last night, I fell asleep with the lights on
Beirut, February 13, 2016
Last night, I fell asleep with the lights on.
Only to awake at 2:45, unaware of my surrounding, almost as though on a pavement somewhere in New York, unaware of who I was and what I was doing in this universe.
(The beginning of this post reminds me an awful lot of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca: 'Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again.' I may have fallen asleep with the lights on, but I certainly did not light the house on fire or provoke flames of any sort. Just to be clear.)
I am finding it difficult to organise my life at the moment. So the brilliantly unique thought occurred: maybe writing about it could help?
Ever since I returned from Glasgow in december, I have lived in a dream where I awoke to birds chirping, motorbikes roaring by, rain falling, thunder striking, occasionally, etc. During said days, I would err in the house, aimless, but searching for substance, somehow like Kathy Earnshaw (Heathcliff's) minus the bit where I haunt Heathcliff. (And the bit where I'm a fantom. Disclaimer: I am not a fantom.) I think what I might have been haunting, the Heathcliff I was after, was some sort of realisation, or an answer to the questions that torment my brain day after day. What must I do next, what can I do next, what should I do next. I would fill myself up with tea, music and words. Sometimes the days would be wasted on endless online chats, interrupted by simple chores – chores I definitely would have been able to complete quickly had I been a wee bit more organised –
Speaking of interruptions, the phone just rang.
(Five phone calls later, I am back. Despite the fact that I love my family very much, I long to be on my own. This is something that I miss very dearly about last year. The solitude. What it gives me. The ability to up and go walking anytime I wanted, the fact that plans did not always have to be made on weekends, the fact that I could just close my eyes and meditate, without worrying about the phone ringing, or having to rush someplace, to drive anywhere, etc. )
In the background, Patsy Cline speaks (sings?) my mind about being crazy for trying, crazy for crying, crazy for loving you. But anyway, that is besides the point.
What was I yakking about? My days, right.
I think the entire thought ties itself in a circle: I long for my loneliness, I want it back.
But also, I long for the thrill I had, when, at sixteen years, I carried around a packet of papers, soon to be stapled together, where I wrote (or at least began to write) the story of some girl in nazi Austria, who loved to sing and who fell in love with a chauffeur she met on a dark, rainy (or was it snowy?) night. (Too many a romance novel had been stolen from my mum's drawer and secretly read at that point.) But at sixteen, I was gloriously confident. Yet let us not be fooled, I was also gloriously terrible. But I was able to write. It dawns on me that the older I grow, the more I read, the richer my mind seems to get, the less confident I become. The less I trust in the fact that I might ever be capable of writing anything at all. Perhaps my brain has turned into a strainer? Everything that goes in soon escapes it through minuscule, invisible holes in my head. Or perhaps the thoughts leave my body with the tears I cry. Which means that all of my ideas have now left me for the better prospect of pillowcases, tissue paper, rugs and clothes. But I carry on in digressing.
My days lack writing. And there are moments where I feel good. Where it's okay that I have not written a single word, where it suffices to sit in the sun, and look outside my window, at the ugly concrete buildings with green windows. Where it suffices to watch my cactus plants die as I sip on my tea and listen to my music, and dream about faceless encounters, about a hazy dreamy future where my apartment looks neat and my view is infinitely more glorious, where I know that somebody is deeply in love with me, and has said it to me repeatedly. Where I feel my heart beat, beat steadily, comfortably, almost as if murmuring to the rest of my body that things will be okay, reassuring my muscles, asking them to unclench, to relax. 'Oh,' would it say, 'I've already been to the future. And I've come back from it. You are going to be fine. Rest in the knowledge that you are going to be, just fine.' The peace that I feel in this moment encircles me with a cloud of joy. But then the phone rings, a meeting pops up, something distracts, something always distracts, the cloud evaporates, and I am soon projected back into reality, in one, definitive, brutal pull.
The comfort that I feel in those moments is imaginary, I know. A lot of things in my life have been imaginary. Most of my warmest memories are imagined. (That's not entirely true.) My father has never been more than an imagined, surreal moment. The rest of my encounters, especially the ones with people that linger in my heart longer than they should, are also imaginary. Nothing exists in the realm of reality. But in dreams, (Roy Orbison sings, in dreams, I don't recall the rest of the lyrics, but surely in his song, something great happens) in my dreams, fulfilment happens. More than ever it will happen in reality.
