ustulation
“No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”
Dear Simone,
My stomach has been terrifically sick the past few days. My digestion is not consistent. I am full and hungry all at once. When I eat, I feel sick. Bloated. Nausea. If I don't eat, I feel manic. I'm over-excited and bored by everything.
My arousal peaks and wanes in rhythms I don't understand. My friends say it's because I am thirty-five, and women's hormones begin to change. Things start to drop and slow down.
Stand still or quicksand.
I am both.
I haven't landed fully in my body. I'm hovering a little left, to the side of the heart. To root would be to admit my failures, those irreversible regrets. Too late to be reconciled.
I have no regrets, Simone. I can't remember anything that I'd rather redo.
The only time I feel settled and centered is when I am writing. Yet I avoid this practice, sometimes, because it is grounding and overwhelming.
I don't always know what to say.
I don't always understand my own thoughts or processes.
I don't always want to work out the kinks in the lines.
To create is to move with the feelings that erupt- to be spontaneous.
Everything is so planned and perfected.
I don't want to be rid of uncertainty- it's what makes my heart skip. Knowing makes me clingy. The unknowing makes my body sing.
This week, my dreams are all about water. I am swimming or wading in the sea. I am dressed in white or blue robes and wander out further than I can touch to float. My hair is long. My face is flush. I am wrinkled yet not withered.
I miss you, Simone, yet we never met.
I long for something outside of me to reach out for assurance.
I am pathetic as the rest of the world in my need to be validated!
I want to belong to something though I do not know what it is.
My advances have taken me this far in life. I am proud of my lifestyle and temper my pride with modesty. I am nourished by new ideas and hindered by fixation. I understand where I am, though I do not know where I am going. My residence is tenuous; I do not know where I will live in March. I move month-to-month, daily, taking little steps in a pair of espadrilles I purchased in Barcelona.
They are not suitable for a Moroccan winter. I am the only damsel in the streets with open-toed sandals on my bare feet.
And I don't care!
What is the point of belonging if you don't want to become the common denominator of the group?
There is no place for recycling and tossing the glass jars into the rubbish bin is driving me mad.
I dropped my laundry in the shared corridor, which is locked, and every morning I peer down to check that it is there. It is, getting filthier by the hour. The woman on the first floor is traveling and holds the only key to the shared outdoor terrace.
Or so I was told.
These little things bother me, Simone. Silly nuisances I cannot control.
My stomach is clenched like a fist at my navel.
What I feed my mind has far greater an impression than anything I put in my gut.
I'm beginning to understand that life is a practice of resolving problems. Little issues and complex dilemmas. Small occurrences disrupt the moment, and larger injustices affect political and socioeconomic environments.
Depending upon my relationship with the trifles I encounter will determine my path. My ability to confront and adapt to challenges and my mindset moving through each experience delegates where I end up.
Shifting my mindset to perceive my world through this lens has been valuable, however serious. Each morning I have the choice to stay where I am and avoid or deny these frustrating moments of my day. I could be angry and willful, charging forward and breaking whatever obstacles block my path. Or, I could choose to observe each situation as it arises and consider my options before I make the next move.
I've been doing the latter, Simone, and things are taking much longer.
Hence my discomfort.
I am not exactly proficient at navigating problems from every facet. I tend to regard my position as what will get me from point A to Z the fastest. My process, until recently, was to ask where I wanted to go and how to get there.
I've realized that my life will be a series of leaping from one lily pad to the next, which is not a terrible thing per se. This practice of leaping without looking has led me to where I am today, yet it lacks embodiment. I've not developed discernment. I want to integrate with my surroundings and move from a place of integrity.
Integral is the process of making something whole or complete; it is an essential and fundamental function.
Integration is the act of processing.
Integrity is the state of being whole, undivided, and honest.
I don't feel that I will ever be whole, Simone. What does it mean to be undivided?
My interpretation is that you've identified all parts of yourself and made peace with the flaws, disgust, and despair of being human.
When you hit thirty, you begin the decline. I am decaying bit by bit, and I can do nothing to slow it down or stop it. I am carrying around my carcass. My essence will continue to wane until I am dead.
Yet, I still say YES to life, Simone!
I still scream it with my entire being- from cell to hair stem.
I choose beauty.
I choose spontaneity.
I choose to live with my heart room flooded, its windows flung wide open!
I will dance until I've no legs.
I will sing until I've no tongue.
I will smile without teeth.
I will keep smiling at the clones with their tight skin and taunt bodies.
Sometimes my fear arises from a superficial source. These are the days I know my temper is close to the surface. The only balm to that boiling point is solitude, Simone.
You never got to be old.
You never experienced what it feels like to be saggy, wrinkled, and waning.
You were still ripe and wonderful when you passed.
So many artists and activists I love blossomed very late in life. I know this will be my path. I feel it in my body.
For now, for the time being, I must take care of myself. I cannot keep up with the tempo online. I cannot pace myself against the cadence of society. I cannot keep up, and I do not want to.
Most moments, Simone, I am sad. I fill my days with actions that sustain and distract me.
Sadness wells up to my throat.
I am choking on life, Simone, and it is magnificent!
Photo source.
