ideas of specific grandeur

My goal was originally to write a substantive blog post once a week, both for my own satisfaction and because a few people have mentioned that they are interested in what I am doing or what I have to say. That hasn't happened the last few weeks because of a few whirlwind days at work, a trip to Philadelphia, a weekend spent with my aunt visiting from Arizona, and a night where the drink of choice was absinthe.

I wanted to start from the beginning and tell you everything that has happened between the last time I wrote you and now. I don't think that'll be possible or very interesting for you to read so I will just tell you what has stood out to me and then next time I will tell you everything else. Everything from the beginning.

I went to Philadelphia for one night over Labor Day weekend. I went to see one of my best friends from grade school who goes to optometry school there now. I took a bus and met her at 30th St. Station. We walked around for the day, and given my aversion to heavily trafficked tourist sights we mainly just walked through the streets downtown and caught up about everything that has been happening. I listened to everything she said closely and barraged her with questions like I generally do to express my interest and approval.

When I am in a new place I am very alert and observant. As you know, reader, I love to travel and have found traveling to be one of my most consistent commitments in my life. Philadelphia wasn't the most beautiful city I've been in. It wasn't even close.  It didn't really matter to me though because I appreciated what I saw as its unapologetic authenticity. I find people and places and things that seem to be endlessly beautiful as less real, and Philadelphia was not endlessly beautiful. It had its own sort of beauty, though, borne of a necessary pragmatism. It wasn't perfect or idyllic and it had no pretense in some of its harsh spaces. I once read the quote that scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue, so there is more strength in places that have been tested. Philadelphia is a city with scar tissue running prominently through it. I realize that I am drawing large generalizations from a short amount of time, but my curiosity and desire to understand things has led me to do this. It was an impression I got so strongly I couldn't mistake it, and if I weren't to give that to you reader, what is the point of saying anything?

Sometimes I have more questions than I can reasonably manage. I can't contain my feeling of fascination at the people I know or those I encounter or all the ideas coming to me at once. The more I do and the more people I meet the more acute my desire becomes. My mind reels with questions and an unrelenting compulsion to gain knowledge and experience and understanding. Sometimes it's slightly manic; exciting but tormenting in the feeling of vastness. That's how I felt in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology.  

My current goal is to study anthropology and become  a professor. I don't know if that's exactly what I will pursue because it seems as if my path changes almost constantly, but as time has gone on I have realized that the topic that has most consistently intrigued me is that of religion (when I say things like 'consistently intrigued' and 'constant commitment' I feel a need to differentiate those things from other things that I have been interested in and then moved on from, because this seems to happen quite a lot). When I understand what someone is devoted to, what they believe without needing affirmation, it gives me a unique glimpse into their pathology. I think knowing what someone believes is a way to know them more intimately than almost anything else.

I am fascinated by a lot of things, but almost always fascinated by religion because of the world it reveals to me. I read  a book over the summer called 'Religious Literacy,' which was basically a general history of world religions and the structures they have formed in society. It talked about how you have to understand Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism to have any kind of understanding of global politics or interaction. It said that usually history books teach religion through sidebars with the most basic summation of the religion possible, like the Five Pillars of Islam in five bullet points. It said this kind of approach is not enough and it impoverishes an understanding of religion as the lifeblood of culture. It is simpler to use an approach that emphasizes historic events that are broken up with dates and leaders, so that is usually what occurs. I am not saying that this kind of information is not necessary or utilitarian, but just that it's not enough, not even at a basic level. The book said to understand the psyche of a country, a movement, or a time, you have to understand what those people believed. I don't know why this seemed new to me, in some ways it's intuitive, but it had never been explained to me in such comprehensible terms.

The bus ride back to Washington DC was sad. I was exhausted but I couldn't sleep, so I opted for listening to 'Streets of Philadelphia' on loop watching the rain streak across the window. I had a strange feeling then; tired and homesick and alone. I remembered the part of 'On the Road' when Sal wakes up and doesn't know himself.

“I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was - I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.”

I always remembered that passage, and it hits me sometimes when I'm traveling, when I'm alone or in general when I feel very far away (far away from what? I don't know that it's a specific location or person, sometimes just far away in general). That was how I felt leaving Philadelphia.

I was happy to see my best friend, and for some reason when she informed me that she could now legally give me an eye exam I was so impressed I was speechless. How could we go from being in grade school to her being able to legally administer medical exams? I was happy to realize that she has become more and more strikingly amazing as time has gone on, and that the miles between us have only made our reunions more significant.  I felt fortunate to have someone like that in my life for so long.

At work in DC, things have been intense. It is not work of half-measures or easily-digested information. I have interacted with impressive names in journalism and international aid and have taken on more responsibility than I thought would happen within my first few weeks on the job. You can see some of the things I've edited here. My name is on some press releases that have been distributed all over the world. There have been a few instances that have made me feel very capable and proficient, like when my press release was included in a headline in the Wall Street Journal and when I worked with our team in London to help deal with a crisis. I am a very small part of an almost unthinkably large organization (and really, a movement) and it intimidates me sometimes, but I get satisfaction out of Amnesty's successes because I feel so much a part of them. My friend said he thinks I have Potomac Fever. I said he might be right. Making ideas happen!

There have also been times when I realize that my understanding of world issues has grown so exponentially that I can explain certain issues to other people. I recently was talking about the Arab Spring, and how its inertia was gathered through decades of repression and how its effects will continue to ripple outward, and I surprised myself at my ability to understand something (at least generally) that had previously confounded me. This makes me happy because I like to measure my own progress in those kinds of terms instead of the amount of hours I spend in an office or an accumulation of possessions and security. Does that sound like I have thought about it too much, reader?

A lot of the time, the information that I read about and the initiatives of Amnesty International are more than I can internally handle. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the scope of the work and as if nothing I can do will contribute substantially, and at those times I mentally retreat into my other passions of art and fashion and music. I try not to let the grave situations that I read about jade my worldview. I have found that if I dwell on those things too much I will not last in this type of work. I started reading Conde Nast Traveler regularly to remind me that there is beauty and wonder amidst the hardship in the places I am constantly reading about.

All the pictures of the quotes you see here are from 'Savage Beauty,' the fashion book of Alexander McQueen. I started reading it over the winter and saw it on my friend's coffee table last night. I really like the quotes so I wanted to put them here to see if you liked them, too.  I love how they are quotes about fashion but they connect to equality and social justice and a lot of other things in life too. I have been thinking more about those issues as I've been here, but as you know I worked in retail over the summer and I developed a proclivity for fashion that has stuck with me now (I don't know if it's stuck with me long enough to call it a 'consistent commitment' though, I need to use that phrase judiciously). The other pictures are from my time here in DC and Philadelphia.

I hope that this has been interesting for you, reader. I am sorry I went so long without writing and I hope these ideas are not too scattered to understand. I hope that things continue to fascinate and intrigue you too and that we can talk about everything soon. xx

     

                                                                 

nebulous augustus

"Somehow America always goes a little off the rails in the allegedly slow month of August, and this year’s party is as wild as any."

Slate.com, August 24, 2012

The month of August has been the most turbulent period of time that I've had this year. The year hasn't been uneventful; it started in Brazil and continued through what I saw as an unprecedented academic and work load, a trip to Turkey, the completion of my Master's degree, a new job in retail and has brought me up to my current situation. For some reason, in spite of the upheaval of different events and the succession of perceived successes and failures, August has been the most mentally trying month.

Someone told me that August is like a perpetual Sunday. Sundays are my least favorite day of the week, because the weekend is still going on but the mood has shifted from relief at having time off to anxiety at the feeling of an entire week to come. Summer is still going on in August, but the feeling has shifted from the carefree excitement of June and July to conflicted anticipation of the fall. The heat is relentless, predatory. Summer is here but it has one foot out the door and it seems impatient. The novelty of the season has worn off and what remains is mainly just a hangover from the debauchery of July.

I just finished my first week at my new job, and it was largely chaotic and stressful. Not overly so, more like what I have come to expect from new jobs, first days living in new places, a new language. I made a point not to become dismayed at the setbacks, and whenever something challenging or frustrating happened, all I thought was "August. Classic fucking August."  

It might not be accurate to attribute all challenges to the time of the year, but vilifying an external factor seemed more manageable than accepting personal responsibility. 

My roommate in college had a post-it on her desk that said "Willfully accept all that is undesirable." I think it was something that she got from a book, but I remember immediately committing it to memory and repeating it to myself with a frequency that made it almost a mantra. The phrase seemed to contain innate relief. If something is undesirable, don't agonize over it. Accept it. Willfully. For someone (like me) with a  tendency toward strong convictions and a constant impulse to control my environment, it wasn't an instinctual thought process.

What I got from the phrase is that you can reach a level of consciousness where both favorable and unfavorable situations are seen as equally valuable. If you can reach this level of consciousness, you can let go of the torment and frustration of unforeseen difficulty or a dissatisfying outcome. It doesn't mean you won't feel a passing sensation of disappointment, but it means that you will accept that the situation was as fundamental to progress as the desirable outcome. 

I read a comparison to a mountain watching a cloud pass: the mountain sees the cloud and acknowledges its presence but it does not sway. The cloud is as integral and natural as the sunshine. Adversity is a natural condition of life and a necessary element of existence. Attempting to understand and compartmentalize every situation as it comes will probably only lead to more frustration and angst, but the knowledge that something that presently seems unfortunate may actually be the best thing that could have happened is liberating. 

The ability to let go of things that can't be controlled isn't at odds with striving for the best. It doesn't mean relinquishing control over your own destiny. It just means that there's no point in agonizing. Agonize. August. Similar phonetic pronunciations. This can not be a coincidence. 

