The Whale Belly

Thirty minutes to write. It’s all I can commit to today, but it’s something I have to do. I wish I had something to write about other than my anxieties around writing. I wish I was able to look outside more, have the writing thing figured out, have confidence in my pursuit of writing, so that I could work on rendering the world outside into words that others find value in. But as it is, as I am, I have to simply write what’s available to me in my current situation, isolated and uncertain.

I woke up this morning dreading the disorder of my life and home. The piles of clothes and random, uncategorizeable junk, the dust, the smears, the cracks, the chips. The relationships with people you can’t get away from, that constantly feel on top of me. The stomping, the throat clearing, the calling back and forth from different rooms. The bathroom I just cleaned so quickly filled with detritus, the kitchen filled with puddles and dried bits of food. If I could I would burn it all down, and move to a secluded hill, mold a house of concrete and never allow a single nick-nack or loose brick-a-brack cross the threshold. Nothing disposable, everything in it’s right place. Big windows that act as a membrane between me and the wild forest. Everything able to be clean with a swipe of a rag. Everything with an immediate answer. A deep well of water, a vegetable garden and chicken coop, solar power for a reading lamp, and tools to fix what needs fixing. Lots of books and lots of paper and ink. That’s all. Not having to be buried in senseless garbage of unessential possessions. Concrete, glass, dirt, water, egg, wood, feathers, cotton. And coffee, of course.

We thought about moving out near the Catskills, but as we drove around and saw the confederate flags and how all of the untamed wilderness was penned in by barbed wire, the dream became a kind of sad and ugly reality. Whether city or country, humanity in it’s hideous beauty makes itself known, pushes itself on you. And those who would separate themselves from it never really do, they instead become takers, taking only what they can get out of society while refusing to put anything back in. There’s no escape, no exit, rather. Hell is other people, and hell is therefore a necessary part of being alive. Hell brings us language, higher thought, and art. Everything that sucks must exist for anything that doesn’t suck to exist.

One could say that it’s best not to think about it, to accept and move on, but that’s not quite the point. The suffering, the dread, all that is necessary. There’s no bypassing it with wishful thinking or consistent yoga practice. We feel sad, we feel happy, neither can last forever or they wouldn’t mean anything. All our pets die, all our loved ones become disappointments. It is in the great churning of human compost that things like art or scientific discoveries find there nutrition. And so, no need to change anything, no need to swear off this or that emotion. Maybe instead do what people have always done, find a little consolation and distraction, and simply wait until something pushes you back out into the world. Keep on truckin.