I don't know what I'm feeling...
Maybe existential ennui, maybe just winter melancholy
Hello there,
I know I’ve been MIA on here - this is because I’ve been feeling.. well I don’t really know what I’ve been feeling… but I’ve been struggling with a lack of inspiration and motivation. Sometimes I struggle with really intrusive metaphysical and existential thoughts, a sort of listlessness and I go into a shell and don’t come out of it for weeks on end. But I’m forcing myself to put this together for anyone else that might be feeling the same way and looking for words and art to relate to. As always, thank you for reading, and thank you for putting up with my very erratic self. All my love x
First, an excerpt from Mary Oliver’s Dogfish
You don’t want to hear the story
of my life, and anyway
I don’t want to tell it, I want to listento the enormous waterfalls of the sun.
And anyway it’s the same old story – – –
a few people just trying,
one way or another,
to survive.Mostly, I want to be kind.
And nobody, of course, is kind,
or mean,
for a simple reason.And nobody gets out of it, having to
swim through the fires to stay in
this world.
“How strange it is. We have these deep terrible lingering fears about ourselves and the people we love. Yet we walk around, talk to people, eat and drink. We manage to function. The feelings are deep and real. Shouldn't they paralyze us? How is it we can survive them, at least for a little while? We drive a car, we teach a class. How is it no one sees how deeply afraid we were, last night, this morning? Is it something we all hide from each other, by mutual consent? Or do we share the same secret without knowing it? Wear the same disguise?”
― Don DeLillo, White Noise
"You waited for something from morning until night, and nothing happened. You went on waiting and waiting. Nothing happened. You waited, waited, waited, thinking, thinking, thinking, until your temples throbbed. Nothing happened. You were alone. Alone. Alone."
— Stefan Zweig, Schachnovelle
Nikki Giovanni, Introspection
she didn’t like to think in abstracts
sadness happiness taking giving all abstracts
she much preferred waxing the furniture
cleaning the shelves putting the plates away
something concrete to put her hands on
a job well done in a specific time spanher eyes were two bright shiny six guns
already cocked
prepared to go off at a moment’s indiscretion
had she been a vietnam soldier or a mercenary
for Ian Smith all the children and dogs and goodly
portions of grand old trees would have been demolishedshe had lived both long and completely enough
not to be chained to truth
she was not pretty
she had no objections to the lies
lies were better than the silence that abounded
nice comfortable lies like I need you
or Gosh you look pretty this morning
the lies that make the lie of life real
or lies that make real life liveableshe lived on the edge of an emotional abyss
or perhaps she lived in the well of a void
there were always things she wanted
like arms to hold her
eyes that understood
a friend to relax with
someone to touch
always someone to touch
her life was a puzzle broken
into a hundred thousand little pieces
she didn’t mind being emotionally disheveled
she was forever fascinated by putting the pieces
together though most times
the center was emptyshe never slept well
there wasn’t a time
actually
when sleep refreshed her
perhaps it could have
but there were always dreams
or nightmares
and mostly her own acknowledgement
that she was meant to be tiredshe lived
because she didn’t know any better
she stayed alive
among the tired and lonely
not waiting always wanting
needing a good night’s rest
“I open the fridge. It’s the dead of the night. The light is clumsy, violent. It disturbs me. I cover my eyes. I am still looking inside the fridge. It’s empty. I am, too. The light is still clumsy, violent and I cover my eyes, just as I did that morning at breakfast, a table for two at the beachside and you breaking the bread with your hands, breadcrumbs everywhere. You knew I loved, I love, bread, and you knew those breadcrumbs would make me think of eroticism, of communion of the day we met across the ocean. Those breadcrumbs suddenly piling up in my heart like the kisses I’d sworn I would always give you. On your back. On your chest. Under your belly button. You would surrender and I would always feel like god. Or Alexander The Great. The light was the same. Nobody was vacant. Nobody, nobody, nothing, not even the sea. Who’s vacant now? I am. Am I? I open the fridge and it is vacant too. I wonder where those breadcrumbs have gone. I wonder If I’d ever be able to have breakfast like that again. The light is the same in the dead of the night. Why? There’s no warmth in it. The light is the same and it’s just dead. I am not the same while I’m looking inside the fridge. There’s nothing to eat. No breadcrumbs no lips. I fall on the floor in slow motion, But the cameras are off. My hands like crab claws unable to hold onto anything even if it were for dear life. It’s the dead of the night. Vacancy uninterrupted.”
— The Cynical Idealist, An Act of Love or Desperation
I am gliding backward away from those who knew me / as the moon grows thinner and finally shuts its lantern. / I can be replaced a thousand times, / a box containing death. / When you put out your hand to touch me / you are already reaching toward an empty space.
— Adrienne Rich, Moth Hour
Bonuses:
