Life In Slow Motion

2007-08-26T20:19:00.000-07:00

...every single tear that I had been trying to hold back for days, every sad emotion that I would distract myself from fell crushing on me. I cried through the entire flight. Listened to David Gray and cried. And yet, despite the sadness that still lingers with me and gets me teary eyed, I am so hopeful and optimistic … Looking back at the relationship this time last year, and even a few months back, I realize how much it has grown, how different it is from what once started as an undefined, equivocal, ambiguous relationship… All the uncertainties that I once had, all insecurities are gone. What I once asked for – continuity rather than commitment, is what I am finally able to see. I realize that I could not have been happier. That I cannot be happier now, from however many miles away… For now, it’s merely a distance of days, surviving time in short intervals [...] until I see you again. Soon. I promise.

2007-07-22T19:06:00.000-07:00

"I have no way of knowing what future holds for me. I have no way of foretelling where I’ll be this time next year. Come what may, happen what will, I know I will make the best of it, since I’ve outlived so many summers and have so many more to come… The only thing I can ask for, the only thing I can wish for, is to be back in Richmond, once again, without an urgency to leave, without an expiration date, a stay that will feel that I have found home, of all the homes I’ve had and have willingly left behind…."

2007-06-05T07:21:00.000-07:00

...Maybe I am merely avoiding confrontation, or perhaps I’m secretly trying to protect him from my own anger. Maybe I am just plain afraid that if I voice each and every frustration that I have, instead of letting things slide, I will create further complications and simply drive him away. That if I keep wanting to have my things too much my way, I will end up losing everything entirely. That if I show just how much this “seemingly petty stuff” affects me, I will alienate him and end up being rejected...

2007-06-03T11:05:00.001-07:00

2007-06-03T10:54:00.000-07:00

"Are you doing ok?"
"Yes."
"Is there anything you need?"
"No."
"I love you."
"I love you too."
"Can I get you anything?"
"Not really."

"You're beautiful."
"You're amazing."
"You're wonderful."
"You're the best."

Yet never enough. Never ever enough...

There is dread in my stomach. It keeps growing. It's sickening I'm sick. No, I'm not pregnant. I'm sad. Yet I'm easily comforted. Like a child. False comfort. False, false comfort. I'm bored. I never need anything. Or so I say. I'm difficult. Stubborn. Yet apprehensive. Docile. Pliable. Undemanding. I should be more like you. You are so perfect... And I'm so inappropriate in my mood swings and bouts of sadness.
I should be more like you. I wish I could be more like you...

False comfort. It's all but false comfort.

2007-06-03T10:47:00.001-07:00

apprehension

2007-05-07T07:47:00.001-07:00

You enter- i should be more like you.
Yet I am all nerves and knots. You are a gift. A souvenir.
I pray a little more...I am half -praying... and [you're so] perfect...

I have a little, a little, a little more.

Snippets from "Limited Access"
Rappel

and yesterday you said...

2007-05-04T20:31:00.000-07:00

more in an endearing and joking way, to my endless tossing and turning -

"i feel like i'm holding on to a tornado, trying to make it stop twisting and spinning..."

as if you could find any more symbolic way of putting it.

2007-04-02T12:07:00.000-07:00

There are questions you do not ask….
Because you no longer want to know the answers. You don’t need them, just like the questions themselves, they’re pointless…So you push these questions far back to the corner of your mind, keeping them quiet and still, locked.

And there are questions you do not ask no matter how badly you want to know the answers. You try to ignore them, hoping that these questions will outlive themselves and disappear completely from your event horizon…
It’s not important,
It does not matter- you keep saying to yourself… cause you know that deep down you already know the answers to even the unborn questions and the only thing you can do is accept them each in its own time.

And you live day by day in self inflicted bliss of denial and ignorance, choosing it as your only mode to exist, knowing that the only thing you can ask and hope for is that you wake up the next morning…

* I no longer question. I merely accept. And I’m no longer afraid of pain- you don’t question pain just like you don’t question your own happiness…

I’m no longer afraid of getting hurt- and by having realized this I seem to have somehow eliminated all the possible pain I may have to endure at whatever point in the future.

