asur
“Stars when you shine you know how I feel
Scent of the pine you know how I feel
Oh freedom is mine
And I know how I feel”
Dear Anias,
I spend most of my time flicking between clinging and not caring. I am hungry for something that cannot be placed between my teeth. My lips are pursed and nothing can get in. I am uptight and inspired; I want everything yet cannot commit myself to anything.
Specificity doesn't interest me, and perhaps this is why I've never composed a piece of work I want to reveal to anyone but you.
This morning I've had to drink copious amounts of coffee to goad myself awake. Three-quarters cream with a top-up of espresso. I cannot go to the cafe because it is Saturday. It is the busiest on weekends and I feel bad about taking a seat and ordering only beverages. Yesterday I purchased a lovely loaf of almond and fig bread. Muriel said it would pair well with sharp cheese. It did. I ate it for dinner with poached eggs and arugula and tomatoes.
At the market down the street from where I live, there is a man who looks like Morpheus from The Matrix who works the dayshift. He is broad-chested with tattoos on his muscular biceps and forearms. Both ears are pierced. He wears thick, dark glasses. He has a wonderful resonant laugh! He is large in stature and even grander in his energetic field. He is warm and kind and asks a lot of questions.
I avoid him.
He is easy and agile and inquisitive. He is pointed, assured, and makes eye contact. His voice booms through the small store and makes my skin tingle.
I always choose the other clerk working, even if the line is longer or moving more slowly.
Despite the conveyer belt delivery of the same standard checkout process per person, he switches the scene with every customer. He takes the same till each time and wears the same green and black checked smock, though nothing is static about his person. It's in what he asks and how he moves. His posture is composed, his motion smooth and fluid. He is never ruffled or upset, no matter how agitated or enraged the request is.
I've learned not to do my shopping at the end of the standard workday. Too many unfulfilled bellies (and spirits!) are waiting in line, ready to toss the lettuce over the price of canned artichoke.
I watched a man throw a full-sized yam at the plastic partition between the man and the customer line. The plastic snapped and the yam left a little perforation in the screen.
Morpheus didn't move. He didn't flinch. He was unfazed.
The yam man dumped his basket of groceries on the conveyer belt, letting the bags of chips fall to the ground before stomping out of the store.
Everyone watched. No one said anything.
You could just hear Morpheus laugh, a low chuckle that breathed a sigh of relief into the room as he picked up the items and set them back in the green plastic bucket.
I avoid him because of the radiance he emits. It's so loving and all-encompassing. He cares deeply about each person he meets. He is spontaneous and carefree even, and perhaps despite, the most mundane and repetitive job! It's too much to be seen like that in the middle of shopping for foodstuffs bottled in plastic and glass containers.
I feel too exposed!
No one looks at me like that while I've been traveling. No one has asked about my day with such abrupt tenderness. No one cares about the answer. He follows up each time, responding to what the person has said! He is listening to what people say. He is not on autopilot. Ever.
How does a person move through the world with their lights on all the time like that?
After being locked in the dark park and ignored by the group of boys, something released itself into my body. I felt recharged with a vitality I hadn't felt for a very long time. I feel it when I'm with Clara in Paris; her excitement and attention fueled my exuberance.
I felt bolder, having considered sleeping under the moon in the forest with the swallows that swim through the sky.
I felt impassioned after having the attention of the young men, the boys who teased and taunted me to jump in the canal.
I felt resilient, having met my fear of being alone and misunderstood.
It is a very odd feeling to look into the face of another human and ask for help and receive nothing in response. I've had this happen a number of times and it never gets easier. Some things don't get more comforting with practice. Some things are very disagreeable no matter how many times you do them or how many times you are ignored.
This time at the market, I walked up to Morpheus and set the eggs, cheese, beets, and tomatoes I had on the belt. I looked up into his eyes. He recognized me immediately. I saw it in the way his face changed. Recognition. Reception. Revival.
I spoke first.
When I got home, I looked up a photographer whose work I admire and sent a message about rates and dates for a session. The photographer is in Berlin. Her photography is dark, emotionally charged, and simple. In many of her portraits, the faces are obscured. Many of the photos are black and white. Her pictures are clean and contained, yet there is movement in the blurred lines around the face and feet.
I enjoy it immensely; it aligns with the photography I've wanted to be done for over a year.
I don't know why I hide. I've accused past lovers of not seeing me, of not understanding who I am. An unfair statement, especially because I don't bring myself into focus. I evade and avoid questions. I prefer the one to be asking, the one in control.
This dance between clinging and not caring is what I do to protect myself from being hurt. I hold up mirrors to people to bypass being seen.
We all shape things in the image we want to see. I've done this to lovers. I've projected my longing onto my friends. I don't know how to break my pattern of holding tightly to a thing to stop it from breaking. I don't know how to break my pattern of pretending like I don't care.
I DO care. A lot. About everything. I care enough to record every experience because I want to live what I've lived twice. I want to remember what I felt, thought, wore, did, and said. I want to reflect on the subtle and see what is beneath the obvious. I want to romanticize every experience because it is all I have. A photograph cannot compare to the tender musings of one's mind. It's too easy to manipulate an image.
Words are more concrete, and eventually, when I've developed the concentration, I'll edit and shape these passages to perform the way I will them to.
I write to recant the most delightful and horrid! I write because it is the space between clinging and not caring.
It is Waiting in the Wings, as I'm calling it.
Photo source.
