(no subject)
It's funny how easy it is to get lost in a city, no matter how well you know each block, each cobbled sidestreet. It's even stranger how, when you desire nothing more than to lose yourself in that city, it seems nearly impossible. No matter how many blocks you walk with your head down, only mindful of the bright traffic signals hanging overhead, you can never seem to find a road that doesn't feel familiar- that you haven't walked a thousand times.
I tried to lose myself today, got on the bus and rode to the center of the city and began to walk aimlessly. It was a hopeless task, however, as each city block was steeped in the feeling of the mundane tasks that fill my day-to-day existence. The clothing shops I've browsed, the cafes I've eaten at a thousand times; without glancing up at street names I knew exactly where I was.
Some days it's the menial tasks that seem the hardest to perform. Eat, sleep, shit. I lay on my couch at night, trying to lull myself to sleep, but instead can only muster the strength to lift the remote to shift restlessly between channels.
I fall into depressions sometimes, and think of how beautful Michelangelo's work must have been after he spent days unable to get out of bed. Today I feel that I am exiting one of those hazy depressions, noting how beautiful even the smallest trivialities are after two weeks of not feeling a damn thing.
Most of my thoughts today have come to me in choppy Italian- simple half-meditations on life and love. The opposite of simple, really, but put simply because of my lack of vocabulary.
Even though I am unable, it seems, to lose myself in the city anymore, I enjoy the city best of all because of the noise. When I sit alone inside of my house, or in nature, I can only hear the rush of blood in my eardrums- a constant ringing that reminds me of my existence. The city allows me to forget myself, become a ghost, in the constant flow of traffic- the screeching of brakes and the hum of the mechanical monster.
I haven't decided yet whether this- this feeling that overtakes me from time to time- is why I THINK that I am a writer, or if it is why I AM a writer.
I guess only time will tell.
How pedestrian it is to be an artist these days anyways- a writer, a painter... Everyone is an artist. Six months ago, when buying my Mac at the Apple store in a suburban mall outside of Detroit, I met an artist whose work was hung at the MoMA. A short man, balding and with round glasses, he showed me his photographs as if to convice me that he WASN'T currently selling me a computer. While browsing the 'New Fiction' section at Barnes and Noble today, I noted the various "professions" that kept these writers alive while they struggled with yet another formulaic novel that would surely be printed only in paperback- MTV producer, waiter, Argentinian drug smuggler (OK, maybe not the last one).
Sigh. Well, perhaps when I publish my first novel, the back of my paperback masterpiece will tell tales of vitamin-dealing and grant proposal-translating..... Though I sincerely hope not.
I tried to lose myself today, got on the bus and rode to the center of the city and began to walk aimlessly. It was a hopeless task, however, as each city block was steeped in the feeling of the mundane tasks that fill my day-to-day existence. The clothing shops I've browsed, the cafes I've eaten at a thousand times; without glancing up at street names I knew exactly where I was.
Some days it's the menial tasks that seem the hardest to perform. Eat, sleep, shit. I lay on my couch at night, trying to lull myself to sleep, but instead can only muster the strength to lift the remote to shift restlessly between channels.
I fall into depressions sometimes, and think of how beautful Michelangelo's work must have been after he spent days unable to get out of bed. Today I feel that I am exiting one of those hazy depressions, noting how beautiful even the smallest trivialities are after two weeks of not feeling a damn thing.
Most of my thoughts today have come to me in choppy Italian- simple half-meditations on life and love. The opposite of simple, really, but put simply because of my lack of vocabulary.
Even though I am unable, it seems, to lose myself in the city anymore, I enjoy the city best of all because of the noise. When I sit alone inside of my house, or in nature, I can only hear the rush of blood in my eardrums- a constant ringing that reminds me of my existence. The city allows me to forget myself, become a ghost, in the constant flow of traffic- the screeching of brakes and the hum of the mechanical monster.
I haven't decided yet whether this- this feeling that overtakes me from time to time- is why I THINK that I am a writer, or if it is why I AM a writer.
I guess only time will tell.
How pedestrian it is to be an artist these days anyways- a writer, a painter... Everyone is an artist. Six months ago, when buying my Mac at the Apple store in a suburban mall outside of Detroit, I met an artist whose work was hung at the MoMA. A short man, balding and with round glasses, he showed me his photographs as if to convice me that he WASN'T currently selling me a computer. While browsing the 'New Fiction' section at Barnes and Noble today, I noted the various "professions" that kept these writers alive while they struggled with yet another formulaic novel that would surely be printed only in paperback- MTV producer, waiter, Argentinian drug smuggler (OK, maybe not the last one).
Sigh. Well, perhaps when I publish my first novel, the back of my paperback masterpiece will tell tales of vitamin-dealing and grant proposal-translating..... Though I sincerely hope not.