You're invited

You're invited to a hibernation party! 

December 1st, 2020 at my place. Everyone is invited. No RSVP necessary. Wear pajamas.

It's dark out. I'm wearing a sweater and jeans and listening to music that I stopped paying attention to a few ad breaks ago. I put my hands under my shirt and press my fingers against my bare stomach to warm them.

I look at my reflection in the darkened window. My idle thoughts ask why I'm here. 

I don't get a break from the worry, or the dread, or the fear of the days to come. I hold my breath for a second; my reflection blurs as I stare at it. 

My hands are cold. 

I take a breath.

That's what it was like: weeks of holding my breath until I remembered that I still needed oxygen, and staring while the world around me blurred, and trying not to feel the numbness spreading inward from my cold fingertips. 

My thoughts ask again: What are you doing here? 

I have an answer that I can't put into words. I pretend I don't hear when they tell me it isn't good enough. I am here whether they like it or not, whether I like it or not, because I don't know where I stop and they begin. Can I draw a line? 

Bring a snack if you can, nonperishable. We'll want them when we wake up. 

When? 

When I have feeling back in my hands again.

Nothing is real, but I think it's a Sunday

Written 10/9/20

It rained today. 

The world gets quieter and emptier when it rains. I drove myself to class in silence this morning. I thought about the rain instead of listening to music. Everything feels shifted, and I blame that on the fact that I'm the only person as far as I can see. I feel a little bit transparent. 

I step out onto the wet pavement and see no one on the sidewalks. The calendar says I'm supposed to be here, but my head is telling me I'm wrong. It's too empty here.

Isn't it Sunday? Isn't it the weekend? 

I had classes yesterday. It can't be. 

I am at the right school. I parked in the same place I always do. There's no other building I could be walking to. I feel lost.

I ask myself if I'm forgetting something. I'm not.

I lock my car anyway, swing my backpack onto my shoulders. I cut through the grass instead of taking the sidewalk and feel the wet grass soak into my shoes. While I'm walking, I have to check the date again, just to make sure that I'm not in the wrong place.

I sit through my class. We finish the movie we've been watching, and my professor lets us out fifteen minutes early. The world is just as empty as I walk back through the drizzle.

Isn't it Sunday?

I check my phone. It isn't Sunday. That changes exactly nothing.

No Stars

Written 9/3/20

How do your nights go?

Do you spend them staring at the darkness between your eyes and the ceiling like me?

I can't say I recommend it. It's one of those things: if you've never tried it, don't start. Think in the light instead.

Some people think you're never alone in the dark, but if you can't see it, is it there? Are you always alone in the dark until proven otherwise? In my bedroom there are no stars, and I am the only person in the universe.

Clap your hands if you believe in Lanie, the one behind the pen, always alone in the dark. She'll sleep. But Tinker Bell nearly died when children forgot her. I wonder if that would be me someday.

(P.S. I'm alright. I just get existential at night.)

Reality is Never So Peaceful

previous part

We've finished imagining. Stay in my head long enough, and you'll encounter worse than blackberry thorns. I say that as though I'm not about to look into my head again and write about thorny things with no fruit.

I'd like to cancel my subscription to life, thanks. I've given it a good shot, but I feel like it's not quite worth it. I was doing just fine without life in my— wait.

That's metaphor of course, because life isn't a subscription service and you can't just uncheck the little box so they'll stop sending so many damn emails and leave you alone. You're getting the messages whether you like them or not.

The world sucks! This year is especially bad, but 2020 is only a number that we can't blame for anything. I think this was just the next step that we were going to have to take eventually. I think that somewhere under the fire good things are happening, but I'm very afraid that we'll emerge from the flames unchanged, bandage the burns and brush away the ashes and tape it all into a box with "2020 - do not open" written on the side. The number isn't the problem; we are.

Things are bad, and I hear from every direction that I have power to fix them. I do not know what to do. But do I? I might. What am I waiting for? Fear makes me hesitant, and hesitance makes me feel guilty, and guilt makes me hate the world even more. I cannot, in good conscience, ignore current events because the people who aren't dying are being stupid and Black lives matter and queer people deserve rights and the Earth is suffering. This world isn’t very good for anyone, when you get down to it.