2007-03-25T07:00:00.001-07:00

There comes a point in every relationship, when you are able to look at it from aside, describe it objectively, name it, write it out, pin it down and there, you're done, finished, because you're finally able to see it for what it is and once you do, you can no longer delude yourself about what it could or could not be. Or perhaps what you'd like it to be.

To quote a phrase from one of the previous posts of someone whose writing and critical ability i've come to highly admire, the purpose of a quote being that i dont think i can find better attributes for a relationship than what she once already described as "lukewarm, ambivalent, and equivocal..."

So for the lack of better terms:

A lukewarm, ambivalent, equivocal relationship, with no definitions, too many unspoken words and too much uncertainty. At it's best it's comfortable and comforting in its familiarity, at its worst it's got no reference points or indications that it could potentially grow beyond what it is and become something more definite, or rather, definable - that is objectively. And if i were to describe myself in this relationship i would be nice, agreeable, undemanding, yet at the same time slighly neurotic and sporadically emotional (at least at moments when i dont try to restrain myself), whereas he's calm, rational, level-headed in a non-flippant way, nice by his nature rather than by circumstances. This pretty much sums it all up, and yet to elaborate a little more (although i am not sure why i continue this pointless exercise), i'd give it a credit of being civilized to an extent that there are no sharp disagreements or unnecessary arguments, let alone fights, and that our differences are often reconciled in a quiet, compromising and complimentary way. It's a polite relationship. Respectful. Considerate towards each other's immediate needs and discomforts. And yet it still is what it is - a lukewarm, ambivalent, unequivocal relationship... and the question is, what do i do now, that i am finally able to objectively see it for all it is.

The truth is, i do not know what i want out of a relationship, any relationship, other than the little details of everydayness and the comfort of familiarity. And if there's something that i dread more than anything else, it is acting like a petty, unappreciative female, who is too hung up on immediate rewards of any given situation. But the thing is, i am unable to see beyond the immediate, the present moment. I guess i would like to see some kind of a continuity - not necessarily in form of a long-term commitment - for me commitment is more of an adjective that describes a present state rather than an implication of a bonding future. Continuity is less rigid, less defined and is more circumstantial - the irony being that these very circumstances most of the time cannot be predicted, let alone controlled. And right now i'm aware that i am sounding exactly like any other female in a similar, undefined state. Perhaps what i need is a slightly different, or a bit more positive perspective of a relationship that i highly value and appreciate. But at the same time, there's only so much positivism that i can pull our of thin air until i become bitter and alienated enough to actually realize that i might be deserving something more or maybe something different. But since for now this a a quiet relationship and i'm the undemanding one, i will digress, if for nothing else, at least for the sake of keeping its appearance of politeness.

2007-03-21T10:29:00.000-07:00

"i have a nagging creepy feeling that i'm living a life in someone else's reality - that the reality as i see now does not really belong to me. It's almost like that weird dream that you dream at night, only to wake up baffled and confused, knowing that you just dreamed someone else's dream,wondering what in the world was that all about... "

"Don't try to live a life that isn't yours."
"What if i were happy in that life..."
"Would you be?"
"Perhaps. Maybe not..."
"Are you happy now?"
"Somewhat. Not entirely."
"And why's that?"
"Perhaps i feel i dont quite fit in..."
"Would you like to fit in?"
"I'm not sure i can. i dont think it matters either way."
"You can't claim life that is not yours. You know this. You tried it once. It did not work..."
"What's mine then? Decadence?"
"Life of possibilities, as you once said..."
"The unknown, unpredictable, spontaneous, ridiculous, absurd, chaotic life?
Maybe that's the problem. Perhaps i believed for way too long that the only life i could legitimately claim was chaos..."

2007-03-04T20:10:00.000-08:00

Maybe i do want to be held back. To actually have something that would hold me back every once in a while, make me stop for a moment, look back and reconsider everything, and if not radically change, at least see them in a slightly different perspective - one makes room for something other than myself. Maybe i do want something more solid than my inconsistent whims - perhaps i don't see it as stalling dead weight, but some kind of an anchor to stop me when it's too stormy out there and too rough to sail. Maybe i'm afraid that without this weight i will get lost, as i let myself lose chasing all those winds and get pulled in too many directions to end up torn to thousand little pieces and not even a single thing to hold on to.