I think there will be recurring themes in writing this more sensible and palatable string of blog posts, so I hope I don't bore you dear reader, and I hope you get something out of the synthesis I try to find in things that happen. I hope that the repetition of what I think about is somehow relatable or useful to you and you don't find it sanctimonious. That there is a point of intersection somewhere in the things that you think about. I hope that if anything happens to you in this remaining week of the month you will remember not to agonize over it. Because it might work out for the best. August is almost over and it will pass like a cloud.

honey honey shut your mouth

 I got to DC yesterday afternoon and since then my level of excitement has escalated and plummeted more than I thought humanly possible in 24 hours.

     It might seem like that's an overly dramatic statement, and knowing me it probably is, but I will tell you what's happened and you can decide.

     Yesterday I was supposed to drop my bags off (3, each weighing so close to 50 pounds that I had to shuffle my stuff around to check them) at my friend's empty apartment and then take the next few hours to explore Columbia Heights until she got back in the evening. I managed the flight and ride from Dulles reading the book  "Making Ideas Happen" by Scott Belsky and thinking about the possibilities that would open up by being back on the east coast.  My imagination kind of ran away with me and by the time I got to DC I was already envisioning myself as a successful Midwestern transplant because of the new insight I had gained (primarily just organizational tips and inspirational anecdotes). 

     The previous night I had been feeling more anxious than excited, and used the anxiety as  a reason to get unnecessarily drunk while packing for my move. I went to sleep at one but it was more like collapsing on my sister's bed while we were still talking. The hangover the next day was not ideal for moving over 150 pounds from Chicago to DC alone. I woke up feeling less rested and more anxious than the night before, but the successful and short flight from Chicago to DC was reassuring. I was in good spirits when I finally arrived outside of the apartment on 11th Street. I knew where the key was hidden behind the apartment, and after dragging all three of my suitcases across the street separately I left them on the front step while I quickly ran around to get the key. 

    When I came back with the key my bags were gone. At first I was shocked at how quickly the bags that had taken me three separate trips to move could be taken, but the shock quickly gave way to distress as I realized that my most essential accumulated possessions were gone and I was in DC more or less alone. I had a fleeting feeling of fear that whoever took the bags could be watching me from somewhere close and started crying almost immediately as the exhaustion and fear overtook me. I called the police and told them what had happened and the operator seemed appropriately sympathetic to the situation. He told me to stay where I was and he would send someone right away. I thought of every time I had heard of someone having something stolen, which I have heard of frequently, and thought of the amount of times I have heard of the items being recovered (never). I went around the building looking for someone with my bags but no idea of what I would actually do if I found them. I could barely move them myself, and if whoever had taken them was strong enough to move them that quickly I am not sure what kind of resistance I could manage.

    After walking around the building to no avail I went back to the front and knocked on the ground level apartment door. A young guy about my age answered in his boxers. It seemed I had woken him. I asked him if he had seen anyone come up to the door and take suitcases. He looked at me quizzically for a second and then with recognition and said "Ohhhh, those were yours? I thought they were my roommate's! Here they are!" He opened the door more widely and showed me the suitcases sitting in the foyer, and then helped me bring them  to the alley entrance outside and said he would meet me more formally when he was dressed. I didn't think I was in the right state to be meeting people either so I took the suitcases into the empty basement apartment. 

  The apartment hadn't been lived in in two weeks, and upon closing the door behind me I had a sudden feeling of dismay at being alone in an apartment in DC instead of at home. I was taken out of my reverie when a police officer arrived at the door. I had called the operator again after the neighbor gave me back the suitcases to cancel the call, and I explained to the officer what had happened.  He had a thick accent and friendly demeanor and started smiling in the middle of the story when he realized my luggage wasn't really stolen. "Ahh, that's good. Make sure to be careful with your stuff. Welcome to DC!" 

     After my exchange with the officer it was about 7pm, and I couldn't bring myself to do any kind of exploring, so decided I would make my suitcases more compact. I spilled my stuff all over the floors and felt my desire to repack everything diminish immediately. I spent the next 3 hours talking on the phone and randomly attempting to sleep on top of my suitcases.

    The irony of the book "Making Ideas Happen" along with the empty apartment, the visit by the DC police, and attempting to sleep on two suitcases became more comical as the night went on and probably would've approached hilarious if I was spectating the situation from a more distant vantage point. In my case it seemed extremely demoralizing. 

     I remembered the movie Castaway and how Tom Hanks became best friends with a volleyball.

     It looks like I am trying to look cool or be a watch model in this picture, but really I wore those sunglasses while trying to sleep with the lights on because I was scared, I am sitting partially on my suitcase and the apartment is empty, so this picture is a pretty accurate rendition of the situation as a whole. It's funny because pictures are supposedly indicative of the truth of a situation and I have found that to be largely inaccurate.

     

I bought this necklace while working at Nordstrom and there was a plethora of different religious symbol necklaces to choose from including a sideways cross, a Buddha, and a Hamsa hand symbol. Having a religious symbol around my neck scared me so I went for "faith" which seemed fairly benign  and rather generic. I never liked the phrase "Faith. Hope. Love." or even worse "Live. Laugh. Love." that I have always seen on picture frames and magnets. I am glad I have it though, because when I look at it it always reminds me.