I am overwhelmed and tired! I want the easy solution that doesn't exist. Until we come up with the next best thing, we all get varying degrees of suffering. As far as suffering goes, mine isn't so bad. I can handle being alive and upset in my own home. It's not about me, but I am human and selfish, so the story can't be about anyone else.

"Are you sure you want to unsubscribe from all future communications?"

I am almost sure. Then I hesitate and decide that I am not.

I keep my subscription to society. I keep watching for the thorns to bloom and grow berries.

Morning

previous part

You can decide how the weather shifts overnight. In the morning, you find a blackberry vine.

You could wake up chilled. The clouds have thinned, but they still conceal the sun behind them. The air is warming, but you shiver. You pick a blackberry, cool and wet with last night's rain. It's mostly ripened except for a patch of purple one one side. You put it into your mouth, and tart berry juice mixes with rainwater and runs down your throat. It stings a bit, but it tastes good. The next one is sweeter.

You might wake up warm. The sun is bright, and the sky is clear. The heat and humidity are nearly unbearable, but you discover the blackberry vine growing in the sun before you retreat into the forest. You choose a berry that falls off in your hand. It is soft and warm, and you think for a second that it tastes like sunshine, before you remember the real sun beating down on your face.

You pick berries until you can't find any ripe ones. The vines don't let their fruit go easily. They catch your hands and arms with thorns, leaving behind stinging scratches as a warning that you choose to ignore. You stop, finally, take a breath and absentmindedly pull a blackberry thorn from your hand.

The pain startles you. A trickle of blood starts to flow down your hand, and as you move your other hand to stop it, you forget where you are. You open your eyes.

The thorn is still there. The blackberries aren't.

part 3

Close your eyes

Imagine for a second:

It's a summer evening. You find yourself in a forest clearing. The air is still, warm, and heavy with humidity. Thick clouds cover the sky, and if you stand still enough, you might notice a raindrop on your face.

Close your eyes. The last hint of sunset has disappeared from the sky. It's dark in the shadow of the trees, but here there will be enough light to see for a while longer.

You step into the wet grass, and it sticks to your feet. You reach for a green leaf laden with water droplets that roll down onto your hand when you touch it.

You breathe in the smell of the rain, listen to the rhythm it makes on the leaves. No other sound interrupts it. The world is quiet.

Now stay there. Drink rainwater from your cupped hands; sleep in the grass until the sun rises. Don't open your eyes again, because when you do, you'll remember that reality is never so peaceful.

Part 2

I am awake

Written 2/23

I don't want to get up tomorrow. A new day is a fearsome thing, too long and too uncertain. So I will stay stubbornly open-eyed in the dark, refusing sleep and refusing to admit that today is over. The clock on my nightstand blinks neon green and assures me that the future is approaching. I cannot fight that. But while I watch the hours creep closer to dawn, at least I can pretend.

Maybe I've solved why I like night hours so much.

A conclusion, but not really

Is it appropriate to conduct an experiment and present your conclusions in metaphor?

Written 5/7/20

Some songs.

○ Something New - girl in red
○ Never Quite Free - The Mountain Goats
○ Good News (Ya Ya Song) - MUNA
○ Not the Same - Malinda
○ Bless the Child - Nightwish
○ Cheap Queen - King Princess
○ Borne on the FM Waves of the Heart - Against Me!
○ Caution - The Killers

Pick a song and tell me what you think.

Wordless

Written 3/17

I am tired of being talked over.

I'm a person, and as such I have a right to express myself. I have as many thoughts and feelings as you do. I recite them in my head, prune and perfect, until I have something to say. It's an important something. I raise it to my lips and wait for the moment to send it into being.

But my moment never arrives. There is no half-second of silence for me to speak in. I am too polite to cut someone off, because what if they spent the time I did creating what they had to say, and I interrupt them saying it? My words wait. They try to hide their disappointment.

