote some poems. Class was wonderfu, as could be expectedl. It's a continuation from one that I took last semester, so it feels a lot more comfortable, and I love her slide lectures and brain lectures and all sorts of lectures.
Unfortunately, I don't feel so good right now. Kindof sad again. Don't know what the deal is. Sometimes I just get like this, and I guess I really just need to learn how to deal with things better. There is hardly anything to be sad about, but for some reason I have this sinking feeling. Like that one time when I was little and we went to the Dacha of my parents' old friend, in the coutry. It was so wild and sad and mysterious and I felt like something was missing or else encroaching. I got this very same feeling of "melancholy", the same one as now, and my mom talked to me on the bench about how sometimes that just sort of happens, and I cried. I want to read "The Little Prince" right now, because this same feeling seems to exist, beautifully, contained in that book, and it is soothed, with the explanations between the words and lines. But I left it at home. So I will have to reread it this weekend, I guess. Tomorrow will be a busy, busy day, which will hopefully get rid of this feeling, though it isn't so bad, I guess. It lets me know that I can still feel and be human. It lets one know for sure that they exist. Claudia, I think I might be stealing your words, but they seem very good and true words. However much it hurts, it affirms as well. To miss someone, for instance, affirms love for them.
So, in conclusion, I love you all. I will see some of you soon, and others I will hopefully speak with soon. Now, probably, to retire.