   I was extremely happy to be picked up by my friend at slightly past ten. She took me to her apartment in Chinatown and I slept feverishly with bizarre dreams. 

     When I woke up the next day I had the plan of walking around and looking at an apartment in Adams Morgan. I went alone and got lost in what I heard was the first downpour DC had had in weeks. I made it to Adams Morgan and found the apartment to be gorgeous and the potential new roommate to be exceedingly pleasant. We talked for an hour and were surprised at shared interests like books about the Amazon rainforest and the same kinds of beer. I told him I was stressed about the move and he offered me a book about Zen Buddhism. I said that's funny, I read a book about Zen Buddhism when I was stressed during college. 

     I didn't want to seem overzealous but decided it didn't matter and offered to move into the apartment the 1st of September. He said he had gotten a plethora of offers from people but had narrowed it down to either me or a British guy writing for the Washington Post. I told him that I would be the obvious choice and he seemed to agree. We decided to speak again tomorrow night. 

    I spent the rest of the day wandering Adams Morgan, my old neighborhood, DuPont Circle and Chinatown. I ended up in the National Portrait Gallery and have now returned to my friend's apartment. My first day of work at Amnesty is tomorrow. I would probably be more nervous than I currently am, but really I am just exhausted. My aunt told me to count my blessings before I go to sleep and I think I will do that. MAKING IDEAS HAPPEN. Thank you for listening to me dear reader. xx 

all the time, all the shine of your eyes

When you have a constant desire for something seemingly unattainable, the expectation of unfulfillment becomes inextricable from your understanding of what you want. Perception of the feeling is entrenched with a consistent realization that it will always elude you. When suddenly you get what you've always wanted it throws you off kilter. It is terrifying, like an earthquake- after the initial shock you feel the tremors throughout every aspect of your existence.

foreign shores

the desire for stability and proclivity for following adventure lead down two divergent paths, and the farther you follow one of them the further you are from the other.

you just missed us.

and then time passes and you can say you're in love. but what does that even mean? and why do you have to fit a feeling that fundamentally defies logic into a construct? because isn't each person's experience of love as individual to them as their fingerprint? do you need to have built up and shared experiences and a collection of passed time for love to be real? is something not legitimate until it has endured banality?

what if you're on my mind all the time, isn't that real? i don't even know if the person i'm thinking about is you anymore. maybe the love is real and you are not.

kaleidoscope

It broke my heart into more pieces than my heart was made of. why can't people say what they mean at the time?

foer.

patterns of light

I was talking to my friend yesterday, and she said she felt like she was lacking purpose because she didn't have a project that was bringing her fulfillment. She feels like she is jumping through hoops for people and that she's not doing things that make her happy. I suggested she make a blog about food, about eating healthy and trying new recipes and making things from scratch, because she really likes making things and especially seems to enjoy when she gives them to other people. I said she could take pictures of what she makes and document it like art- buy a nice cookbook and arrange the food beautifully and then photograph it. Then she would have a product she could see every step of the way as well as an ultimate vision, and would have something to reflect on when the pressures of grad school and law school and life get to be too much. If she gets external reinforcement for it that's even better. She said that was a great idea and she would do it; try out the idea and get really into it and explore it.

I was thinking that in some ways that's what my blogs do for me. I write and document what I'm thinking and inspired by and reading about every step of the way, and then I have the assurance it won't be forgotten. Even when I feel like I am not accomplishing what I need to by other people's standards, I still have something that meets my standards. Then I can look at the world around me and beautify it, and at the times when I am not seeing the beauty, I will have documentation that I did see it at one time. Then I can look through what I have created and see my own rendering of the world again and be reminded. I can create my own world and then live in it.

The trouble is though, that by nature of having a blog on the internet it is available to other people. And there is the fact that I have gotten negative feedback and criticism from people who I didn't even know would take the time to read what I wrote. In a way it's good, because if you want to write you can't be so sensitive, but I wonder if people realize that hearing negative feedback about writing is much more cutting than receiving negative feedback about almost anything else. I tell myself that if I succumb to what people think or the criticisms that people have, I will dilute what I am trying to do to make it amenable to what everyone can accept. And what most people have come to accept without objection is mediocrity. If I go into it with the idea of producing something that doesn't offend anybody but will undoubtedly be mediocre, what's the point of doing it at all?

I wonder if I would be able to write a book, and then I would be able to insulate my ideas and allow my conviction in them to take hold before I present it to other people to critique. Then it would be less like writing in a room full of mirrors and more like writing in a cave. I think that would help, but probably make the sting more powerful when the unavoidable disparagement is voiced. I think many professional writers would tell me not to enter this business if I have a tendency to be offended.

