Phenomenology

Here, in the rough draft, I’ve just woken up from a three hour nap. I’ve chosen a bold font with round edges. I have a headache, somewhere up from the temples. Vaguely nauseous, but I think it’s just anxiety. 

Time has been stretched and warped and loose. Winter time, long but compressed. Long stretches I can’t, really, remember. A day or two in weeks that stand out, and even as I get further from them, still feel more like yesterday. 

In the past two months I’ve committed to quitting my job, and finding a new job; quitting my job, and going back to school. Not quitting my job, and going back to school. Quitting my job, and Not going back to school. And I’ve cycled through them, again, and again. 

In three weeks, it will get dark at 5 pm. Anticipatory, I need it like water. 

New years resolution: “Figure out a more concrete career and life path. Be more decisive.” (Big bulletin board made on New Years, slightly tipsy. 34 lopsided bingo squares and a list of more nebulous goals ((See – Be more decisive.) Go skydiving. Make tiramisu. Get lunch with my sisters.))

My lease ends in August. It is, at least, a date I can flow this river around. 

I’ve been working on a project. A thing, I hope, that will turn into a novel, or a novella. A very long but worthwhile story. Like choosing in a drought which flower to spit on. 

This past summer I read Haruki Murakami’s memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I can’t get the exact quote, I don’t own a copy, it’s a five week hold at the library, I’m too broke to buy it right now. But I can remember a passage, vaguely. Writing, as a poison, and running as an antidote. An excess, an indulgence, a thing to get out of you. 

I disliked it. Criticized it as an unhealthy way to think about creating something. 

But now, hunched over the hope of a project. Alone, out of necessity, for the thing. The story in my head I’m convinced needs making. In the winter, in the cold, in the dark. Not a poison, still. But closer to a burden then it had been, in the sun. 

I’ve scrounged up the vitamin D gummies from the back of my cabinet, expiring next month, maybe doing nothing. I take hot showers, and afterwards, my hair is longer than it’s been in a long time, water running down my back. Taking the Christmas lights down. 

I’ve been watching YouTube, public transit channels. Riding trains across the country. Point A to point B, only by Greyhound, etc. It’s close, but not what I need. I want long shots staring out a window, seeing the ground move. I want thoughts about menus, and conversations with strangers. They’re all a little too masculine, and a little too critical.

Here, at least, I can see that I’m doing something. An hour, and posted, and done. Every other week, on Thursdays, hopefully.