I’ve been doing fine with these physically-distanced months. In part because I’ve been ridiculously busy and focused on everyone else’s needs. That’s good for me: focusing on everyone else’s needs. Now the year is winding down. I have less to do, and to notice the pile of books on my desk that I meant to read, the list of letters I meant to write – that play still unfinished.
I scroll through the apps on my phone, and take in all the anger and the fear there.
Then I worry about everyone else again with a new kind of suspicion – I worry about what they think of me, or want from me in a way that is not good for me. I want to fix things that are not mine to fix. And then feel ashamed for having the arrogance to think I could, or should. When I scroll through social media I feel helplessly disconnected: Socially distanced.
I’m not missing being in the office, but I am missing seeing my friends face to face – more than I usually miss them. You are all so far away. And some of you (not naming names) are fully engaged in very real political battles on your home turf.
I have to remind myself I’ve never really lived in a world where I can call up someone on the weekend, settle into a deep, leather chair with a glass of wine, and have a good laugh. Do those little pockets exist for more than a moment or two, every few years? Where the company of friends really makes you forget the world’s bickering and reaffirms what you thought about people being clever/kind and genuinely wanting one another to thrive?
I watch too much television. Have picked up and moved on too often. Or maybe I’m too stiff from scarring. We all are. No: some of us are. Some of us need a patient easing into social interaction. A deep, leather chair. Wine.
I should buy a deep, leather chair.
It is starting to dawn on me that I cannot travel this year. It wasn’t even a year ago I visited B. in Colorado. It seems like so many years ago. I was planning on to see you and M. this summer when I headed to London to be with the kid for a while. It makes me sad to think about it.
This summer we’ll go hiking. Not terribly far, but with a sincere intention of fremmedgjøring – out of the range of mobile phone coverage.
I have a strange desire to lug something heavy on my back so that I can put it down at the end of the day. I want to see something besides the yard and the same 4 kilometre stretch of trail along the lake.
Until then – until the grades have been logged and the students sent off – I’m starting a garden. When I say “I”, I mean E. is sawing down the overgrown thuja to make room for the tiny greenhouses. I’ll try to grow chilies and tomatoes.
Basil, mint, parsley, cilantro.
There is a space he is clearing along the southern side of the house where I’m going to plant raspberry bushes and apple trees.
It upsets me a little to consider that the trees might not take root.
I have a desire to do something that matters. Like growing things. I have a fear that even on this tiny scale, I won’t be able to do it right.
So I am procrastinating and blaming the weather. I’m blaming the weather for the melancholy, too.
For some reason I keep thinking about the Italians – months ago now – who spontaneously sang together from their balconies. Not for each other, but with each other.
Is there a really good word for this feeling it brings up in me? I know other people felt it. Because they tried so hard to repeat it.
This is a kind of grasping, isn’t it?
You know, way back in 2001 people were celebrating Earth Day. Everyone in the world was supposed to turn off the electricity and light a candle. A few days later someone got the idea that we all had to do it again so we could take a picture from space. I remember this because I wrote about it in a poem about 9/11. The aspect of the (meta-) performativity of our “Humanity”.
I’m not alone in struggling to just let it be. And let it come.
Do you know what I mean when I say now that I think of Groucho Marx quote about not wanting to be part of any club that would have me?
These days I’m struggling to be human. I would much rather be Leonard Edgar. He doesn’t care what anyone expects of him.
He doesn’t have a facebook account.
I’ve been missing you. Hoping you are ready for a good summer. Wondering how you are really…
-ren