The doubt remains though, and I can fail a test or do poorly in work, but I can maintain the sense that it was just a bad day or experience that is not reflective of me. With writing, what I am writing is myself. If someone tells me it's pointless or frightening or whatever, it's like they're saying those things about me. I can distance myself from most things out of a sense of self-preservation, but not from writing, because I do not write maintaining a sense of self-preservation, and I can't deny that what I write is part of me.

there's no word for it in english.

In a similarly limited way man wants the truth: he desires the agreeable life-preserving consequences of truth, but he is indifferent to pure knowledge, which has no consequences; he is even hostile to possibly damaging and destructive truths. And, moreover, what about these conventions of language? Are they really the products of knowledge, of the sense of truth? Do the designations and the things coincide? Is language the adequate expression of all realities?

Only through forgetfulness can man ever achieve the illusion of possessing a 'truth' in the sense just designated. If he does not wish tone satisfied with truth in the form of a tautology- that is, with empty shells- then he will forever buy illusions for truths. What is a word? The image of a nerve stimulus in sounds. But to infer from the nerve stimulus, a cause outside us, that is already the result of a false and in justified application of the principle of reason...the different languages, set side by side, show that what matters with words is never the truth, never an adequate expression; else there would be so many languages. One designates only the relations of things to man.

Nietzsche

this is how we burn

He walked by and we exchanged a look; he didn't say anything but we both knew that we had met, we both knew we were pretending to forget. A simultaneous impulse to pretend to forget is worse than actually forgetting, because when you pretend something you can go on pretending indefinitely, and the other person pretending makes you think it's the right thing to do. The look was as loaded as it was fleeting but in that moment, we had both condoned the other to pretend to forget.

electrocardiography

Something about being in hospitals makes me feel comforted, maybe like the serenity people feel in cemeteries. closer to the artery of living, even if it is closer to human suffering. Bad things might have happened, or be happening, but this is the place to fix it. Even if something bad happens, even if someone dies, they will tell you that they did everything they could. That they couldn't have done anymore. Out of all the people in the world, these people can help the most. I don't understand the argument that modern medicine tries to play God. These are people operating at the highest intensity of human ability. skill and energy and bright white heat. Fate is recognized in hospitals, because everything that could be done was done. In constant urgency people's nerves crystallize.

I don't know what it is. When I went to get my throat looked at today I started crying sitting on the examining table. I haven't cried in 6 months, and it's not because I haven't been upset or sad.

I have a Tiffany heart pendant on a chain that I got for a gift. It's in my drawer but I hardly ever wear it. I saw a necklace I really wanted the other day, though, and it is in the shape of the crooked line of an EKG graph.

constant motion

Live on, survive, for the earth gives forth wonders. It may swallow your heart, but the wonders keep on coming. You stand before them bareheaded, shriven. What is expected of you is attention.

SALMAN RUSHDIE, The Ground Beneath Her Feet

vast

So I would listen and believe and, when I would hear the words 'Off we go into the wild blue yonder,' I would think that 'wild,' and 'yonder,' were among the most wonderful words I had ever heard; likewise, I would feel the total exhilaration of the phrase 'Climbing high, into the sun,' and know instinctively that I was a part of those who love the vastness of the sky.

Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind

what a pleasure all this is

The conversation has come up in different ways in such different situations.

On a ship in the South China Sea, talking to a Colombian traveler into the early morning under a daisy-field of stars. I said I couldn't stop thinking about the burning building in Hanoi. I was there but I was apart from everything going on. I told him I didn't sleep for two nights. He said the conflict was beautiful, and said that he didn't know many people who saw the world that way. The world is easier to understand by putting it in boxes, by making categories and justifying and compartmentalizing and filing things away, but this is not reality. He said it was good to feel things but it was painful to feel them too much. Maybe to alleviate the feeling would only be a temporary insulation from reality, but it was necessary for self-preservation. Maybe more people should feel doubt and anxiety, because it means you can't accept things as they are, and things, as they are, should not be accepted.

Wandering around a beach in Ipanema, I told my Brazilian friend I didn't understand why I have a dark interest in seeing the extremes that the world has to offer to know what other possible outcomes of life are. I said I wasn't making the most of the advantages that I have, and I probably wouldn't feel so drawn to the edge if I didn't know I had a way back. He told me that what I was describing sounded like guilt, and there was no reason to feel that. He said that there are always comparative advantages and disadvantages, but focusing on those wasn't the point- the point was to do what you can with what you have, and then feel satisfied with imperfection, because in life you will know nothing else. I said I think about myself too much, this makes me self-centered. He said don't think about it so much, it will drive you crazy.

My grandma said that it seems that the more you attempt to understand the world, the more confusion you inherit from its idiosyncrasies. I said I didn't know how to situate my own life in the world because my views are constantly shifting. She said she didn't know either. How do you start looking for an answer if you don't know the question?

'Wanderlust' and 'weltschmerz' are both of German origin. They are bound etymologically. In life, they are bound because they occur sequentially.

