i look at many leaves and i wonder.... that one? should i? and sometimes i do and sometimes i don't. but every rare while i see a leaf and i know. this knowing does not happen often enough to give me any peace or spare me any anxiety and yet it always happens again. always.
(the sodden world will be dry tomorrow.
why do i feel in this a loss?
for it will rain again...
how foolish to imagine - yet i can't help but imagine
a world without rain.)
2. i am sore undoubtably, emotionally. yet today i had several tastes, mouthfuls even, of bliss. not the kind that overwhelms you and makes you screechy-giggle and dance but the kind that swells up through you slowly, like a hidden spring, and spreads across your chest and up into your eyes and nourishes you wholly. i did my best, my absolute best, not to ruin my experience of it by pre-mourning it's departure. i did a good job.
3. i was walking down 72nd street from central park and i caught sight of a man working a UHO table on the corner. now i've made a point in the past of giving to them as often as possible (i mean jesus christ what do you really do with your pennies, anyway) but lately i've been paying for things with pennies on some occasions so... you know, i've been having to look out for myself first. but today i was feeling pretty benevolent, not to mention grounded, and i happened to know that i had some change in my coin purse so i decided it was the exact right time to make a donation. (bliss should be shared, passed on, spread like a rash or a smile.) the man wasn't really doing much to draw people's attention; he seemed a little listless.
"how's it going?"
we began to scrape up the usual small talk as i collected my pennies, him warming to me as he realized that i could hear him (my headphones are a bit imposing!)
"okay - and you?"
"well... i've been better..."
my voice wavers, i am scared for a moment i am going to choke up - no, i am scared for a moment that i am going to cry, i am choking up-
"one of those days, huh?"
"yeah, one of those days...."
my voice trails off. i am looking him in the eyes.
"but you know, it's like, it sucks when you're going through it, the problem that is, and it sucks to have problems. but..."
i am speaking slowly for once, trying to think about how to say it, how i mean it right now, to him.
"when you solve the problem, it's like, wonderful. you figure it out and it's like, a reward."
he is not just looking at me anymore, he's looking at me. and this is enough of a reward.
"...have a good one, okay?"
"you too!"
i can tell, even in those two little words, that he means it, that what i've said has penetrated. i feel his eyes on me as i turn around and cross the street.
4. i also went to my first botanica today. i've wanted to go to one forever since moving to bushwick, but i just never had the balls to do so. there are times, in the past, where being looked at, in certain situations, was so extremely disturbing and upsetting to me that it absolutely prevented me from doing things i wanted to do. and by looked at i mean what might also be expressed in the spirit of our times as being hated on. there is a fine line between the two, and one sees that line often in bushwick, one sees it get crossed and stamped out and erased and ignored and obeyed.
but today, all of that was different. i walked home a different way than i usually do because i had new eyes and i wanted to see new things. and there it was, on a streetcorner, just being fascinating. and i was so fascinated and intrigued by it that, even though i felt a slight reluctance to enter and be judged to be something i wasn't, that i didn't even really feel the reluctance fully... it was far outweighed by my own desire to experience it. additionally, i did rationalize, i was wearing my virgin mary bracelet (which, if you've never experienced it, was made by nuns in a basilica and is covered in rhinestones and pearls, and is magnificently exquisite simultaneously in such a cheap and such a sacred way) and that had to earn me some kind of botanica cred.
so in i went and i was so interested in everything that i was barely self-conscious. and, wow...
look, just go in one, i'm not going to cheapen my experience by killing it with words right now. (although i want to be specific and say that while is not at all my full opinion on the function of language it cannot be denied that it, at times, certainly functions in this fashion.)
as i was finishing up my tour the man behind the counter, surprisingly, greeted me warmly and in english. i replied back kindly and went back to my exploration hesitantly, eventually turning around to him and speaking.
"um, yeah... could you possibly make a recommendation?"
he smiled and replied in the affirmative, and leaned in to hear me as i started speaking - so hushed did i begin.
"well... i just broke up with someone last night, and i, i have a hard time speaking up for myself and saying what i want and, i, it's like, i don't even know what i want, like i have no desire... so if you could recommend some herbs or a candle or something, that would be great."
"yes," he said. "yes, i think candles work well. how about a candle?"
he lead me over to them, looking on them in a way that i couldn't suss out entirely, i wasn't yet sure that he was taking me completely seriously.
"we have lots of candles," he began. then paused, then spoke again.
"you want him back?" (looking over at me.)
"i want myself back," i answered, with a quickness that surprises me in recalling it.
he laughed, surprised, an honest laugh. i see admiration quickly pass through his eyes. he is taking me seriously now, i am sure of it.
"what about control?" he says.
"like you mean, controlling other people or like, control and myself?"
"having control of yourself."
"ah! that's perfect. yes. great!"
he pulls a yellow candle off the shelf and hands it to me. i looked at it briefly earlier. it is covered in blue spiderwebs and near the top a large threatening spider looks down on a small man, praying in fear near the bottom.
later on i get it home and anoint it with the perfume i wear (after all, that is what my name means in hebrew), and light it. it takes a few tries, but it's still burning now. and i prayed, and had a moment with myself. you can imagine what i thought of, what i may have told myself. but that's it - once again, not a space for this kind of language.
language, language. i follow it for a space, but it always goes on without me.
no. no!
5a. "more precisely, parrhesia is a verbal activity in which a speaker expresses his personal relationship to truth, and risks his life because he recognizes truth-telling as a duty to help improve or help other people (as well as himself). in parrhesia, the speaker uses his freedom and chooses frankness instead of persuasion, truth instead of falsehood or silence, the risk of death instead of life and security, criticism instead of flattery, and moral duty instead of self-interest and moral apathy." - foucault.
5b. "the parrhesiast is someone whose fidelity to the truth becomes the pivot of a process of self-transformation." - parrhesia, the journal of critical philosphy
5c. "parrhesia is the price the subject must pay to gain self-control and self-definition back from the other. this, contradictorily, enables it to then fully consort with both itself and the other; this is what enables love, makes it possible. (of course, it only makes it possible. love only results in the rare situations in which parrhesia is able to fully function as a bridge between the subject and the other.) but love is certainly nothing without it, it simply cannot fully exist without it." - ...
(maybe this only for the neurotic, but...)
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