Sometimes someone notices and saves me. I am grateful for those times.

But on the other hand, I want to speak without feeling like the whole world hinges on what I have to say. I don't like the stares and focus and silence after I've finally managed to get everyone else to shut up. I search for what I had to say, and the perfection slips through my fingers. What makes it into the world is a slim shadow of my ideas. I had my chance, and then it ended, and I am left wordless.

Pioneer Nights

Written 3/31/20

It's two a.m., and I can't sleep, so I'm going to talk about Welcome To Night Vale. I want to share some quotes from episode 143, Pioneer Days, which I listened to on Sunday.

"Habits are comforting; rituals are important. It’s what keeps us grounded. It’s what prevents us from shouting uncontrollably and clutching at our eyes."

And later in the episode, "But now that I think of it, we do spend a lot of our days distracting ourselves from physical reality. Maybe we really can use this time to experience life more solidly in the physical world, the way our ancestors did. Who needs modern conveniences when we have each other, right? Hold your loved ones close tonight. After all, you have nothing better to do."

I paused the episode before the end credits and proverb because there was a good bit to think about. Pioneer Days is one of my favorite episodes now, up there with Old Oak Doors, Toast, and Brought to You By Kellogg's.

Taken on their own, the lines I shared could offer some inspiration for the situation we face right now. In context, they're about an arbitrary holiday on which every citizen is forcefully immersed into pioneer life by having all of their utilities shut off. I think this episode can be fully enjoyed even if you haven't heard all the preceding episodes. I encourage you to listen to it, partly for the plot and partly for the odd nuggets of wisdom.

I Need A Minute

Written 2/8/20

Sometimes I listen to songs. Sometimes, instead, the music ensnares me until I memorize the feeling it leaves in my chest and the guitar sound and the lyrics. Sometimes when I take out one earbud, it leaves a song-shaped hole in me.

For some reason, I decided to listen to old favorite songs today. I played my favorites from when I thought everything besides Imagine Dragons was trash music (with a few exceptions), from before I discovered My Chemical Romance and my life was changed forever. As cliché as that might be, I'm not exaggerating.

Today, the song that leaves a hole in me is I Need A Minute by Imagine Dragons. I loved this song in middle school because it sounds cool. I managed to learn every word without understanding what the song meant.

Now that I understand the meaning, this song has landed right back in my list of favorites. It's a song about facing adulthood and not knowing what to do with yourself. "All the glasses in the world say come with me" because you don't know which version of yourself you want to become. It's a song about being young and needing to both change and not change at the same time.

Change is a weird thing. It's big and murky and looming, more like walking into a fog than stopping at a crossroads. I'm close enough to it now to see and anticipate it, but not close enough to step into the fog yet. I'd rather look back instead of ahead and let it take me by surprise, because that's how I am.

My expanding music taste was a good change, of course. Sometimes I wonder if the girl I used to be would recognize me as I am now.

I want to write a satisfying, determined ending to this, but I don't want to make promises while I'm still uncertain. I am here, but I am still thinking.

Heartbeat, stillness, right, left.

Written 12/25/19

I learned a few days ago what my heartbeat is supposed to feel like. When I can't feel feel it and I have to find the spot on my chest with hand instead of feeling it through the whole left side of my ribs.

I looked at my left hand just now and typed out "right side." I don't know my left from my right. I mean, I do, but in the moment whichever direction I think of first is left or right or whatever. I kid about getting it tattooed sometimes, an L or R on the corresponding hand so I'll stop confusing them. I'd make up some deep meaning for it so I wouldn't look stupid if people asked me about it. I don't know if it would help all that much.

Anyway, my heartbeat. It's just a pulse, a gentle one. I'm not supposed to be able to feel as much of my circulatory system as I can right now, I think. Maybe it's because I'm anxious and I'm trying not to move. I move my hands to type, and everything else is perfectly still, except I guess my chest to breathe. If I could be a rock, y'know? No anxiety, no left or right, no movement. Might be nice.