Summer So Far
Living vs Writing, unemployment, discomforts of a desert city and more!
i've forgotten how to write. it is probably because i haven't been alone in a long while. writing requires long periods of solitude but i don’t have my own place to live meaning there is virtually no stability in my day-to-day or week-to-week. if i was a disciplined and driven human i would carve out space, i’d make time, but it seems i am okay with not writing. i am not much of A Writer, you see, but more of A Liver (not the organ though now i am inclined to think about the ways in which certain people function as our organs do). it is usually when i feel The Living is not happening that i can get to The Writing. forget about a job that makes actual money… that time will come again in october. for now i am also unemployed.
Writing is something i’ve done since i was young, Living is something i’ve done since i was born. these things are more conversant to me than career or money or success. Living can be pretty expensive but some of us have gotten good at Livin’ on a Little (bit more than a Prayer). i suppose the two are arts: Living and Writing. the thing is that the Living part is a lot of fun to do with other people whilst The Writing part cannot be accomplished with others around me. having no place of my own to live this Summer So Far i have been granted the opportunity, between consistently moving my belongings from one place to another in 40°C (104°F) heat or rushing to a visa or apartment viewing appointment, to sit and stare and feel the fullness of doing nothing other than absorbing the presence of the beloveds around me— the ones housing me or feeding me or loving me, sometimes all at once! the ones toasting with me in multiple ways (joking around with beers under a hot spanish sun). the desert heat hardly allows for anything else, so i’m afraid there has been no time to write! wait, no, there’s been plenty of “time” to write but no Time to write, you feel me? english is funny because we will use the same words to describe a myriad of different things. desert, fair, lie, love, time…
i began sharing Writing at a time when I was very unsure of what my Living was about to look like, or what i wanted it to look like. i still don’t really know where I’m going, but I have some ideas and, occasionally, have some people who are curious enough to ask me about them. i used to hate having to explain myself but i’m finally growing up and beginning to see the value in being able to. i’ve learned a lot about what i don’t want over the years (which, i think, is easier to see) and a few things i do want. i even made a few of those things happen though i still haven’t healed from the “i'm-not-doing-enough-itis.” the difference is that it no longer bothers me much. i feel responsible for My Life and yet out of control of many other things in Life. it’s paradoxical. well, no, perhaps it’s more like a card game. i play a hand, Life plays one, the lady at the registrar office plays another, now it’s my turn again. i do find a bit of liberation in the thought that you can both do whatever you need to do but also that there is only so much you can do. i wonder if that is the way things feel for everyone. i wonder if my wonderings sound as terribly humdrum to you as they do to me. hummmmmmm…
a couple of months ago i wrote a piece about my anticipation (anxieties not withheld) of summer for a friend’s publication. now we’re here— the beginning of the end. i don’t think i’ve ever spent an august in madrid and for those of you who don’t know it is HOT, like Dry Desert City Hot, like the rubber part of the medicine dropper used for your argentine rosehip oil fully MELTED into the oil on a bedside table hot. a/c is not to be expected as is such in every home and establishment during a Humid Hotlanta (no one calls it that) American summer.
but i woke up today and it was chilly (!!) outside and you have no idea what a shift it was. i squealed because i could finally put on socks.
home is everywhere and nowhere but i am hoping to find a flat so i can unpack my things soon.
Writing and Living aren’t the same thing at all. but i suppose a writer can, or must, also be a Liver.
i don’t know what I am, but i do know who i am (psst it’s just who i’ve always been) which has continuously proved more valuable (my definition of value) than whatever society would label me as because society doesn’t even think of me at all! as the current presidential candidates in my country demonstrate!! i’m biting my tongue here but it’s starting to bleed!!!!
“Only bad religions depend on mysteries, just as bad governments depend on secret police. Truth, beauty and goodness are not mysterious, they are the commonest, most obvious, most essential facts of life, like sunlight, air and bread. Only folk whose heads are muddled by expensive educations think truth, beauty, goodness are rare private properties. Nature is more liberal. The universe keeps nothing essential from us — it is all present, all gift. God is the universe plus mind. Those who say God, or the universe, or nature is mysterious, are like those who call these things jealous or angry. They are announcing the state of their lonely, muddled minds.”
―Alasdair Gray, Poor Things
TLDR: i read Poor Things and loved it. i think my Writing ability is coming back. i hope my Liver lasts a long time.
and
here are some shitty iphone photos if you want more rural aus
also