We were born with our eyes wide open

2007-02-10T10:56:00.000-08:00

So alive with wild hope now
Can you tell me why
Time after time they drag you down
Down in the darkest deep
Fools and their madness all around
Know that the light don't sleep... 
[...]

Only things worth living for are
Innocence and magic...

David Gray
Silver Lining

2007-01-29T13:51:00.000-08:00

I’m tired.

I’m tired of this endless wait. Of counting hours and the hours and then the hours after that. I’m tired of feeling down all the time. Of expecting something that’s not going to happen. Of wanting a change, some kind of a change and knowing that i have my hands tied to even try and change anything. I’m tired for looking for meanings in places where there are none… And looking at places for something they are not.

2006-12-23T17:57:00.000-08:00

2006-12-12T19:00:00.000-08:00

I say this is not merely a wait, but then i have to tell myself to be patient...
I say it's not about destination, yet i can hardly wait to finally get there...
I say that it does not matter where i am, and yet i find this uprooted state more than unsettling...
I say i am not afraid of pain, yet i turn to pills for even a slightest headache...

I contradict myself. Over and over again. Till when? How long do i have to continue throwing myself from one extreme to another, unable to find a safe spot in the middle...

I say that it's only a moment, merely the winter that needs to pass away- and yet, who am i kidding? I am this close to breaking down. And yet i still wonder what miracle is going to prevent it from happening this time and what it will take to find another fat lady who will play Jesus for me...

2006-12-02T08:49:00.000-08:00

I feel like i'm living out a dream out of many dreams that are conflicted and in discord with one another...

2006-11-25T05:00:00.001-08:00

"i almost wish it was over..."
"What is over?"
"Rain. Cold. Winter. Spring, next summer. The next two years... All of it..."
"Why?"
"I want know what's going to happen next. Part of my mind is already elsewhere... "
"You're running ahead of yourself."
"Like I always do."
"You realize that it's pointless to know what's going to happen next, right?"
"I could at least try and guess..."

"What is it that's really bothering you?"
"Uncertainties. I dont deal with them well"
"Who does?"
"Doesn't make it any easier"
"Well then , eliminate them to the very minimum. You have your certainties..."
"And they are..."
"You know how it' s going to sound when you knock on the wood. You know it will burn if you try and touch the fire. You know it will hurt and bleed if you run your finger over the blade. That's all you need to know. Your certainties."
"What about the human factor? Emotions that come along when you deal with it?"
"Reduce it to the very minimum."
"And you consider it a sound advice?"
"What else should i say? Go hang yourself over anyone that comes your way?"
"So you expect me to walk out of any situation unaffected?"
"You can't. What you can do is set your own certainties. You tell yourself that it will hurt and burn if you decide to let someone in. Consider it as almost a mathematical certainty other than a possibility that gets lost by wishful thinking. That's all you need. You can't change what you cant control, but you can set your own certainties..."

2006-11-05T15:21:00.000-08:00

Have i been here before?
Was it really me?
Was it you that i saw?
Did i imagine?
Am i dreaming now?
Is it you standing next to me? Was it real? Is it real now?
Is it? Ever?

2006-10-28T16:35:00.000-07:00

Split Screen Sadness

2006-10-23T16:20:00.000-07:00

2006-10-15T17:09:00.000-07:00

I'm restless. Yet i am reluctant to move.
I want to speak but words get stuck in my throat. I have to cough them out.
I swallow. Hard. Or i'll choke with my own tears.
I'm sad, yet i do not know where this sadness is coming from.

It's gotten cold...

I find it hard to concentrate. I find it hard to write.
I can no longer separate the beginning from the end.
I find it difficult to give shape and order to this jumbled mess.

I feel disrupted. I fail to see a continuum. It makes no sense- but i guess it does not have to. I realize that i do not deal with uncertainties well. I find them disturbing, but without them life appears boring, unappealing. Mundane.

