moment of recognition

The end of my cigarette turns ashy red as I inhale gently. The smoke floats into my lungs, fills, spins, and exits upon the release of my breath.

I look at her, her long brown hair flowing over her shoulders or tied up in a head scarf twisted into a messy bun. Her eyes show her sadness, her trauma, and her infinite love. She speaks seriously. She is contained within her small frame but shines around it.

Upon the back of her neck flies a bird to symbolize her free spirit. Many young woman hold onto this ideal but she lives it. She is as feminine as she is androgynous. Men approach her and try to capture her but she simply refuses and flies on.

When I saw her for the first time, some energy immediately drew me to her. Her bright blue eyes lifted behind dark eyelashes as I introduced myself. It took some time and some repeat meetings to make an imprint in her day to day life.

I came to notice things invisible to most eyes – her inconsistencies and anger, her sensitive soul shut behind an intimidating barrier. Her confident stroll turned into an unsure wander. She is just as lost as I am.

“Can I use your lighter?”
She speaks and it takes a second to process. I reach into my pocket and produce a light for her to smoke another cigarette.

what is love?

Love, love, love.
What are you? Who are you?

You are the smell of cinnamon.
You are the sound of autumn leaves crunching
You are the snow falling outside my window
You are coffee being brewed
You are peanut butter toast
You are tears running down my cheeks
You are matching black sweatpants
You are fear and hurt
You are red wine
You are the heat of skin
You are blue eyes
You are headaches being soothed
You are talking about books
You are passing notes
You are putting your feet on me
You are staring blankly at the wall
You are cuddles ending too soon
You are inspired artwork
You are writer’s block erased
You are finding home.
You are laughing
You are dark chocolate after sex
You are disappointing
You are smoking cigarettes alone
You are goodnight and good mornings
You are worried messages and phone calls
You make me want to throw up
You are ripping my heart to pieces
You are the only thing that made my heart whole
You are your own language
You are sharing everything I have
You are the only thing that makes sense.

rationality is fun.

What is the expected value of a relationship with a male analytic philosophy major?

This is an important question based on the fact that, as a female humanities student, you probably:

a) spend a good portion of your time in class with said majors.
b) see them unexpectedly at coffee shops.
c) attend the same lame hipster parties only to catch them drinking PBR – the “acceptable” hipster beer.

Let (D) be the event that you date a philosophy major
Let (F) be the proposition that the relationship is a total failure
Let (G) be the proposition that the relationship is beneficial

The Utility Values are as follows:
(U)F= -100
The rationality for such a value is (i) the relationship failed, (ii) you have dealt with philosophical ridicule for your invalid proof of a relationship, (iii) you can no longer drink your delicious coffee at your favorite coffee shop without fear of an unsavory encounter and (iv) you will likely share future classes with said student

Note your proof for a relationship is:

1. If I choose to be in a relationship, I require that it have understanding and affection.
2. I choose to be in a relationship.
Therefore, I require it to have both understanding and affection.

(U)G = 10
The rationality for this value is (i) you are happy to have someone to hang out with but (ii) you still have to deal with endless philosophical arguments about nothing which leads to unnecessary disagreements (i.e. anger)

Probability Values:
Pr(F/D) = .95
We are young college students. The probability of a relationship ending in failure is already quite high. Yet, the way male philosophers attempt to converse and cuddle makes this value frightfully higher.
Pr(~F/D)= .05
Just the inverse of the former.

Finally let’s calculate!
Exp (D) = Pr(F/D)U(F) + Pr(~F/D)U(~F)
Exp (D) = -95 + .5

Thus, the expected value of dating a philosophy major comes to a grand utility of -94.5 points.

a cold december

Don’t carry on carrying efforts
Somewhere there’s a room for each of us to grow
And if it pleases you to leave me, just go
-Sufjan Stevens-

“I don’t know what I am doing,” she says. Her dark chocolate eyes turns black behind the tears. Silent –her face is stoic, unmoving. She stares blankly at the wall. I don’t recognize her.

Her voice is steady but slowly she whispers, “I swear I will never leave this moment. I will fall asleep for months at a time, going through the motions, but I will wake up again in this place, in this emotion and die again. I feel like I exist only briefly in moments of despair.”

I wonder why she doesn’t try to talk to someone about this, but at the same time I know. To extinguish these reoccurring moments of pain would be the equivalent of murdering her. She suffers. She despairs; this is her artistic medium. Her body only lives, only truly breathes, this way. I see her pretty black lined eyes turn into those of a panda – infinitely sad and round.

“I have never been with someone who didn’t care about me. It was terrible. Never have I felt unintelligent, unappreciated, objectified. I simply participated. A nameless, faceless participant in an event soon forgotten,” she says blankly.

I don’t know what to say to her. I love her. I love the way the light catches her eyelashes and the curve of her ribs and the way she wrinkles her nose when she is being cute. I love her full lips and her teeth and the way she kisses. I love the way she meets my eyes and speaks her mind. I love that she apologizes when she feels she has talked too much.

“I am not sad to lose him, I am sad because he made me feel worthless. I have lost my friends in the process. He has made me a worthless recluse. I haven’t left my house for nearly a week. I want to go away. I have to go away now.”

I am sorry, I am so sorry I don’t have the words to tell you how I feel. I wish you were okay. I wish you could find good, affirming, inspiring love. I know you miss your past and I know you wish ghosts back into your life. I want you to be more than a skeleton. I want your nerves to vibrate with excitement. I want you to feel again, and I want you to be okay on your own. You need no one but yourself my love.

