notes from the bottom of the well

if emotions are like waves - some shallow, other engulfing at maximum depth - i have found myself at the crest. i am there, where it is the darkest. when it feels like eternal night.

when it’s like this, you would rather be in the middle of a desert, or at the bottom of the deep blue sea. at least there would be colour and something to see.

i’m reading South of the Border, West of the Sun. Hajime, my protagonist, is in love with a woman he met when he was twelve. Madly in love. This woman is not his wife, nor the mother of his two children. Yet he allows himself to lose his mind over this love, to have this woman by his side, in his arms, for one night. Something about that astonishing ache brings me comfort. I don’t know what exactly. You have to read it to feel the warmth.

thoughts can get heavy when piled on top of each other.

at the brink, where despair lies poised just over, i lay down and listen to music. this really helps. i get to a place where i can shut the brain down and let the music enter. i can be so low and music will lie just under. it will enter through my ear drums and fine tune the sadness. i feel it rearranging my mind.

i let go completely. i dance naked behind the dark of my eyes. there are no thoughts here. i am just a bucket of matter being held by the form. iron being shaped by a blacksmith.

i’ve been listening to David Bowie. Quite a bit. Sound and Vision is my favourite. he write it while in the Château. Produced and recorded in Berlin. I had thought so the moment I heard it. You can hear Berlin in this whole record. Especially side B, all the instrumentals stuff. When he wrote Sound and Vision, this hopeful and somewhat inspiring tune, he was in a very low state himself. Drowning in his thoughts and emotions. Floating in the solitude above his head. I am not too far off. maybe that’s why I like this one so much. it speaks to the part of me that lays under the music.

they say that the best art can be made from these places, shrouded in the artist’s bouts of despair. i don’t know if that rule applies for me. i definitely come to the best conclusions i’d say. i get really clear and think quite concretely about the future and set achievable and enjoyable personal goals. but when it comes to art, i can’t muster up the strength to write a simple poem. i can barely even write out what it is that i’m feeling. and a lot of times i don’t think it sounds any good. i know i know, who cares if it sounds any good, it’s about the rawness and realness of emotion ya ya. but i wouldn’t consider my upset ramblings to be art. they’re just, journal entries. for my posthumous writing career that will take shape by a hand not of my own.

i am on the brink of becoming someone new

something new

until that happens i don’t know what to do.