something different this week: four recent, chronological journal entries transcribed here in their near entirety. i didn’t edit them; i’ll even show you my journal (i won’t). i did leave out a couple paragraphs of astrological rambling, but you definitely didn’t want to read those.
april 20, 2023
something comes over me in those first few notes of video games, returning to me like a lost pair of gloves the youngest me that felt like me i can remember. it was all a dream. i spend hours choosing an outfit. pants too big. pants too small. too narrow around the ankles. i curl up on the floor and read old entries: things i once cared about just letters on the page.
the spring sunset paints itself across the windows of an office building on 9th, no longer at first glance somewhere people go to die. the depth of memory: a well i’m descending, still singing every word to this song i haven’t heard in six years.
may 18, 2023
i don’t look how i feel right now and that’s because i actually think i look pretty good. amazing what a little sun will do for my confidence – i went into work last week without a drop of makeup on and E gave me a very nice compliment. i do feel freer with my naked pores in the wind. more open channels for receiving whatever i’m supposed to have.
journaling for the first time in a while when i know i have so much to say and process is a unique kind of anxiety – i avoid starting because i’m unsure where to begin, and then weeks go by, and there’s only more to hash out by then. i have been writing, thankfully, but publicly, on my blog. not like this where i can say [redacted], and [redacted], and [redacted]. oh, and i have tonsillitis again. becoming an annual occasion, evidently.
lately when i think about changing my life i’m overwhelmed with confusion and dread, and borderline mistrust in myself, as if i could be lying to me about my own feelings for the sake of recreationally fucking up my life. am i only questioning my intuition because technically it’d be easier, at least in the short term, not to change my life at all? the extra time spent between the knowing and the doing only needlessly prolongs my suffering. if i believe in destiny, and i do, can i have faith that the details will handle themselves?
may 22, 2023
i am spiritually absent for what seems like months and then i come down into the living room and see a puddle of peony petals on the coffee table – overnight and at once shedding some of its own beautiful self. i guess this is the way it is.
the other night i was on the couch, home alone, a head cold and watching normal people for hours. then, out of nowhere, these loud pops and bangs i immediately interpreted as threats to my safety, jump-scared like a dog on the fourth of july. bravely i paused the show. bravely i stepped out onto the dark front porch.
a man about my age, a backpack strapped to both sides of his body, was passing by on the sidewalk.
“you just missed the grand finale.”
i stared back at him silently, trying to make out his face.
“fireworks,” he said, clarifying, only a tad bit patronizing. “i couldn’t see them either, if it makes you feel any better.”
a phrase i’ve been dismantling lately. it usually doesn’t make me feel any better. i don’t want someone else’s misfortune to alleviate my own, and i don’t take comfort in shared misery. even though that’s mostly what the internet feels like these days. a place to confirm you’re not alone in your suffering – and to prove your intermittent joy is both wholly unique and vaguely unattainable.
it feels like summer again just like that. no comma to denote pause. most of the garden is planted now; i went out to water early this morning and delighted in the sight of them all dripping and alive. i forgot the smell of summer and missed it. the quiet. the birdsong. the way the two can somehow coexist.
i’ll get the rest of the peppers and the tomatoes in the ground today and we’ll be on our way to the endless abundance i owe my wintertime survival to. how could i forget but it is so beautiful here with all the green back in its place. the textures, the colors, the way it all changes with the light. i could drive around all evening, windows down, admiring every old house and their wooden porches, every cat in the window, every fruit tree i mark with an X on the neighborhood map in my head. i’m getting better at recognizing what is best saved for later. the blessing of being able to return only when you know the fruit is ripe.
in a lot of ways it feels as though my life has been stunted somehow, like last year’s thyme that survived well but never got any bigger. how can i fertilize myself in the least pregnant of ways? what nutrients am i missing? i remember it takes more than sunlight and water; the soil needs to be good too.
may 24, 2023
it was my dad’s birthday on monday and he called me back last night; we talked about the summer to come. about florida – all the islands getting swallowed up by the sea. how saying you’re from florida elsewhere in the u.s. is like saying you’re from the u.s. in other countries. you kinda just want to lie.
i have a migraine so i took a short nap. when i woke up the house smelled different, even bad, and i couldn’t figure out why. it’s raining and i regret missing even a moment of it in my shallow sleep. one thing about florida: there’s never not rain.
i want the world to show itself to me and it will, all this time waiting for me to turn the corner. look, already, what i’ve found. look, already, what i’ve lost. i can’t bring myself to close any doors behind me; perhaps the smell has nothing to do with anyone.
obsession of the week
speaking of lana, this unreleased deep cut. i used to listen to it on the bus (on my ipod nano via youtubetomp3 dot com) every day on my way to high school. i recently thought about it and it still hits.