And so it goes…

“I think the worst thing to contemplate is this – it’s all happened before, how soon will it happen again? Fifty years after Waterloo Napololean was as much a hero to English school children as Wellington. How do we know our grandchildren won’t idolize Von Hindenburg the same way?”
“What brings it about?”
“Time, damn-it and the historian. If we could only learn to look on evil as evil, whether it’s clothed in filth or monotony or magnificence. “
F. Scott Fitzgerald

This quote strikes a part of my soul that has been deeply troubled since my youth. While some find the circularity of life and death to be truly beautiful and inspiring, I find it to be horribly twisted. I can feel it pulling at all my attempts at relationships. I see it in my day to day activities. I see it in conversations. I see it in my classes. No matter how different my life has become, I find myself in the same haunts with the same feelings and the same melancholy aftermath.

It seemed that last year was this great transformative year raging with utter despair and isolation. Looking back, I understand that my hopelessness resulted from a lack of intimacy and understanding. Now I lie in my bed with the same thoughts cycling in my head fueled by each steady beat of my heart. I can feel that pull towards old relationships, the temptation to try again. (She is beautiful and he is beautiful and I have failed ) Thus, I attempt to capture the hearts of others. Yet, I know that my time is limited. I know now that relationships are riddled with hurt. How long? How long do I have? How long can we make good times last? Damn Time, and damn my folly and damn past restraints and damn new uncertainties.

missing mornings

When I was a little girl, I used to wake up in the mornings and listen at my parent’s door to see if they were awake. If they were, I would jump in between them and allow myself to lie there despite my excitement for a new day. I can still feel the way the sheets were warm from sleep, smell my father’s shampoo, and see my mother’s tousled hair. On the days without school, after my father left for work, it was just me and my mother. I remember playing “little bunny fou-fou” and feeling the sunshine warm on the windows.

On the day that Princess Diana died, my mother sat with her back straight against the headboard and cried. I thought how sensitive and beautiful she must be to cry for someone she didn’t even know. Their hairstyles were the same then, and even though it was cruel, I was happy that it was not my mother in the crash. Even at six, I was overwhelmed by the thought that life could be taken away so fast.

I wonder why people wish their childhood to return. I know I am the same six-year-old girl that sat wide-eyed looking for comfort and love every morning when she awoke. I know I had the same mental capacity then. Perhaps I didn’t have a name for my emotions, didn’t have an exhaustive psychoanalytical profile of myself in my head, but I was aware and I was not invincible. To be young is not to be numb and happy. It is to be vulnerable and defenseless. Yet, if one is lucky, they will be granted the privilege of growing up with love surrounding them.

And that is the difference I noticed this morning. I awoke and I was not comforted by the presence of love and I realized that I can’t remember the last time I was happy to wake up next to another body. I felt the sunlight play with my eyelashes and that was hopeful, but still. Something is lacking. I am that little girl confused at the tears, but this time they are not my mother’s, they are mine and they are mourning the death of something I don’t quite understand.

teatime

A head made of worries and a belly bubbling anxieties, I invited you out for a pot of tea. The idea of gyres and spirals still spinning in my head. Up or down? Down or up? I couldn’t decide, but I knew that talking to you would calm me.

And you said a few things. And I said a few things.

And it made sense.

“Lately, I have been noticing the same things over and over again. Variations of the same conversations. Caricatures of the same stereotype”

I nodded. “But you –

You
are
different”

I felt a wave of something – something intoxicating – pass over me then.  The difference was tangible. I felt the uniqueness of my companion and of me and of that Monday night. My eyes shut, my head leaned forward, and my cheeks glowed warm. A strange high. I sipped at my drink and everything was alright.

The warmth of tea, the conversation of silent eyes, the act of listening, enjoying well-prepared food, the moments I live for.

…

I am trapped in my own head.

I have no focus.

I have no motivation.

I am going through the motions.

Thoughts

“I’ve never written, though I thought I wrote never loved though I thought I loved, never done anything but wait outside the closed door”
Marguerite Duras

Lately I have been experiencing this inexplicable hollowness pushing at my skin. It starts in my rib cage and creeps through my insides, this horrible restlessness. The quote above explains this emotion directly. I have been in love, so I thought. I have created, so I thought. But it seems that all that energy expended was for naught. I find myself in the same place, in the same dreary mood, feeling as empty as before.

Were all those experiences just distractions from my own inner torment? Is anyone really happy? What do other people experience? Will I ever find true joy?

When people characterize me as a “happy person,” I find it extremely laughable. Me, this deeply discontented and terrorized soul, a well adjusted and jovial individual? There is a difference between real happiness and being friendly. There is no reason to be cynical and rude to those undeserving. There is no one to blame for my condition but my own head.

I was driving in the car and the lyric “My hell comes from inside, comes from inside myself” rang through the speakers. I felt all my thoughts could be summarized by that little blurb.

awake, awake.

my mother has a beautiful, gentle soul. rarely is there a time where her words don’t calm me, lighten my burden. last week we were reminiscing and she told me of the emotional struggle all her babies endured before breaking through to a new stage of growth. She spoke of the angst and unrest, the orneriness. she watched us refuse help, refuse companionship, only to discover a bit more of ourselves, to reach tranquility again.

Looking back on my life, I can see it all so clearly. Those great times of struggle where I didn’t think I would make it out alive, where i though surely things will continue to be this ungodly cycle of suffering and emotional cleansing.

in fact it has been that way for the last eight weeks. i sat for hours, wishing things were different, hoping to destroy the cinder block walls that kept me from exploring the world, from reaching out, from loving people. now that the sun has awoken and the snow has melted, those barriers have collapsed. i feel this new, deeper sense of independence and ability. yet, my love for individuals is still dwindling, allowing my love for world to spread, to reach out, to set things on fire. so many things glow with divinity, with the sheer beauty of their being.