Dear Josephine,
Last night I dreamed I lived in France and met young men and women who understood me in glances, who dreamed too, and when I woke up reality was muted and boring.
I live in a constant circle of happiness and boredom and depression. This city dislikes me and I it, and right now I have a fever and the potential for strep throat and willingness for change.
Leave the bourbon at the store. I have no use for pleasantries or goodness or binges. For now, I'm revising texts and commissioning my future.
I think I'm ready for those dusty evenings. I think I'm ready to drive for hours and speak in riddles.
It's time for action.
l.c.
Showing posts with label the future. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the future. Show all posts
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
Letter 25
Dear Josephine,
Yesterday was my half birthday. I have these celebrations to maintain a sense of self. Also birthdays are meant for living.
I feel myself slowly morphing again and this terrifies me as I am happy with this stagnant person. Lately I've been emotional and self-analyzing. Even silence has a deeper meaning.
Alfred Lord Tennyson said: "Come, my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world." Here is the fear- am I not using time to seek out something greater? Four walls and billing codes confine me. I need to get a prescription for sleeping pills - or even over-the-counter - as I can't sleep anymore due to anxiety and all my dreams are work related. I think I've gotten 3 hours of sleep per evening for the past two weeks. I feel like a zombie.
In other news, I'm trying to find a babysitting or tutoring job. We will see how that pans out.
I don't know what else to write. I read "The Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles" by J. Winterson and loved it. She writes: "I keep telling the story again and though I find different exits, the walls never fall. My life is paced out - here and here and here - I can alter it's shape but I can't get beyond it. I tunnel through, seem to find a way out, but the exits lead nowhere. I'm back inside, leaning on the limits of myself."
yours in the theoretical,
l.c.
Yesterday was my half birthday. I have these celebrations to maintain a sense of self. Also birthdays are meant for living.
I feel myself slowly morphing again and this terrifies me as I am happy with this stagnant person. Lately I've been emotional and self-analyzing. Even silence has a deeper meaning.
Alfred Lord Tennyson said: "Come, my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world." Here is the fear- am I not using time to seek out something greater? Four walls and billing codes confine me. I need to get a prescription for sleeping pills - or even over-the-counter - as I can't sleep anymore due to anxiety and all my dreams are work related. I think I've gotten 3 hours of sleep per evening for the past two weeks. I feel like a zombie.
In other news, I'm trying to find a babysitting or tutoring job. We will see how that pans out.
I don't know what else to write. I read "The Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles" by J. Winterson and loved it. She writes: "I keep telling the story again and though I find different exits, the walls never fall. My life is paced out - here and here and here - I can alter it's shape but I can't get beyond it. I tunnel through, seem to find a way out, but the exits lead nowhere. I'm back inside, leaning on the limits of myself."
yours in the theoretical,
l.c.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Letter 23
Dear Josephine,
This is the longest correspondence I've ever maintained. In honor of this, I have decided to write you a letter markedly less vague.
I've decided that I need to buckle down and plan my future rather than coasting through these twenties focused solely on work/apartment/family life. There is more to living than categories. I've started studying for the GREs; this is the most self-motivated/determined I've been since writing my thesis. I'm terrified of not meeting my goals. Does everything comes down to numbers?
And too, I'm terrified of the act of erasure. Tell me Josephine, did you ever learn to make construction paper (wo)men who clasp hands, who create a half-wreath of communal love/friendship? Sometimes I imagine that the violence of scissors disconnecting body from body parallels the act of removing a person from one's life. Yes, the paper congregation murmurs, thank you for our moments of joy and giving, we will retain this scar, this reminder of your absence.
The other day I thought about my father. You are right; this is a topic I conceal through silence. Two weeks ago I made a half-hearted attempt at reconciliation, because I'm not wading in lukewarm water anymore, because I'm tired of battered conversations and unnecessary resentment. I believe in forgiveness -- grudges are stunted trees that darken landscapes. Still: I haven't returned his phone call, don't know what we'll say to one another through the lines.
I've been craving reading and writing literary theory again. You only have to look at my amazon.com shopping cart to see:
1. Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain - Maryanne Wolf
2. Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence - Esther Perel
3. Disturbing the Universe: Power and Repression in Adolescent Literature - Roberta S. Trites
4. On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Unexamined Life - Adam Phillips
5. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge Classics) - Judith Butler
6. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality - Anne Fausto-Sterling
7. Constructing the Black Masculine: Identity and Ideality in African American Men's Literature and Culture, 1775-1995 (A John Hope Franklin Center Book) - Maurice O. Wallace
8. Orientalism - Edward W. Said
9. All About Love: New Visions - bell hooks
10. Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature: A Vernacular Theory - Houston A. Baker Jr.
etc.
