Diary 43

04.29.24

Rented a quaint cabin on 32 acres of farmland over the weekend, complete with a clawfoot bathtub and woodstove. Went to see a 1920s string band play in an old candlelit bathhouse, which didn’t have a roof, so you could look up at the vast expanse of desert night sky throughout the performance. Second show I’ve ever been to that’s had incense burning all the while, too. You could smell it on the breeze. My god it made my heart swell.

Details:
-old trucks ditched far off in a field, dissected for parts
-desert agave, creosote, cholla, the dainty spring flowers my partner picks for me to tuck between pages in my journal
-a man, haggard by the sun, limping down the sidewalk in front of the laundromat
-local swimming pond, a rope swing next to a beehive
-sun-bleached signs, rusted metal, wrought iron windows
-the impossible railroad

WHY I LISTEN TO SHOEGAZE {excerpt}

Age sixteen, I’m in the backseat of my aunt’s car, driving through downtown Chicago at night, listening to shoegaze on the radio. At this point in my life I’m incessantly seeking out highs, those fleeting, yet all-consuming moments of euphoria that only a teenager who hasn’t been gutted by the world and its darkness can access. Really I have an idealized perspective of reality. I’m drinking vodka in my classmates’ basements and smoking spliffs in the arms of guys who don’t respect me and sneaking out with my best friend and her boyfriend who’s older than he should be. I do these things often, I’m insatiable. At the time I think this is freedom. And then I’m here, in the backseat of my aunt’s car on Lake Shore Drive, listening to Slowdive, gazing at this magnificent, illuminated cityscape, and for the first time I know what it feels like to be utterly alive and free.

Something about shoegaze is intoxicating, similar to the highs I chased as a teenager. Its ethereal, immersive tonal waves feel like a memory, a shimmering resemblance of past loves, profound experiences of nature and infinite possibilities. I am at once transported to moments from the past where life felt limitless and I wasn’t afraid, moments where I could feel the breath in my lungs, vital and flourishing.

standing at the foot of a waterfall in Yosemite, drenched in my clothes
running uphill, midwinter, heart in my throat / cold wind in my face
wading into the lake, dandelion seeds drifting through the air
lying next to someone I love, the sound of rain on the roof
sweaty bodies jostling against each other at punk shows
stargazing in the desert, lying in the bed of my truck
trudging through snow, warm whiskey in my belly
dancing with girlfriends at dingy dive bars
swimming naked in rough and ready creek
standing at the center of a lush meadow
biking through a storm in barcelona
horseback, racing an empty beach
         
Memories become eidetic when I listen to shoegaze. They’re rooms that I can access inside of my head, sanctuaries nobody else has entry to, and most of the time I’m able to lounge in these microcosms for however long I’d like. But they’re not always this tangible. Sometimes they appear before me and play back to back, all strung together like I’m watching a film, every grain still visible in the picture. And it’s in these moments that I’m able to witness every chapter of my life, every version of myself as interwoven into a complex patchwork. Where I’m reminded of the places I’ve come from and who I’ve been and how far I’ve journeyed to get here.

There’s an album called “The Moon and the Melodies'' by Harold Budd and the shoegaze / dreampop band Cocteau Twins, featuring titles like “Memory Gongs,” “Eyes are mosaics,” and “The Ghost Has No Home.” They’re suggestive, right? All three seem to so precisely and poetically sum up the function of memory in shoegaze. And if you listen to this album, you’ll hear it, too. It has this gossamer, celestial sound that feels more like a memory, or a dream than it does song. I can’t quite put my finger on why this is, but I think those song titles may offer insight.

Additionally I understand that spending too much time in the past can be detrimental. Let me clarify, in this context I’m not abandoning the present to live in the past, I’m consistently making memories in the present to add to my cache. And in order to make memories that are valuable to this endeavor, it’s important that I lead a vigorous, sensual, selfless life, that I’m able to soak up the marrow of what it means to be alive. Escapism is certainly a part of the allure. But it doesn’t keep me from living in the now, or from moving into the future. I’m still able to recognize when parts of the narrative have been omitted because they’re too painful to remember. And those parts still inform who I am today, how I carry myself. They’ve molded my deepest insecurities and fears. Yet when I listen to shoegaze, I tend to only get lost in the good parts.

Age twenty-four, I’m running through a meadow on an overcast spring day, listening to Jefre Cantu-Ledesma at half-volume because I want to hear the crickets chirping around me. The ground is soft after a week of rain, the air smells sweet and the wind is blowing warm. No one in sight. No voices ahead or behind me. Only by some impulse I can’t explain, I decide to deviate from the main trail, beginning to run faster, harder, tears welling up in my eyes then streaming across my temples. A flock of sparrows leaps up and fans out across the sky. Ahead of me, at the edge of the meadow, I sense someone waiting for me. I know who they are before I’m close enough to recognize them. I’ve willed them here. I take long, searching strides forward, feel my chest swell up as I come closer, closer, their eyes stark and familiar now, longing in those eyes, memories filling the gaps in their image until I fall, endlessly fall into

abstracted memory
just after sunrise a woman holding two steaming coffee mugs stands in an open doorway. looking inside, she sees a bed in the center of the room, enclosed by a gauzy canopy. through the canopy she vaguely recognizes the outline of a naked body: soft, fleshy, but amorphous. she watches as it gently undulates in the morning light.

elusive memory
she stands there for a while (probably longer than she should) until a sliver of white space appears, severing the body in half. two faces emerge and swiftly disappear.

carefully kept & monitored memory
at last, smiling to herself, the woman walks into the room and sets the coffee mugs on a bedside table, stealing the light with her as she turns and shuts the door.