Life proceeds apace. The last week has been filled with good people, and a much lovelier living space than it’s been of late, and baby therapy (I got to hang out with a visiting friend’s 14-week-old boy wonder). My cats are lovin’ on me, my friends continue to amaze me with their magnificence, a few important connections are quietly blossoming, I have a job interview on Monday for an as-yet unnamed but very exciting position. Yet there continues to be an undercurrent of sadness and various other negative emotions. At times I feel like I’m walking upstream, knee-deep in fast-running water. The exercise is good for me, but its inescapability is still no fun at all. Good thing the bad stuff is background to so much love around me, and – for once – not the other way around.
fog, live-action and animated
Insomnia is no fun at all. Or, I don’t know – what do you call going to sleep utterly exhausted, then waking up five hours later feeling reasonably rested but knowing that that’s an illusion, and yet staying up because if you go back to sleep then you’ll have to deal with the emotional repercussions of the dreams you’ve been having?
Yeah.
On the brighter side, a few daya ago my housemate found my favorite Russian cartoon, “Hedgehog in the Fog,” with English subtitles so I can share it with you! It has won all kinds of awards since it was released in 1975, including several years ago best piece of animation of all time at a festival in Tokyo. It’s just about ten minutes long.
Sometimes I feel like I’m in a temporal fog. The furthest I can see is a day, maybe. Maybe several hours. Maybe a couple of days. Certainly no long-term clarity (which tends to be an illusion anyhow). I make tea, sit down wih the mug, close my eyes and breathe.
everything is white and colors.
It’s snowing white all over and so, so quiet outside.
This past Saturday was Frostbyte’s memorial auction. I arranged food for what probably ended up being a couple hundred people over the course of about 24 hours. Didn’t really cook, except in a minimalist sense. Still, it was lovely – several times that day people asked me the requisite how-are-you and I would answer, “in my element.” Providing good food for people, even if I just shop and chop veggies and open cheese and get others to help me, fills my soul like nothing else does. Especially when people I don’t know take note of the food and are pleased with it. Especially-especially when I get to participate in a group effort such as this was, two years in the making (by others: I only came to it within the last month). Labor of true love, it was, despite the complexity and frustrations of the organizing process. The next day, as we were finishing cleaning up, one of my co-organizers smiled at me and said, “You’re a new old friend.” Burners’ spirit of instant community is priceless.
(I don’t actually know whether the person who made the above remark has gone to Burning Man. But he’s old-school TEP, and I gather that’s pretty close in all the relevant ways.)
Saturday evening I sat on a couch in front of Tensor, weaving slow conversation with the human beside me into its constantly changing color-light play. A swing hung between us and Tensor. Its shadow in the bright lights, sometimes swinging empty, most of the time complete with people’s silhouettes, was the narrative of remembrance unfolding. If the mark I leave on my community when I’m gone even approaches Kevin McCormick’s – he died at just 29 – I’ll have done well.
Yesterday I spent a few hours with a sweet, social two-year-old and remembered how exhausting and satisfying it is to live only for the present moment, all the time. I remembered the realization I’ve been coming back to over the last couple of months: the kind of family I want, the village that it takes to raise children and be the change I/we wish to see in the world, is already there. Here. All I need to do is participate in it.
Last night another new old friend, the luminous human with the Tensor-side conversation, brought me a present, a square of squares of color-cycling light. It is making slow progress in its simple programming as white snow layers itself onto the skylight, sounding like grains of sand falling. White cat at my feet, I watch the color cube and feel his still calm.
Raaar: or, weight off my shoulders, and weight training.
The last couple of weeks have been, let’s say, challenging. My experiences during this time have spanned from some of the worst of my life to great.
The worst was bad, a fast and furious storm. But I have amazing friends, and the good thing about hitting bottom is that everything after is going up, and I feel stronger and more balanced now, and that’s as much as I’ll be dwelling here on the worst, which is now past.
The good! There’s much more of the good. I have a floor, for one, and soon I’ll have molding around it. The bedroom is transformed by the lighter walking surface; even today’s grayness is not as oppressive as it would have been two weeks ago. I’m making fast friends with some [more] foodies, which has already resulted in delicious meals. (Oh, I’ve been eating better, have I mentioned? And cooking. There’s a joy rediscovered.) Reading, too: am only a few chapters into John Connolly’s The Book of Lost Things, but can already heartily recommend it if you’re into magic realism.
