I've had such strange mixed feelings over the past few days. I get caught up - swept up - in these emotions, like a paper caught up in my Tornado. Then something happens, and I find myself, calm, detached, unaffected back in the center. And then there's the moment when I feel both caught up in the emotion and detached from it at the same time.
There's my feelings of mortality. Death speaking to me through the beating of my heart. And my laughing at death. The feelings that I've not accomplished much, and yet, seeing what I have created - these things, these writings, this "content" and more than that - creating exactly the life I wanted - and living it. There's the feelings of getting older, am I still attractive? was I ever? Maybe I should have done breast reduction surgery when I was in my 20s... or take better care of my skin. I should know better than to watch myself on camera after 3 days of shooting and melted makeup. I guess I still want to both be seen as an attractive woman, and yet not defined by it. I'm irritated by friends and potential lovers. Radio silence. A love letter out of the Princess Bride. And passive aggressive MIA despite him telling me he would never act that way to me. WTF? Of all people, I never expect you to act that way to me.
Even my books can't keep my attention. Favorite books, new provocations, current favorite topics: anarchism and the commons. I alternately think my brain is sharper than ever, and then, I think of myself a decade ago. How much I knew, and didn't know. And how much I know now, and still do not know.
One thing is certain, I have internalized surrender. No more do I feel the hot anticipation. Even the anger I feel at the radio silence of one of my best friends is cold. Icy. I have learned to surrender. To wait. I will take action - but nothing asks it. Today, I feel the world through strange wine. The rocking of a ship, ebbing to feel something and flowing to detach. Ebbing into the emotion, flowing to infinity.
My room is in shadows. The slitted blinds show the outside world. Slices of greenery. These trees. Leaves barely flutter in the stillness. I hear the soft sounds of dog snores from under my desk, like a low bass line under the dance music I'm playing for inspiration.
I mix the wine with water, I speak my adapted words from Xenophon. It's time to get to get back to work.
My first duty is to sacrifice to the gods and pray them to grant me the thoughts, words, and deeds likely to render my command most pleasing to the gods and to bring myself, my friends, and my city the fullest measure of affection and glory and advantage.
- Heathervescent, adapted from Xenophon
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