I wish I could draw a life. Sketch it out in bold lines and find a place for every detail. Details that i used to find trivial, because i was too young to care and truly appreciate. because I thought that there would always be time to catch up on them, not now, later, when i had obtained the unobtainable, when i had lived through the impossible and had reached a destination that did not even exist...

I lack completion. I'm stuck in slow motion.
I'd like to break free, yet i find it hard to move...

2006-09-21T19:13:00.000-07:00

and there's strawberry street cafe...

2006-09-21T15:42:00.000-07:00

i'm still in slow motion.
still pondering. and questioning.
still quoting lyrics...

i'm here. i'm real.
i'm breathing. i can see and hear.

i'm happy...

i'm happy to be here. happy to see you. happy because it's a nice day and it didnt rain and that i found a new song and that starbucks has come up with a pumpkin spice latte. i'm happy that the summer's over.
it's quiet.
and peaceful.

i'm in love.
with life.
with this city,
with you.
there, i said it.
can i go home now?

is it ever the time...

2006-09-21T15:38:00.000-07:00

is there ever time?
is there ever a good time?
is there? a perfect day? a perfect hour? that one moment of all moments? when?
how do you know? do you ever know?
is there a sign to let you know?
and if there is, what is this sign?
the sky giving a crack with blinding light pouring down on you?
will there ever be a good time?
ever?

2006-08-31T20:28:00.000-07:00

It's raining and rain brings relief. I can feel the tension in my neck and my back slowly go away-it seems like i've been hodling my breath for way too long... I seem to have won yet another battle with myself- i wonder if there's ever an end to this seemingly neverending struggle- and once again i have to remind myself that acceptance is the key to understanding, and if i have to learn the hardest way, at least i can be happy for having gotten out of this alive for yet another time.

it's raining and rain brings acceptance
it washes away all doubts and fears.

i can see it clearly now. i seem to know the end with an almost astounding clarity, as if it's happening now... A picture of a moment in the future frozen in the eye of the mind, like a snapshot- and yet this time i can no longer put myself ahead of time and try to live in dual vantage points- for what's between now and the end is what i do not know, cannot see and cannot foretell. i dont even try to. Cause what's between now and the end is an interval of time that's infinite in itself, filled with moments like the present-too bright and too intense for me to want to look beyond it.

2006-08-13T21:05:00.000-07:00

i'm not merely trying to fill in the space...

2006-08-13T20:50:00.000-07:00

And i say to myself- i want it all, life, as it comes to me, life, real, with rough edges and unpolished surfaces, life that stings and scrapes and feels raw and yet warm and soft against the skin, bigger than anything, breathtaking and overwhelming in its vastness, astounding in its realness, life that happens in every passing minute and goes on and on, relentlessly, sometimes with an effort of an uphill struggle, sometimes through the clenched teeth, sometimes like a soaring of a bird, sometimes peaceful as a sleep of a child... life, real as i could have never imagined it could be...
and i say to myself, i want it all, the whole thing in its entirety, as real as it can get, and then some of its pain on top of it all- i want it all or none at all, and not delude myself with a quasi-real, or rather surreal, or perhaps unreal life made of illusions, delusions, past pains and future doubts- i rather take the pain of disappointment in the end, then have what will dissolve in the air with not even a memory left to remind what it was like... how it was... question whether i was even there in the first place... wonder how i got where i am... and not having a clue where it is that i'm going.

2006-07-29T19:14:00.000-07:00

2006-07-28T06:16:00.000-07:00

i really want summer to be over

2006-07-27T19:46:00.000-07:00

2006-07-23T19:46:00.000-07:00

It comes.
Again.

A soft thud hitting in the lower abdomen, turning to a dull aching that keeps growing. You feel the heaviness of your swollen insides,and the next thing you know it's there.

You stare at the tiny spot-that's the evidence, that's the sign, your own stigmata. That's the curse that has passed through generations to reach you. Now it is your curse. That's why you bleed. Vulnerable and exposed, your entire frame cracks and aches. You're soiled with blood and dirt and constantly aware of pain-that's how you know you're alive, that's what it's like to be human. A female.