Sitting on a porch in Champaign in the early fall, my friend asked me why I felt so compelled to travel. For a second I was puzzled about what to say; how could I not have a discernible motivation for something I dedicated so much time and energy to? I responded candidly, and realized that as I was talking what I was saying was more true than an answer I could have reflected upon and contrived: that it was the only thing I have ever felt really committed to in my life, and it makes me feel connected to the world around me instead of being a spectator. Like a simultaneous liberation from my reality and a devotion to knowing the reality of other people.

Running from something and looking for something are similar in the sense that they both involve motion, but one is motivated by desire and one is motivated by fear.

The more you indulge a hunger the stronger the compulsion when it returns. It is insatiable. I told my friend I feel more connected, but for some reason when I think about time going on in the places I have visited and then left, I think I might partially still be there, because I couldn't feel more split apart.

slanted and enchanted

i don't know how we started living at 100 mph in the humidity and heavy breathing or why our lives are now a metaphrastic version of ourselves. there are acres and acres and they are made more lovely by drinking the sun and losing ourselves more and giving ourselves more to the night and moon and this ravine. i wonder if there is more space between me and you or me and myself. the perfect contours of your face look baltic but i know they're not, it's just the cerulean film of the light.

eastern bloc

It is wrong, then, to chide the novel for being fascinated by mysterious coincidences (like the meeting of Anna, Vronsky, the railway station, and the death or the meeting of Beethoven, Tomas, Tereza and the cognac), but it is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life. For he thereby deprives his life of a dimension of beauty.

Milan Kundera

breathe breathe breathe

i watched you reading what i wrote about you, and you looked at me and said it was the best thing that you'd ever read. that you didn't know those things about yourself or how i see them every day, every second i'm with you. i can't believe that you didn't know them already, but if what i can give you is the assurance that i do, and that i believe that many people do, i will give that to you. i feel inadequate when i try to put you into words, but since that's the main thing i have ever had an affinity for i think i should at least try. because if i don't, what am i giving you? nothing. and i can't stand the thought of not giving you everything i have, even if it is just words that come to me as naturally as breathing. i feel like i am giving you my own chaos, and if that's ok with you it's ok with me. it is consistent with how i understand my own life. somehow you never see it and it fills me with incredulity i can't understand, but that's ok because understanding what is going on when i think of you is the first thing i gave up on, and i would rather find destruction trying to figure it out than not try to figure it out at all.

Tell all: Viet Nam; Part 1

In keeping with what I said in the previous post, this is what happened in Viet Nam, from the beginning (I didn't realize 'Viet Nam' was actually two words until a few months ago, but it is).

My flight was on July 4 from Chicago to Hanoi with a layover in Tokyo. I heard several times that leaving for Viet Nam on the 4th of July was basically the least patriotic thing I could do, but I was going to meet up with Danish people so I don't think that was considered in the decision. I was nervous about flying by myself and I didn't sleep until near the end of the flight from Tokyo. I had a dream that I accidentally got off in North Korea. I was thinking about this because I had just told my family that on my return trip I would have a layover in Seoul, South Korea, which prompted a discussion on the safety of the border between North and South Korea and how I should be careful not to step over it. My momentary confusion about where I was when I landed dissipated, and getting off the flight I was simultaneously proud of myself for being so far from home alone and terrified as I realized there was really no going back now (no going back for 3 weeks).

The officer at immigration scrutinized my passport and visa to the point that I thought I definitely had something wrong. I watched him looking repeatedly from me, to my picture, to his computer. He finally let me in and I rushed out to the arrival gate where my friend Louise and her friend Signe were supposed to be waiting. When I got to the gate I couldn't find them, and I was barraged by people offering me taxis and hotels and other assistance (I could barely understand most of what was being said, and instead of even saying 'no' most of the time I just looked at them blankly, which really didn't help). The airport had a very dismal and imposing atmosphere, and as I called the hotel my friends were coming from I started to wonder why I was in an airport in Viet Nam by myself. Twenty minutes is enough to thoroughly question your judgment.

The hotel told me that Signe and Louise were waiting at a different gate and that I should stay where I was. Louise ran up to me and hugged me before I even realized it was her, and I almost started crying. I hadn't been happier to see someone I knew in a really long time. Louise had become one of my best friends last summer while teaching English in Bolivia. The 3 months we spent there together gave us a closeness it is hard to build with friends I've known for years.

Leaving the airport the mid-summer humidity made me feel like I had been hit by a wave of wet heat. I don't mind heat, but I was still taken aback. I noticed that there were sometimes 5 people on one motorbike, sometimes a child holding a younger child and sometimes a driver texting, smoking and driving simultaneously. The traffic was unlike anything I had ever seen, and I started avoiding looking at the cars and motorbikes around us.

Our first few days in Hanoi were a sweltering blur. We saw Hoi Loa prison, where John McCain was incarcerated for 5 1/2 years, and I developed a new respect for him to have survived more than a week in the worst living conditions I could ever imagine. We also saw a water puppet show, which was made even more adorable by the fact that Louise (not understanding my mumbling English) initially thought was a "water puppy" show and wondered where all the puppies were when the show started.

