2006-05-14
i'm in this place
"remember, with all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, its still a beautiful world. strive to be happy. be cheerful." -teh lizz.
so inside myself. rotting and fermenting. stirring inside me while i sit uncomfortably upon...everything. sensitive to all responses. tired and quiet. outside only in a self-conscious way. outside as in watching myself in action and observing from a clouded critical opinion, like a really negative self-actualization. oh, don't worry; this paragraph ends here.
ms. bowen:
They want me to save the rainforests. The notices come in the mail almost daily: buy a T-shirt, join a club, take a tour of the tropics, or simply send money (any amount), and I too can help preserve the earth's precious rainforests. Not long ago the cause-du-jour was apartheid, and instead of tropical T-shirts the offer was for record albums and human rights, but the message was the same: the triumph of goodness somewhere in the world depends on me. The appeal is hard to resist. Between flattery and guilt and the inescapable facts of the situation, only an utter nincompoop could read one of these and fail to be moved. And yet there is something unproductive, even counterproductive, about this national preoccupation with faraway concerns. From a distance, rainforests are a one-sided issue: save them. Same with apartheid: end it. Distance flattens reality and makes it one-dimensional, so somebody else's troubles always seem a lot simpler than your own. However you stand on apartheid or rainforests, chances are you can find their moral counterparts right in your own community. The parallels may be hard to recognize, because the issues at home will seem far more complex and intractable (or alternately, less important) than the same issues a hemisphere away.
think about things like that and how she writes, and lizz and the parthenon, and tom vance in indiana: the nicest boy i've ever met on the train. think about kristen and how she's awesome at track and how i didn't know that, and how much i really really love my mom; how much elena has grown. pick up the clarinet again. walk someone's dog for them. outside yourself, lisa.
even beyond julian if need be, who came sometimes be synonymous with self. outside social triflings, outside a want for good opinion.
inside the ginormous sky. inside petie's beautiful emrald eyes, inside a smile on her face that i genuinely earned. inside five hundred flat hats thrown high in the air as they spin and twirl. dive into some abstract boy. and delve within the wonders of a novel without being afraid to surrender up the lukewarm apathy i've been bathing in. inside buttons with katy, if she'd want that. inside lots of things, stuff that doesn't involve the aching of my insides with a sadness that is stagnant with grief. let's rip through this coating membrane of selfish exhaustion.
i'll enter whatsoever of these passages are open to me, and create more where they don't exist.
the sun is shining, and i love my mom.
leesah-likes at 7:07 p.m.