You get one every month and it always brings you down to the earth, never letting you forget that pain is an inseparable part of life. You were born in pain, through pain you will go, every piece of bread you will earn with sweat, you'll be torn by pain over and over again, and you'll give birth to a new life in pain. And the cycle
will repeat once again...the doors to paradize have been shut behind you. You will bear the curse till the end, because if pain is what makes life real [you MUST feel it, all the way through, acknowledging that the only alternative is death.]

and another one

2006-07-04T06:45:00.000-07:00

****

Man and woman, both […] proud and experienced, seldom meeting others as experienced. Suddenly both afflicted by dislike for the other, an emotion which, when examined […], turns out to be dislike for themselves. They have found their mirrors, take a good look, grimace, leave each other. When they meet, it is with a wry sort of acknowledgement, become good friends on this basis, after a time this wry ironical friendship [could possibly] turn into love. But love is barred to them because of the first stark experience, without emotion.

Short stories

2006-07-04T06:44:00.000-07:00

by Doris Lessing

*
A woman, starved for love, meets a man rather younger than herself, younger perhaps in emotional experience than in years, or perhaps in the depth of his emotional experience. She deludes herself about the nature of the man; for him, another love affair merely.

**
A man uses grown-up language, the language of emotionally grown people, to gain a woman. She slowly understands that this language comes from an idea in his head, it has nothing to do with his emotions in fact he is an adolescent boy emotionally. Yet, knowing this, she cannot prevent herself being moved and won by the language.

***
A healthy woman, in love with a man. She finds herself becoming ill, with symptoms she has never had in her life. She slowly understands that this illness is not hers, she understands that the man is ill. She understands the nature of the illness, not from him, how he acts or what he says, but from how his illness is reflected in herself.

****
A woman who has fallen in love, against her will. She is happy. And yet, in the middle of the night, she wakes. He starts up, as if in danger. He says: No, no, no. Then, Consciousness and control again, in silence. She wants to say: What are you saying No to? For she is filled with fear. She does not say it. She sinks back to sleep and weeps in her sleep. She wakes; he is still awake. She says, anxiously, Is that your heart beating? He, sullen: No, it’s yours.

Life in slow motion somehow it dont feel real

2006-07-01T15:16:00.000-07:00

2006-07-01T08:38:00.000-07:00

HAVING FEELINGS IS PAINFUL

So you instinctively retreat into a state of non-feeling.

IN THE WORLD AS TERRIBLE AS THIS LIMIT EMOTIONS.

When encounters with the outside world are painful, when you're actually caught in pain, try to remember or take into account some emotions you are willfully excluding.

What emotions?

Joy, of course.

Allow your mind to rest on those first blades of tentative grass that will poke into the light out of the lava in a million years time.

In order to keep ourselves sane we will have to learn to rely on those blades of grass. It is possible that in order to keep love, feeling tenderness alive, it will be necessary to FEEL these emotions ambiguously, even for what is false and debased,
or what is still an idea, a shadow in the willed imagination only.

Or if what we feel is pain then we MUST feel it, acknowledging that the alternative is death. Better anything than the shrewd, the calculated, the non-committal, the refusal of giving for fear of the consequences.

- snippets from Doris Lessing

2006-06-30T09:13:00.000-07:00

The shorter story
No fuss no glory
No hero in the sky

Was there ever one?
Or perhaps you made one up a long time ago, cause you needed something good and positive to hold on to-you the hopeless idealist, the blind believer in the ultimate goodness of the humankind, despite the misery and ugliness and sufferings it brought onto itself, making the world a living hell...

Remember your first disillusionments and how badly you took them; remember your first falls and how gracelss they were; remember how badly it hurt and how hard it was for you to let go and how long it would take to get over each and every one of those blows.

Remember that day, that one day when you copied the words from the Golden Notebook:

IN THE WORLD AS TERRIBLE AS THIS LIMIT EMOTIONS

-writing them with shaking hands and helpless determination and yet, still refusing to give up and give in... And yet, you clung helplessly and desperately to the idea, or rather an ideal- cause you knew the delusion was better than having nothing to hold on to...

remember what followed after that and where it got you... remember the hours and how real the possibility of death became.
remember your birthday, last summer and fall... and yet another spring

and what now...