The first few days were trying. I had never experienced the dirty, oppressive heat that was inescapable in Hanoi, I could barely sleep. I had a constant knot in my stomach from anxiety and exhaustion. The second night we were in Hanoi, there were widespread power outages in the city. We had an overnight train to the northern mountain region of Sapa, so we showed up at our tour company to wait inside with the other travelers. We noticed a crowd forming outside of the tour agency, and when we went outside the building we saw that the building next to it (connected to it, because the buildings in Hanoi all spill on top of each other kind of like those in San Francisco) was engulfed in flames. The crowd was volatile and screaming in Vietnamese. There were people trying to run into the burning building, which I think means that people were trapped.

We ran down the block, past the civilian blockade and were rushed to Hanoi station. We left Hanoi for a borderline delirious overnight train trip on a train akin to the Hogwarts Express. The first thing I did on the train was listen to the album "Farmhouse" by Phish, which I don't think I've listened to since high school, and by the morning we were in Viet Nam's idyllic northern mountains.

* * *

twenty ways to see the world

"No be scared! Put on your sunglasses and hat, and walk! All you have to do, walk!"

He glanced down and saw the burgundy scarf on my lap and then added "and scarf!"

I listened to his advice- his English was difficult to understand but I could get the jist (gist?) of what he was saying; I should cover myself up to attract less unwanted attention for being a foreigner. I should not be scared.

He knew I was scared, he saw me saying goodbye to my Danish friends and then sitting blankly in a chair.

I remembered what someone had told me once, that there is sensible fear and there is fear that paralyzes. Maybe the fear I had of exploring Phnom Penh by myself could be considered sensible, but it was only one day and I had already been in Cambodia for a week. I deemed the fear part of the latter, nonsensical category.

I listened to his advice and put on my huge sunglasses and wrapped the scarf around my neck and the lower part of my face. I took off onto the street, looking pretty incognito (which I particularly enjoyed) not because I really wanted to but because sitting in the hostel for the final day I had in Southeast Asia seemed anticlimactic. I thought about my location on a map, farther away from home than I had ever been, and got some satisfaction out of the novelty of the situation. A whole day alone in Cambodia. I was at once excited and anxious. I remembered reading that Cambodia is ranked 166/180 in the world for corruption and poverty. I have traveled alone before, but it was in Western Europe. This is different.

The best place to start with a story is at the beginning. This isn't the beginning of the story, sitting at a hostel alone in the capital of Cambodia, Phom Penh, with more than 12 hours until I can begin the 20+ hour flight back to Chicago, receiving a pep talk and advice from someone who worked there after my friends left for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The planning for this trip started last winter when I was in DC, feeling stifled by the working world and drowning in the human rights violation reports I was reading. I was constantly wondering why all these things were happening, why so much devastation and tragedy were so pervasive in the world.

That's not the point of this though. The point is that while I was sitting at a desk working from 9-5, my mind wandered to different places. That's when I got it into my head that I needed to come to Asia. And now, I'm here.

This trip began on the 5th of July when I arrived in Hanoi, Viet Nam, after a flight that took me more than 8,000 miles away from home, to my 4th continent and 17th country.

I realize that the way I am writing this is bizarre- starting at the end of my trip, now sitting in an Internet cafe instead of the hostel to escape the torrential rain. I am a few hours into this day and I am doing great, pretty much avoiding contact except for the usual questions shouted in broken English on the street "WHERE YOU FROM? WHAT YOUR NAME? HOW YOU? WHERE YOU GO?"

I am going to write more and start from the beginning (not the real origin, though, the beginning of this actual backpacking trip 3 weeks ago) and tell how everything happened.

Right now, that seems daunting because of everything that's happened. Also, the rain is slowing down, and the clock is tick-tocking before this flight to South Korea I have to catch. I am going to the riverfront and the next time that I write will be from home!

as ever
carolyn

open a vein

Writing about events in my life frightens me. It is strikingly personal and revealing, like hearing yourself on a voicemail for the first time, and being at once disgusted and intrigued by the sound of your own voice. I read that Rudyard Kipling was known for mixing fiction with autobiography to lessen the sting of recounting the most painful moments of his life. This allowed for a more comfortable disconnect between his work and his memories. I can see why he did this.

I remember my teacher saying that as a writer, what you have to offer is yourself. Your experiences, crossing the spectrum of human sentiments from elation to despair. This is how people know they are not alone. It is, "No, you're not crazy. Someone else has felt that way too. Please don't feel alone because while your experiences are unique, the human condition is not."

People have been deep in depression, have struggled, have questioned if the struggle is even worth it.

It has been 7 years since my Dad died, and it isn't really easier to talk about now than when I was 15 and giving a eulogy. Strangely, I think it's harder. The reality hadn't set in then but it has now. When people express sympathy for something, the focus is on the event and the immediate repercussions. There is nothing wrong with this and I think it is a natural inclination. The thing with these events though is that it is not something that happens and ends. It ripples outward and touches every aspect of your life and those involved. It tests mental resistance and faith. It forces you to ask questions you never wanted to think about; to confront parts of yourself you didn't want to acknowledge. It will establish a permanent presence in your mind. I say these things because I know that they are true.

