Musings

November 7th, 2010

hjwc — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 23:34:37 +0000

Not sure what time it is, because I’ve left my phone at home. In Boulder, smiling faintly at the need to specify. The sky is beautiful, but I’ve found I’m without the usual emotional response. Or maybe the nothingness is the only appropriate interpretive lens for the enormity, the gentle yet firm oppression of a cloud front on the backlit Flatirons. The subtle green and yellow hues of tree leaves that if not for focused eyes would blend unnoticed into the black silhouette of the mountains in those final moments of daylight, when perception becomes a thing of difficulty. I love the idea of a silhouette, the minutia of periphery. Although now it’s late and desolate in this park– the people with their dogs have gone.

To transfer to my red moleskine:

hjwc — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 07:39:41 +0000

Can I tell you a story? Walking home tonight I had the urge. A few years ago, right on the brink of that crippling depression– November 24th, 2005. I went to visit my granddad in an assisted living home. He was only there for a week, or so, and it was Thanksgiving. That morning I woke up knowing something was horribly off. I wrote my mom a letter on the computer (because you know how sometimes it’s hard for me to say things that are heavy) just before we were supposed to leave, about how I didn’t know what was wrong but something just wasn’t right inside me. I didn’t feel like crying, I didn’t feel much of anything. Save a dull terror somewhere right in my gut (and I can even recreate that feeling now, although it’s faded). She promised me we’d fix it, and I got my stuff together and we went to see him. I still remember the room, and how the smell of feces pervaded (per – through + vadere – to move through) the hallways with their wretched fluorescent cafeteria lightbulbs and reflective tiles I just wanted to scuff for spite. And I felt that there was nothing particular about this cold New York night, nothing memorable, recall now how the concept of days seemed to falter in my mind and move instead towards a fluidity of inconsequential events. I caught myself thinking that this would be a horrible place to be so late at night. I caught myself at the foot of my granddad’s bed, breathing through my mouth to avoid the smell, watching him work at the treats we brought him with his chapped lips and unshaven mustache. And, worst of all, I caught myself with nothing.

Tonight I wanted to call you and tell you that, and the urge struck suddenly as I walked down the middle of my favorite street arms out for balance on the double yellow line. And I wanted to even more further down the road, when I looked up and was struck with terror and excitement when the tree’s branches looked like a giant claw about to pounce on me. And when I thought about how there wasn’t anything missing from anything (The tip of the leaves touch air / the base, branch. And I held up my hands and saw the same complete picture.) And also when I looked at the rough curvatures of broken bark, and I knew in my mind exactly how it would feel– coarse, cool, firm– but imagined it felt more like silk, or gel. Imagined it was something I could sink my fingers into, instead of stub against. Smiling to myself and pleased with the idea of what it would be like if all textures were unpredictable, I wondered if that was what you loved about me.

I wanted to call someone and tell them about all the fragmented thoughts racing through my mind. I wondered if I could, and ended instead just wishing I had someone to kiss right then. “Can I kiss you?” I whispered, giving into one of my rare few romanticisms with no one in mind, more from a sense of contextual obligation than anything else. And it probably sounds crazy, but–

But.

hjwc — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 03:22:39 +0000

“Let me tell you that I was in love. An ordinary statement, to be sure, but not an ordinary fact, for so few of us learn that love is tenderness, and tenderness is not, as a fair proportion suspect, pity; and still fewer know that happiness in love is not the absolute focusing of all emotion in another: one always has to love a good many things which the beloved must come only to symbolize; the true beloveds of this world are in their lover’s eyes lilac opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child’s Sunday, lost voices, one’s favorite suit, autumn and all the seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory. A nostalgic list, but then, of course, where could one find a more nostalgic subject.”

A petite confession

hjwc — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 04:42:15 +0000

Just because I have to say it somewhere— I am having the most incredible summer of my entire life, and I am so happy.

Initiation

hjwc — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 22:27:30 +0000

And so begins (and very probably quickly ends) another internet blogging endeavor. A blogging endeavor titled by Jessie, who has an obvious aversion to the average blogger’s tendency to be a total ass. Which, of course, means wise-beyond-your-years posts, and being 5″7′ on a “good day”. Having no intentions of running such a course with this blog, I appreciate, in advance, the occasionally and necessary grounding. As of yet, I have no real plans for a general trend in subject matter for my new and exciting blog. Anyway, I don’t think anyone has much to worry about– WordPress is hard to figure out.