My days are lost to time. I am lost to time as well. Sometimes I will just let the waves transport me, sometimes I will just let the tide take me, even as I remain stationary, sitting on my bed. I think of the universe, of our condition, as humans, to die. I think of how I worry about living, how I worry about finding a job, a house, a partner. How I must become independent. How I must become independent. How I must fulfil myself. How I must become independent.
And of how those worries lack substance. How we focus on a preset system as to how our life ought to be shaped and decide to follow it without questioning it. That we must work in order to become independent, marry to become parents, to raise a family in order to be fulfilled. I think of how we have come to own land, and I feel wary. How can we own land? How can we possess the earth? It isn't ours to own, is it? I read somewhere that if we could own land, then surely we could own air, as well? Could we buy and sell air? But I get it. Even lions claim a land as their kingdom. We are all animals on this earth. And the only force that drives us is the instinct to survive, the desire to survive so that we can live, to escape death until death finds us. To escape death so that we can protect those we love beyond anything, because to lose someone to death is life's greatest pain, isn't it? My mum always tells me that I overthink things. She is probably right, but how can I not? When I think of the inevitability of becoming employed, the only image I can muster is that of a prison. How can I be a prisoner of my own safety, of my own future? I, who longs for freedom, albeit for the discomfort and uncertainty of freedom, because I cannot bear the idea of being chained to a desk, to a room, to discussing and thinking with strangers. When all I want to do is be left alone to think and read and write. Or to sell flowers and tea. But I don't know, I digress. My thoughts bang against each other inside my brain and I cannot stop the commotion.
Perhaps it's time I listened to mum's advice and stopped overthinking? I don't think that's a great idea. *Bang!* Yes, I confirm that this idea has just been knocked down by the others.
Worthy of noting: I started writing this on February 13, a week ago. Today is February 20. Family distractions were not the only distractions I got. It has been a difficult week, mostly due to unwanted premenstrual irritation, which left me slightly uninspired to finish the post. I suppose that I will end it now; though I believe it to remain quite unfinished.
(Also, I'm going to stop signing my posts stupidly with my name. I am clearly the only one writing on here.)
Last night, I fell asleep with the lights on.
Only to awake at 2:45, unaware of my surrounding, almost as though on a pavement somewhere in New York, unaware of who I was and what I was doing in this universe.
(The beginning of this post reminds me an awful lot of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca: 'Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again.' I may have fallen asleep with the lights on, but I certainly did not light the house on fire or provoke flames of any sort. Just to be clear.)
I am finding it difficult to organise my life at the moment. So the brilliantly unique thought occurred: maybe writing about it could help?
Ever since I returned from Glasgow in december, I have lived in a dream where I awoke to birds chirping, motorbikes roaring by, rain falling, thunder striking, occasionally, etc. During said days, I would err in the house, aimless, but searching for substance, somehow like Kathy Earnshaw (Heathcliff's) minus the bit where I haunt Heathcliff. (And the bit where I'm a fantom. Disclaimer: I am not a fantom.) I think what I might have been haunting, the Heathcliff I was after, was some sort of realisation, or an answer to the questions that torment my brain day after day. What must I do next, what can I do next, what should I do next. I would fill myself up with tea, music and words. Sometimes the days would be wasted on endless online chats, interrupted by simple chores – chores I definitely would have been able to complete quickly had I been a wee bit more organised –
Speaking of interruptions, the phone just rang.
(Five phone calls later, I am back. Despite the fact that I love my family very much, I long to be on my own. This is something that I miss very dearly about last year. The solitude. What it gives me. The ability to up and go walking anytime I wanted, the fact that plans did not always have to be made on weekends, the fact that I could just close my eyes and meditate, without worrying about the phone ringing, or having to rush someplace, to drive anywhere, etc. )
In the background, Patsy Cline speaks (sings?) my mind about being crazy for trying, crazy for crying, crazy for loving you. But anyway, that is besides the point.
What was I yakking about? My days, right.
I think the entire thought ties itself in a circle: I long for my loneliness, I want it back.
