Diary 50
10.06.24
This autumn has brought a dense apocalyptic fog that obscures everything inside of it. While I’m running I feel more ghost than body.
10.10.24
people are echo chambers, my coworker says
over a pristine plate of yellowtail sashimi
made for a stranger
people are goddamn echo chambers
i agree, nod my head
suddenly bounding
through a highway tunnel
vortex of swallowed sound
ricocheting inside my
hands moving over a stranger’s
table touching silver
they’d had in their mouths
i’m unconvinced the room
isn’t already expanding.
are any of us reachable?
i ask myself, kneeling to pick up
a napkin soaked in god-knows-what,
piss? and soy sauce, already
equipped with an answer,
of course.
10.11.24
Dreamt that I was sliding stones across a long echoey frozen lake, waiting for one to return at my feet.
10.13.24
Taking a Japanese culture/literature class this semester which, paradoxically, has taught me just how much American culture glorifies the self. For example in Japanese, ojamashimasu is a customary phrase that people say when they enter someone else’s home, which essentially translates to “I am intruding” or “I am disturbing you,” (though a friend joked that it really means, “fuck me for being in your presence.”) And historically, it seems anything involving self-inflicted pain (seppuku, shinjū) is generally perceived to be honorable, sacred. The culture is distinctly others-centered and collectivistic; the self is minimized to a degree that throws the predominantly individualistic, self-aggrandizing culture we have here in the U.S. into stark relief. Prioritize yourself, we tell each other, protect your peace, cut people off who aren’t worth your time anymore. Perhaps this is most apparent on social media, within the fire hose of therapy infographics for self-optimization, micro-celebrities documenting what they eat in a day, and people blasting some of the most intimate moments of their private lives online for everyone to see. It’s strange and I still don’t understand it all. Also, not saying one culture is better than the other— these are two extremes. But it is amusing to consider if, instead of saying “nice to see you,” we all said “well fuck me for being in your presence.”
10.14.24
“Ultimately, this moment is the most interesting one,” says Klincewicz. “It’s what we’re called to share.” From this viewpoint, Klincewicz sees the future as expanding before him, vast and unknown. “Recently, I’ve realized I’m trying to get myself naked. To just strip myself of the pretense and the expectation and the fear and the ego and to just be. For me, that feels like jumping into a chasm.” No leap is ever certain; in the freefall everything remains possible. Klincewicz has earned that freedom, but what he does with it is peripheral. What matters is the solace of surrender.”
Claire Summers, “Julian Klincewicz Sees No Moment But Now,” To Be Magazine, 12/15/2023.
10.15.24
I read through some of my old journals recently and discovered that I love blank slates, fresh starts. I write about it a lot—starting over after a breakup, starting over as I returned to college, starting over when I quit one job for another. It’s been a sort of comfort to know that I have agency to press the refresh button whenever it feels necessary. And yet, reading my old journals, for the first time I was able to discern these routine “blank slates” as a product of chronic perfectionism, a weight I’ve strained under since I was a girl.
The narrative I told myself all those years went somethin like this: if I can perfectly orchestrate my life, I can avoid pain. It’s seductive and completely absurd, though at one point it seemed like a viable solution. In my head, if anything were to go wrong, didn’t play out the way I hoped it would, I could avoid feelings of shame and guilt because I’d “done everything perfectly.” And if I hadn’t done everything perfectly, (which was every time), I would press the refresh button, start from zero. Hell it sent me into a tailspin.
I’ve shed that mindset over the last couple years. Gotten real good at untangling mistakes as they’re made. But now, I’ve got a new problem— wanting to hide while I heal, to not be perceived in all of my brokenness. Ideally I’d take some time alone, fix myself in the dark, and emerge a new woman. But I know this mindset’s pernicious. In fact, I was reminded of it the other day, listening to Leonard Cohen sing “Ring the bells that can still ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
