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1.
There’s light, around 2:00 pm each day, that streams violently through my window. It strikes right on my couch, covering all of the cushions, only slightly reaching for my cup-stained coffee table. A table that, for whatever reason, I refuse to fix. I often look at the sun streaming in and bristle at the heat it brings. My normally air-conditioned apartment, an icebox, forces me into a sweater and I cover myself with my green, fuzzy blanket. At 2 pm though, I allow the blanket to rest and I sit, in the middle of my couch, in the crease, and allow the sun to hit me. Perhaps I’m deploying a defense mechanism against the impending winter lurking around the corner, waving goodbye to October. Or I love the sun. The way it hits the left side of my face covers me in warmth. It hugs me, almost rinses me off like a shower. Much of life is this way–cleaning in its hold. The sun rocks me to a soft sleep, allows the book I’m reading to rest on my chest, and eventually I wake up to the sound of my air conditioner and the chill of its production. The earth spins again, my blanket unfolds, and I wait for tomorrow’s stream.
2.
10:30 PM
Manhattan at night is a full, alive place. People walk alone and I wonder where they’re going or where they’ve come from. I’m one of them. I’m looking straight ahead. I know where to go. Left turn outside my door, another left, right. I know my way. I’ve walked this route more times than any other. It’s one I memorized the first time, hoping I’d have to keep it close, walk it more.
Lately, I’ve been listening to the same music. The kind about desire, and the unrequited nature of things. Each lyric gives me my own voice. Each musician, my guiding light, my wisdom tree. On this walk, I played Elvis. Slow, lingering Elvis. I hope my heart will quiet. I didn’t know then that this walk would become hard for me to take, that I’d pray the memory of it away, that my heart would always quicken on the approach.
“Wise… men… say…”
I stopped listening to Elvis that night. He’s a fool. He knew it. So am I.
And that walk. I can’t make that walk anymore. I hate that place. Every street is haunted by your ghost. This city neighborhood is burdened by our history, never to be relived.
An art piece that I made for my best friend for his birthday. Specifically, though, the first draft of it on a tiny piece of paper.
I finally finished The Woman Destroyed by Simone de Beauvoir this week. I was able to finish it because, finally, I gave in to myself and made a list of all the books I’ve been meaning to read but haven’t. The idea is that this list will force me through my books because I enjoy physically crossing them off. It’s satisfying.
Page 1 of the list This article about Stella McCartney’s Spring 2022 collection inspired by mushrooms. I love fungi.
I’ve been thinking about writing about the concept of being a hobbyist, ever-curious person (the kind that doesn’t say “drinking with friends” as what they do for fun). This article by William Y. Yao was the first I read in that exploration.
“In learning, the unexpected becomes indispensable, the novel becomes normal.”
“Teaching reinforces not only what I’ve learned, but how I learned it.”
I recently re-ignited my obsession with Steven Pinker and read this New York Times article called, Steven Pinker Thinks Your Sense of Imminent Doom is Wrong.
Carissa Potter’s newsletter (always, anytime she writes anything), specifically this one, An Acceptable Romance, about what romantic love is. This quote hit really hard: “Slowly, tho, I am coming to terms with the fact that to be loved, truly madly deeply for being myself, it must mean also that I can never really be seen. There are too many contradictions to being.”
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Love the art piece...