This past weekend I re-read papers I wrote in college. One paper was 27 pages discussing the cloaking power of the linguistic modifier "I" in relation to the creationary "self". I miss academia.
What else to tell you? This past year I meandered through cities (some real, some imaginary), practiced introspection, and felt trampled/muffled/rumpled. But now, the word is only: refreshing, refreshed, refreshment.
l.c.
This is the longest correspondence I've ever maintained. In honor of this, I have decided to write you a letter markedly less vague.
I've decided that I need to buckle down and plan my future rather than coasting through these twenties focused solely on work/apartment/family life. There is more to living than categories. I've started studying for the GREs; this is the most self-motivated/determined I've been since writing my thesis. I'm terrified of not meeting my goals. Does everything comes down to numbers?
And too, I'm terrified of the act of erasure. Tell me Josephine, did you ever learn to make construction paper (wo)men who clasp hands, who create a half-wreath of communal love/friendship? Sometimes I imagine that the violence of scissors disconnecting body from body parallels the act of removing a person from one's life. Yes, the paper congregation murmurs, thank you for our moments of joy and giving, we will retain this scar, this reminder of your absence.
The other day I thought about my father. You are right; this is a topic I conceal through silence. Two weeks ago I made a half-hearted attempt at reconciliation, because I'm not wading in lukewarm water anymore, because I'm tired of battered conversations and unnecessary resentment. I believe in forgiveness -- grudges are stunted trees that darken landscapes. Still: I haven't returned his phone call, don't know what we'll say to one another through the lines.
I've been craving reading and writing literary theory again. You only have to look at my amazon.com shopping cart to see:
1. Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain - Maryanne Wolf
2. Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence - Esther Perel
3. Disturbing the Universe: Power and Repression in Adolescent Literature - Roberta S. Trites
4. On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Unexamined Life - Adam Phillips
5. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge Classics) - Judith Butler
6. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality - Anne Fausto-Sterling
7. Constructing the Black Masculine: Identity and Ideality in African American Men's Literature and Culture, 1775-1995 (A John Hope Franklin Center Book) - Maurice O. Wallace
8. Orientalism - Edward W. Said
9. All About Love: New Visions - bell hooks
10. Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature: A Vernacular Theory - Houston A. Baker Jr.
etc.
This past weekend I re-read papers I wrote in college. One paper was 27 pages discussing the cloaking power of the linguistic modifier "I" in relation to the creationary "self". I miss academia.
What else to tell you? This past year I meandered through cities (some real, some imaginary), practiced introspection, and felt trampled/muffled/rumpled. But now, the word is only: refreshing, refreshed, refreshment.
l.c.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Letter 22
Dear Josephine,
It appears Neko Case has peered into my soul. Walking to work, her lyrics flash through my mind: "Thought I was young, now I've freezing hands and bloodless viens, as numb as I've become, I'm so tired."
The above quotation, coupled with the first stanza of Stephen Dunn's poem "A Chance for the Soul" accurately reflects how I've been feeling:
"Am I leading the life that my soul,
Mortal or not, wants me to lead is a question
That seems at least as meaningful as the question
Am I leading the life I want to live
Given the vagueness of the pronoun "I,"
The number of things it wants at any moment."
I've been trying to define my lack of motivation, coming up only with the words "disheartened" and "disillusioned", which serve a dramatic purpose but do not apply to the cloud that seems to have positioned itself in front of my body. Look, mother, an automaton. Look mother, albaster and mutilated statues.
Now, thanks to Neko Case and S. Dunn, I've managed to explain this fever as a blinding numbness I'm both striving to analyze and reveal. There is no concealing this unhappiness, the door began to crack upon entering, splinters wait for bare heels. No, do not fetch more wood, I have no need for pilings. No, do not mend this door with spackle and sweat, the scars are there for the seeing.
Only: decide what one is doing. Life is always a staying and a going.
l.c.
p.s. Sometimes I pray for tears.
It appears Neko Case has peered into my soul. Walking to work, her lyrics flash through my mind: "Thought I was young, now I've freezing hands and bloodless viens, as numb as I've become, I'm so tired."
The above quotation, coupled with the first stanza of Stephen Dunn's poem "A Chance for the Soul" accurately reflects how I've been feeling:
"Am I leading the life that my soul,
Mortal or not, wants me to lead is a question
That seems at least as meaningful as the question
Am I leading the life I want to live
Given the vagueness of the pronoun "I,"
The number of things it wants at any moment."
I've been trying to define my lack of motivation, coming up only with the words "disheartened" and "disillusioned", which serve a dramatic purpose but do not apply to the cloud that seems to have positioned itself in front of my body. Look, mother, an automaton. Look mother, albaster and mutilated statues.