But also, I long for the thrill I had, when, at sixteen years, I carried around a packet of papers, soon to be stapled together, where I wrote (or at least began to write) the story of some girl in nazi Austria, who loved to sing and who fell in love with a chauffeur she met on a dark, rainy (or was it snowy?) night. (Too many a romance novel had been stolen from my mum's drawer and secretly read at that point.) But at sixteen, I was gloriously confident. Yet let us not be fooled, I was also gloriously terrible. But I was able to write. It dawns on me that the older I grow, the more I read, the richer my mind seems to get, the less confident I become. The less I trust in the fact that I might ever be capable of writing anything at all. Perhaps my brain has turned into a strainer? Everything that goes in soon escapes it through minuscule, invisible holes in my head. Or perhaps the thoughts leave my body with the tears I cry. Which means that all of my ideas have now left me for the better prospect of pillowcases, tissue paper, rugs and clothes. But I carry on in digressing.
My days lack writing. And there are moments where I feel good. Where it's okay that I have not written a single word, where it suffices to sit in the sun, and look outside my window, at the ugly concrete buildings with green windows. Where it suffices to watch my cactus plants die as I sip on my tea and listen to my music, and dream about faceless encounters, about a hazy dreamy future where my apartment looks neat and my view is infinitely more glorious, where I know that somebody is deeply in love with me, and has said it to me repeatedly. Where I feel my heart beat, beat steadily, comfortably, almost as if murmuring to the rest of my body that things will be okay, reassuring my muscles, asking them to unclench, to relax. 'Oh,' would it say, 'I've already been to the future. And I've come back from it. You are going to be fine. Rest in the knowledge that you are going to be, just fine.' The peace that I feel in this moment encircles me with a cloud of joy. But then the phone rings, a meeting pops up, something distracts, something always distracts, the cloud evaporates, and I am soon projected back into reality, in one, definitive, brutal pull.
The comfort that I feel in those moments is imaginary, I know. A lot of things in my life have been imaginary. Most of my warmest memories are imagined. (That's not entirely true.) My father has never been more than an imagined, surreal moment. The rest of my encounters, especially the ones with people that linger in my heart longer than they should, are also imaginary. Nothing exists in the realm of reality. But in dreams, (Roy Orbison sings, in dreams, I don't recall the rest of the lyrics, but surely in his song, something great happens) in my dreams, fulfilment happens. More than ever it will happen in reality.
My days are lost to time. I am lost to time as well. Sometimes I will just let the waves transport me, sometimes I will just let the tide take me, even as I remain stationary, sitting on my bed. I think of the universe, of our condition, as humans, to die. I think of how I worry about living, how I worry about finding a job, a house, a partner. How I must become independent. How I must become independent. How I must fulfil myself. How I must become independent.
And of how those worries lack substance. How we focus on a preset system as to how our life ought to be shaped and decide to follow it without questioning it. That we must work in order to become independent, marry to become parents, to raise a family in order to be fulfilled. I think of how we have come to own land, and I feel wary. How can we own land? How can we possess the earth? It isn't ours to own, is it? I read somewhere that if we could own land, then surely we could own air, as well? Could we buy and sell air? But I get it. Even lions claim a land as their kingdom. We are all animals on this earth. And the only force that drives us is the instinct to survive, the desire to survive so that we can live, to escape death until death finds us. To escape death so that we can protect those we love beyond anything, because to lose someone to death is life's greatest pain, isn't it? My mum always tells me that I overthink things. She is probably right, but how can I not? When I think of the inevitability of becoming employed, the only image I can muster is that of a prison. How can I be a prisoner of my own safety, of my own future? I, who longs for freedom, albeit for the discomfort and uncertainty of freedom, because I cannot bear the idea of being chained to a desk, to a room, to discussing and thinking with strangers. When all I want to do is be left alone to think and read and write. Or to sell flowers and tea. But I don't know, I digress. My thoughts bang against each other inside my brain and I cannot stop the commotion.
Perhaps it's time I listened to mum's advice and stopped overthinking? I don't think that's a great idea. *Bang!* Yes, I confirm that this idea has just been knocked down by the others.
Worthy of noting: I started writing this on February 13, a week ago. Today is February 20. Family distractions were not the only distractions I got. It has been a difficult week, mostly due to unwanted premenstrual irritation, which left me slightly uninspired to finish the post. I suppose that I will end it now; though I believe it to remain quite unfinished.
(Also, I'm going to stop signing my posts stupidly with my name. I am clearly the only one writing on here.)
Thing that sits on countertop that holds spatulas and spoons?
ReplyDeletespoon holder