I don't think my feeling is unique. Everyone has trials and tribulations they deal with every single day and there is no way to completely understand how the events in someone's life affect them. I don't think that everything we get in life is something that we deserve.

There is no ultimately redemptive aspect to this because I still don't know it myself. I was thinking, though, that when I read something where someone says that they have been there, they have experienced something that was hard for them and they lived to tell the tale, it always makes me feel better. I am not saying that I have any answers, I am saying I know how it feels and you aren't alone.

now

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”

the tempest

at 2 am today i woke up to the crashing sound of thunder and unrelenting pummeling of rain. i woke up in the sense that i saw the flashing crystal-white splashing through the window of my room, but getting out of bed melded in with the dream i was having. without my contacts the lightning illuminated the rainwater rushing through the street next to my house to look like a molten stream of liquid light.

stilyagi

The whole system that we live in drills into us that we’re powerless, that we’re weak, that our society is evil, that its crime ridden, and so forth; It’s all just a big fat lie.
We are powerful, beautiful, extraordinary. There is no reason why we cannot understand who we truly are, where we are going. There is no reason why the average individual cannot be fully empowered. We are incredibly powerful beings.

Zeitgeist

by definition, when you make something no one hates, no one loves it. tibor kalman

the bruises go away, and so does how you hate, and so does the feeling that everything you receive from life is something you have earned. foer

goodnight neverland

i am going back to chicago tomorrow. i have a lot to tell you, and i would tell you now, but it's 2am and the ambien is starting to kick in. i will just put some little things i've been thinking about down, and the rest tomorrow. goodnight neverland

* * *

i am so averse to feeling committed (or what i general think of commitment as, being trapped) that i often don't want to feel anything. and that's where forgetting helps, because it's like puzzle pieces that aren't ever put together. they don't even know that another part of the puzzle exists.

* * *

the thought of removing some part of vitality, like giving blood is kind of appealing because i know it will slow me down. that's the worst thing to say, but it's true. i know i will feel drained and exhausted and fall asleep right away. i also like being out in the sun for a long time. because then i feel like all the anxiety and sadness gets baked out of me.

* * *

she fell asleep, but it was the feverish, unhappy sleep punctuated with bizarre dreams and waking up feeling like she wasn't really breathing.

* * *

What do we leave behind when we cross each frontier? Each moment seems split in two; melancholy for what was left behind and the excitement of entering a new land.
ernesto che guevara

no, i don't think so.

i met him when the anxiety was starting to split me apart. i was focusing on everything too much, feeling it too much and very easily upset. i was making rapid progress, and at times i had flashes of noticeable talent. for every step ahead, though, i felt like i would blow it in some way, and the divide between the two parts of myself got bigger. there were always signs of latent torment, but only a few times it got to the point of debilitation. i was intersected with railroad tracks that ran through the middle of two different parts of town. events would trigger a split that went right through me, and each new sensation of happiness and satisfaction had to be met with an episode of panic or neurosis on the other side, like a schism. to me the stakes seemed higher. looking back, i don't think they really were. mentally i had more to lose. i was climbing higher into my mind, and simultaneously finding lower recesses. at times i would descend into dark places in my psyche that i didn't know if i could get out of. every time i got out i suddenly had a new fear of being back there again. it's a terrifying thing, to be scared of yourself and the places you know you are capable of going.

for those things i took to him in something akin to an addiction. i loved it all- the dissatisfaction with society, the smoking, the way he did not give anything the time of day to let him down. he didn't judge me, and dared anyone to judge him. he didn't care, and when i was with him i didn't either. when i was with him all the built-up torment twisted away in the smoke, and i was the most liberated i had ever been. and with each other it was like we were exploring a boundless unreality free of the constraints that had been keeping us in.

the sound of rain

considering everything that had been happening the past few weeks, he knew that nothing that happened would surprise him. whatever adversity he was met with was surmountable; he knew this now from experience. knowing this gave him a sense of serenity he had never felt, and he let it flow through his veins and introduce a respite to the burning torment, going through him like an anesthetic. he sat for a while on the fire escape, listening to the calming, even sound of the rain on the roof and watching the people below disappear into the sparkling wet parisian night.

how soon is now?

as soon as i start to build something, i feel like it starts to trap me. and that is the worst feeling i could have, so i start to tear it down. you don't need water to feel like you're drowning.

as desperation takes hold

If there is no love in the world, we will make a new world, and we will give it walls, and we will furnish it with soft, red interiors, from the inside out, and give it a knocker that resonates like a diamond falling to a jeweller's felt so that we should never hear it. Love me, because love doesn't exist, and I have tried everything that does. safran foer a kiss about spotlights fanning the sky and the swollen sea spilling like tears all over your legs.