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| "patience is a virtue. you know that, right?"
"...fuck virtues." | | |
| I was listening to my iPod just a few minutes ago in bed having woken up...and then I fell back asleep.
I was in a room, some sort of summer home or something. There were tons of beds and I kept falling asleep.
And a song by the National came on on my iPod in real life but I'd never listened to them before so I didn't know which song it was. (Later found out it was Apartment Story)
And in the dream an adult was walking down the stairs and she stopped at a step halfway down and all of a sudden I was seeing her as a little girl sitting on that step, singing, and at a later age, coloring with crayons, and it was a cascade of moments and beauty--at 11, crying on the step, forlorn in her pre-adolescence, and as a teen, her face pressed against the cold glass. It was a story of her life summarized in a single place, a slew of moments. Her entire existence captured by a square foot of unvacuumed rug.
And her hair kept growing and I could still hear Apartment Story playing in the background, and it was something so utterly beautiful and tragic...
Inevitably, she grew older, and the step lost its magic and objects lost their meaning...
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| Older ChestsIn the past I was disgusted by the idea of a "game"...the idea that we hold off expressing emotions and feelings in order to inhibit awkwardness and the like. That in a world obsessed with pretense and impressions, we cannot connect.
But in the past week and a half I have experienced enough to prove myself wrong.
(1) Everything in time.
Friendships that are made the fastest can fall apart and be lost just as fast. The best things in life, in any type of relationship, will take time to build. We need nights where we change, weeks where our moods change and our attitudes change, so that our relationships, as they begin to germinate, learn to withstand the frantic tide of our souls. Otherwise we have built everything on a house of cards. (See: Older Chests by Damien Rice)
(2) We are afraid to get hurt.
After years of going through puberty and naivety and self-consciousness, we are so excited to be here, in this part of our lives where everything is clear and straightforward. But are we so eager to be straightforward? Not after years of experiencing rejection. No, even now, we must fear it. We must avoid it. Avoid the awkwardness. Avoid the rejection. So we step tentatively, as over castles of ice and sand. After all, since we do not know these people, do not know where they come from, what they value, what they intend to receive from us...since we know none of these things, know none of these people....we cannot be sure of anything. Cannot trust in anything. These people are all holograms, and we must be wary if we choose to fall into their arms. (See: Neighborhood #1 by Arcade Fire)
(3) It is more fun and satisfying to wait.
Yes, the anticipation sucks, because we continue to be apart from one another as we continue from day to day. But it is unfeasible to fill every moment with another connection, another folie a deux. No, instead we can only hold back and watch the other person's reaction. We have to feel people out and run on vibes. Which can be frustrating but it is an amazing skill to pick up, like learning another language. A sixth sense. Growing an antennae. And it's great to exercise that part of your brain. Because in the moment there is no time to sit down and take apart every action, every word and every expression. We can only take it all in. Absorb that which is visceral. (See: Analyse by Thom Yorke)
(4) But still, we must stay open.
Even as we build up walls to keep people out we must leave chinks in the foundation through which we can whisper to strangers and catch glimpses of the sun. Beneath all that is external, beneath all that is visceral, we must remain open to something new at every moment. When we least expect, the opportunity for a connection might come, and we must not shut people out. We must not shut ourselves out. We must always leave the door ajar, never get too far in. This can be bad because we will never be tied down to a single moment, a single connection, at least for now...but in the future we will have no regrets. In the future, we will be confident that we have taken a few steps down every possible path, and never turned around, even when we were tired, even when the roads were their coldest. (See: Hoppipolla by Sigur Ros)
And it is dark and chilly and you hold your arms closer to your chest but you know he is smiling by your side
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| five days is nothing.there is always room to be surprised. to let your expectations be proved wrong. if anything i have learned that.
everything here is perfect and amazing. i really have no ability to capture my own life anymore in words. at least, not yet. not now. at a later time, when i have more free time. but now? now, there is non-stop life and no time to document it. and this is a good thing, sadly. unfortunately, this is an amazing thing.
but there are some weird things i remember
on michigan avenue there was this homeless guy walking talking to himself, or to an invisible person walking alongside him. and clutched to his side was a FedEx package. is it not human to wonder what was inside?
i love the city. i love the campus. i love the people. and just when i feel like i have a grasp on those around me they surprise me, and i surprise them. which is a good thing, oh yes. thankfully, this is an amazing thing.
but in this mess of new beginnings, in this mess of good things, amazing things, you need to keep a grip on something, whatever it may be.
just don't let yourself be compromised.
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| i want my name to peel off me like an old sticker.
i want there to be time for everything. time for everyone and every moment.
i want the past to have an adhesive side you can just rip off. to interchange. to switch.
and even though i don't believe what i am saying i know these thoughts have invaded my head for whatever reason this night.
and thoughts that hitler was legit a nice guy and he just wanted to change the world, wanted to spread his enlightenment to everybody to change the world. failure really sucks when you found the secret to everything.
and i want my name to peel off me like an old sticker.
to just tear it off so we don't need it.
and the air pulses around you as the floor bounces beneath you and in the distance you hear the voices and the convergence of names and at once you feel and you know that you are where you are and you are who you are and for a moment, for a single moment, you are outside of yourself without feeling guilty for it.
and the exhaustion overtakes you and you try to sing the tune but the tune flies out of you as the bus jerks beneath your feet.
and the names float in a stream of names that splash over themselves and eventually
it was him, by the door, it was him, you knew he intended it all along, him and the rest, the rest of them
and when people fit what you expected of them
and you fit what you expected of yourself
it is at once a disappointment and and at the same time an apathy
an apathy that overwhelms and grips you and tears stability away
tears communication away
(the porch was creaking and the crickets were chirping and
you said you'd trust me forever)
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