Waiting (no longer)

It is 1AM and I am writing again. I just realized that I have started too many of my blog entries with this exact phrase, that by now it is probably not worth announcing because it is to be expected that it is 1AM always. It must be if I am writing.

I did not anticipate to write. I guess that goes without saying too. But as I must have mentioned in passing before, I write when I am struck by deep unhappiness or happiness, always at one end or the other. When I am in the middle, radio silence.

This time it is happiness.

I was getting ready to put myself to bed just a few minutes ago by listening to some music. This cover of a Joni Mitchell song is what prompted me to write tonight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osTxSSIIg4c

I feel hesitant to even share it, this singer is such a special secret little gem of mine. Something about her voice, especially if I haven't heard it in a while, affects me every time, as I feel myself sinking deeper into my mattress, deeper into the night.

Tonight I listened to it, and for the first few minutes, had shivers, goosebumps. And this feeling of wanting to cry, the feeling just barely caught at the edge of my throat, almost but unable to overflow. Hence the writing.

I don't know what to write about precisely tonight, but that I am feeling better these days. I feel a lot more settled in the mundane. So much so that it does not feel so mundane after all. Each day feels enough again, and I no longer find myself chasing after tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Despite it continuing to creep in this petty pace from day to day. (Hamlet joke haha). I am strangely ok with it now. I don't know why.

Actually, I can think of a few reasons. I am keeping myself busy now. I am taking guitar classes at the community center. After guitar class I sometimes go swimming or join a yoga class. I clearly recall a few blog entries ago, where I lamented about my drive to the community center, and how I wasn't putting myself in a place to find happiness. And yet here I am now, spending my days at the community center, realizing that perhaps I was wrong. I am also taking Spanish classes at the local community college (I joked to my friends that I am basically in the show Community, when on my first class my study group ended up being a first year college student, me, and this old man). This is going to sound so silly, but I've missed being a student. I've missed learning, and having homework and exams, and even presentations. This doesn't surprise me. I liked being good at school back then. At one point, I believed it to be my only personality trait, so much so that I had a mini panic because I thought that being a student is the only thing I'd ever be good at. Now is it silly that years later, the allure of being the best student, a meaningless accomplishment, is still not lost on me.

I am enjoying learning Spanish. I might be going to Spain later in the spring to test it out. I might be going to Morocco, which I am even more excited about. The plan is to go into the Sahara and ride camels and see stars and sink my toes in sand, lots and lots of sand.

Maybe I should write more often. I have not read or written in a long long time. The other day I found a notebook in which I used to write my favourite passages from books I read. I opened the notebook for the first time in a long time and copied down a few more poems, with the secret hope that the act of tracing beautiful words onto paper would teach my hands to write out beautiful words of their own. Muscle memory, right? Although I don't know if it translates to typing.

It is late and this is meant to be a quick entry. So I will leave you with a poem, which was traced and loved by yours truly, ever since I was shown it by my friend Clara years ago. I think about it every time our dog sees me come home, and acts as if I have disappeared for a lifetime, even though it was just a few hours. I don't blame him, I know how hard it is to wait, and how good it is when it finally arrives.

Waiting for Happiness Nomi Stone

Dog knows when friend will come home

because each hour friend’s smell pales,

air paring down the good smell

with its little diamond. It means I miss you

O I miss you, how hard it is to wait

for my happiness, and how good when

it arrives. Here we are in our bodies,

ripe as avocados, softer, brightening

with latencies like a hot, blue core

of electricity: our ankles knotted to our

calves by a thread, womb sparking

with watermelon seeds we swallowed

as children, the heart again badly hurt, trying

and failing. But it is almost five says

the dog. It is almost five.