This weekend an important memorial event will take place in my larger community. I’ve gotten more involved with it than I’d anticipated, given that the person remembered was not someone I knew at all well. But it’s community, and I’ve been meeting great people, and most importantly I get to organize the food. And, well, you know how I feel about that. It’ll be good for the soul.
Life’s swinging pendulum aside, right at the moment I feel good, centered, purposeful. And powerful. This may have something to do with having started my day with a dear friend, delicious coffee and weight training. Who knew weight training could be this much fun? Now to stick with it: I’d forgotten how radically working out changes my internal state for the better.
ah, universities!
Dear Mr. Zafrin:
[ha, Mr. again]
This is to acknowledge receipt of your application materials for the position of Coolness in the Local University Libraries. Resume review is currently in progress and you will be notified by the end of the month as to the status of your candidacy.
Cool deal, I like knowing a timeline. But acknowledging receipt of my app two months after I submitted it electronically makes me giggle in both amusement and frustration. Particularly since another Local University managed to lose my application somewhere between [electronic-only] submission and its ultimate destination. So the person who was to review it didn’t receive it until Friday before Christmas. Way to keep me on my toes, Academe (and yet, I love you so).
I’ll only get through this job search if I don’t take anything personally. In the job search or in my personal life, for that matter. This is where the Buddhists come in handy: when there’s nothing to do, do nothing. Sit there. Abide, don’t think, and so on. Well, maybe think on the Nature of Things. But, if possible, without actually thinking.
In other news, I’ve found a favorite employment recruiter. She’s awesome, thorough and just casual enough to put me entirely at ease while instilling me with complete confidence in her abilities. Rock on.
…
I keep wanting to write things both sunny and full of love, but my spirit has been snowed under. I keep wanting to trust that interpersonal interactions will turn out ok, but they keep not doing so. I keep wanting a job already, but… well, actually there are some leads, and that’s at least hopeful. But mostly I’m snowed under, and climbing out of the bank seems increasingly futile, and I’m beginning to feel warm under all the snow.
step by step
Cures for what ails ya (or me, anyway, specifically today, more specifically when the ailment is wintertime depression and life’s turbulence):
Long walk with a good friend, conversation, laughter and groceries. Ocean’s Thirteen. Making a good-hearted effort to connect with someone, even if it brings no result. Getting things out of the house that need to be got out of the house. Reading fluffy sci-fi. Napping with the cats.
Mental and emotional clutter: successfully reduced. Though at a price, as it’s 3:30am, and I get up in five hours to go listen to a lovely Tibetan man tell me about meditation and related practices. On the other hand, there’s nothing quite like the delight of middle-of-the-night quiet. As quiet as we get around here, anyway, what with Nochka tearing around the room in feline ecstasy (this is one of her three or four usual states). Aki watches her indulgently – such behavior is beneath him except when it’s not – and bats her away when she gets too close.
Odessa, the jewel by the sea
I grew up a three-hour train ride from Odessa, a Urkainian resort town on the Black Sea famous for its Jewish population and the denizens’ sense of humor. (Some of the best Soviet stand-up comedians…. well, sorta stand-up comedians… came from there.) My family had friends there, and we went there several times when I was growing up.
The most memorable of those trips was one when I got a kidney infection from swimming in the sea, with its notoriously dubious and changing pollution levels. I do not recommend the experience to anyone; nevertheless, I remember Odessa fondly.
Now, check out these photos from 31 December. Pretty, if stark; but the color of the water! Gah!
biding time
It seems that lately most of what I do is bide my time, waiting for events to happen that are almost entirely out of my control, holding it (what’s “it”?) together with duct tape in the meantime. Life’s on hold, and that’s a dangerous combination with unemployment: too many hours in which to think. So I’ve been learning Flash, reading the books I can concentrate enough to read (surprisingly few), plotting home improvement projects, executing personal improvement projects. I have exhausted my supply of TV-on-DVD-and-internets, and that’s probably a good thing. I’ve been sleeping more than usual, which has enabled thinking for hours with my eyes closed without falling asleep. Neat trick.
An evening in the company of powerful and warm people sure helped! The tasty cheese and homemade baklava didn’t hurt, either. For the first time in days, my head is clear and my heart at peace. Tomorrow… will come tomorrow. Tonight I enjoy the quiet.
The cats have been sleeping on the bed more. This is a clear win.
gaimanesque
These wishes from Neil Gaiman’s journal have been going around:
May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
All of that would be nice. So far, I’ve surprised myself.
