Entry #2

  People keep asking you at any given point of your life, every day, "How are you?" as if that were a question they really wanted answered. I am guilty as charged of course and yet the question makes me cringe both when it is directed at me as well as others; there are times when I am tempted to tell the truth and there are times when I lie for the relief that at least there is one thing that I can control and that is just how deep the other person can perceive the shapeless thing that my life is lately - lately meaning the last eight years of my life or so. There are times when I am very attentive to every word directed towards me in case the other person actually discloses a grain of truth in their answer as to their well being. I am always trembling inwardly during those moments, dreading that grain of truth, fearing that perhaps their answer will hit so close to home that it will bring spontaneous tears to my eyes and that I won't be able to hold them back for the sake of the savoir vivre.

  It feels weird to bump into another part of yourself that has hardened more than you expected every so often. I lie down on the wooden floor, lately I have been able to enjoy music again, not always but more often than the previous months and I go through my CDs or the online collections until I find a tune that feels right at the time. I put it on and lie down and stare at the ceiling while the city sounds drift in from the open balcony door along with the scent of the incense I have burning to warn away the mosquitoes. I am trying to find some way back to things that used to cause relief. I actually try to make the house feel more like a private space rather than another place I regard like a rented hotel room - I know that eventually I will leave this one too but somehow it feels almost sacrilegious to not try to claim it as mine in the meantime, as if I am not honoring the protection it gives me from the outside world. I clean it almost methodically, on auto-pilot, I have filled it with plants, I repair things inside and small wounds, I put up things on the wall that make it feel warmer. Occasionally I have even had people over, always one person at a time with the exception of one birthday surprise that I agreed to have here. It felt good to have people over, to share food and chai and pains and memories and dreams - their dreams to be exact, I have not had dreams lately. Sometimes when I sleep I see some but when awake I don't dream of any one thing in particular except for the road. 

  This month some things have come to me more easily in spite of the fatigue - I write almost every day, I try to stretch my limbs and that has helped with the physical pain. The writing helps only in that other things I generally enjoy escape me still, perhaps not forgiving me for having neglected them for so long, and yet writing can provide some relief. Talking is another chapter entirely -  my job demands that I use my voice so much that outside of it I try to forget it even exists at all unless if I feel that what I words I will spew can somehow make me lighter. I have had some long and interesting conversations lately and they have aided me in my fight to soften the edges in me that are hardening uncontrollably. 

  A friend of mine asked me recently "And what is so foul about it, that you should lean against someone else's shoulder even if you're not in love with them, even if one of you ends up feeling more strongly, even if both of you end up hurt?" And indeed, why do I have to be so gallant, so unforgiving in admitting to be hungry? I shared my bed one night and though I did not sleep deeply, it was the most nourishing sleep I have had in a while. I felt relief in the warmth, the proximity of his body, in the fact that he chose to spend that night with me instead of his friend. I felt grateful to have a tender person lying next to me, to be allowed to touch him, to push aside for a while the guilt of seeking that permission with such hunger, such need, the way one seeks a painkiller when nothing else has managed to provide relief. Part of me wanted nothing more than to apologize and cry, like a kid that expects to be punished for something that is not even a punishable act, but instead I allowed myself to relax in the feeling that time slowed in his closeness, in his tenderness, that I felt happy and content. 

  I have been thinking a lot about that night and the one we had previously shared and the other ones we did in the past year, two lonely people giving relief to each other's wounds. And how it's the most lasting form of relationship I have had with any person that I was also sexually involved. And in truth it has helped immensely, both with feeling less lonely and also less dysfunctional. In feeling chosen and heard by a person that is not in love with me but has showed more care than people who claimed they were.

  He's trying to quit smoking now and I have managed to not smoke for over a month and wish him all the luck. When I am home and I suddenly feel a deep need to smoke I focus on the ink-stains on the floor - I had assumed they would wash off when I cleaned them but by the time I did so the pigment has seeped into the wood and so they remain there tracing some movement. I am slowly getting used to staring at those ink-stains instead of smoking, I can sometimes almost trick myself into thinking that they distract me from whatever occupies my head enough that I no longer feel the need to smoke until my lungs feel poisoned enough that my thoughts focus on something else. Sometimes I pick up different things, soap, alcohol, anything that might prove strong enough to clean them up, as an act of thanks.

  It may all sound kind of bad but in truth, the mornings are not terrible even though it's hard to get up, the sun fills up the room as if trying to nudge me forward to another day that I am occasionally willing to face. Life has grown quieter, the disappointment and anger do not always poison me. Sometimes I talk with people to whom I tell the truth. Sometimes I laugh loudly and have food that is tasty makes me feel grateful. Some simple things have taken a new character, I am reminding myself how to be alone in a healthy way, I accept that usually life is unhealthy. I dream of the mountains, of fresh ricotta with pomegranate jam, of olive trees, fresh herbs, a storm that is loud enough to cover every other sound. I said I no longer dream but I guiding my self back to it through sensations, I am beginning to dream of sensations. 

  When I was small, time had no meaning, no substance or existence, days and nights blended one into another. I always thought it was the same thing as with the difference or perspective in distances and sizes, how everything looks closer and smaller as we grow but I realized that those two are not connected in that manner. It's just that as a kid, I used to live in the present and dream of the past and the future, whereas now I live in the past and future and dream of the present. Every moment that I break out of the reverie has the taste of a tiny, private miracle.