Now, thanks to Neko Case and S. Dunn, I've managed to explain this fever as a blinding numbness I'm both striving to analyze and reveal. There is no concealing this unhappiness, the door began to crack upon entering, splinters wait for bare heels. No, do not fetch more wood, I have no need for pilings. No, do not mend this door with spackle and sweat, the scars are there for the seeing.
Only: decide what one is doing. Life is always a staying and a going.
l.c.
p.s. Sometimes I pray for tears.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Letter 18
Dear Josephine,
I’ve been fantasizing about my future: owning and furnishing my apartment, drinking red wine while relaxing on my patio, and running outside with my dog. I have spent the past twenty minutes trying to decide whether I would like my future companion to be a German Shorthaired Pointer or a Hungarian Viszla. Clearly if this is the biggest decision I’m contemplating, my life is pretty good right now.
I’m going to Lollapolooza this summer and visiting Jess. I am unbelievably excited. Tonight I am buying my ticket – I’ve already placed the dates on my Outlook calendar, with green text boxes and reminders to help me deal with the wait. This summer is not going to be easy to hold as all of my weekends are sandwiched between flights to Columbus, travels to the beach, or days spent relaxing in PA.
I’m dreading the return of Fall, when my moods are dictated by the weather, when I have to make grander decisions and stop skimming streets due to comfort. For now I am focusing on the d.c. humidity and my current happiness. There isn’t any uncertainty here, only a newfound appreciation for waiting and an enjoyment of my surroundings. My goals are small: pay off/cancel credit card, meet savings goal by August, appreciate my 23rd summer.
And for now, that is enough.
Peace,
l.c.
I’ve been fantasizing about my future: owning and furnishing my apartment, drinking red wine while relaxing on my patio, and running outside with my dog. I have spent the past twenty minutes trying to decide whether I would like my future companion to be a German Shorthaired Pointer or a Hungarian Viszla. Clearly if this is the biggest decision I’m contemplating, my life is pretty good right now.
I’m going to Lollapolooza this summer and visiting Jess. I am unbelievably excited. Tonight I am buying my ticket – I’ve already placed the dates on my Outlook calendar, with green text boxes and reminders to help me deal with the wait. This summer is not going to be easy to hold as all of my weekends are sandwiched between flights to Columbus, travels to the beach, or days spent relaxing in PA.
I’m dreading the return of Fall, when my moods are dictated by the weather, when I have to make grander decisions and stop skimming streets due to comfort. For now I am focusing on the d.c. humidity and my current happiness. There isn’t any uncertainty here, only a newfound appreciation for waiting and an enjoyment of my surroundings. My goals are small: pay off/cancel credit card, meet savings goal by August, appreciate my 23rd summer.
And for now, that is enough.
Peace,
l.c.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Letter 17
Dear Josephine,
There are eternities between spaces. That is my excuse for not writing you sooner; I became lost and found again, an object brought in to discuss during show and tell, although there was all show and no tell.
I am seriously considering a career in educational assessment/testing, and find this both humorous and depressing (in that my life is being carved out at such a young age). I dream of Grecian shores and western mountains. These will be part of the carving, at some point. I think life means learning patience.
How many vague statements can I write to you; will you interpret them as thinly veiled bull-shit or abstractions of truth?
I've finished On the Road and it struck me to be about understanding people's faults and recognizing their beauty and importance in one's life and appreciating everything - in the ramblings was America, in a form rarely seen yet seen everyday.
Take me on a road trip, Josephine. Let's wander down the southern coast and lose ourselves in Texas. We can pretend we've been abandoned by circumstances and intended mistakes, frequent dinners and converse with strangers. I'm packing an atlas and a handful of dresses, I suggest you bring water bottles and suntan lotion. Summer is here, and her heat makes fools of us all.
yours,
l.c.s.
There are eternities between spaces. That is my excuse for not writing you sooner; I became lost and found again, an object brought in to discuss during show and tell, although there was all show and no tell.
I am seriously considering a career in educational assessment/testing, and find this both humorous and depressing (in that my life is being carved out at such a young age). I dream of Grecian shores and western mountains. These will be part of the carving, at some point. I think life means learning patience.
How many vague statements can I write to you; will you interpret them as thinly veiled bull-shit or abstractions of truth?
I've finished On the Road and it struck me to be about understanding people's faults and recognizing their beauty and importance in one's life and appreciating everything - in the ramblings was America, in a form rarely seen yet seen everyday.
Take me on a road trip, Josephine. Let's wander down the southern coast and lose ourselves in Texas. We can pretend we've been abandoned by circumstances and intended mistakes, frequent dinners and converse with strangers. I'm packing an atlas and a handful of dresses, I suggest you bring water bottles and suntan lotion. Summer is here, and her heat makes fools of us all.
yours,
l.c.s.
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