The witching hour
There is an hour of the night, when ones eyes begin to close against their will, when there is a blurring of the lines between sadness and fatigue. I like this hour, because it feels, for a moment that the sadness has dissolved into something else.
There are words to name it, but the words are useless, they can do nothing for the death and the dying, for the crippled and the broken, for the disappeared.
They can do nothing for the ache, and the pressure that builds incrementally with each day that passes.
I make deals with myself:
if I do this, then that will happen
if I force myself not to do that, the resultant action will be such.
These are the mythical excercises of control that we wield over our paltry existence.
They are laughable if only they were funny. And sometimes they work.
Fifteen years ago, maybe, I counted the number of steps that it took to reach the edge of the white-lined tennis court, counting and spelling, one letter per step. If it coincided perfectly, ^^^ would love me. I spelled his name three hundred times, and three hundred times the last foot-fall ended on the last letter of his name.
And lo, it worked. He loved me, or at least my voodoo had plucked my name out of the thinning air and planted it firmly in his mind. We are more powerful than we think, there is more to this world than the merely tactile, there is less, infinitely less, as well. You taught that to me. Fantasy is not nearly as bad, nor is it nearly as good as reality. It is, nonetheless, what it is.
And then, when I realized that he was excercising some claim over me, I got scared, I fled the scene, I clambered towards liberty, I rejected even the notion that I could ever have wanted to call him mine. I was 12. It was probably a wise choice at the time.
Though I have ingested no substances tonight, (how is this night different from all other nights?, the little one asks) there is a liberation in the letting go of coherent thought. I have reverted to automatic writing, it is original 100 years later, non? Contemplating the monsters of Eros and Thanatos, and the places where we always go wrong. The trail is downhill from here, downhill, downhill. And still I imagine a baby boy. I have seen his face, and the face of his father, he is waiting.
There are words to name it, but the words are useless, they can do nothing for the death and the dying, for the crippled and the broken, for the disappeared.
They can do nothing for the ache, and the pressure that builds incrementally with each day that passes.
I make deals with myself:
if I do this, then that will happen
if I force myself not to do that, the resultant action will be such.
These are the mythical excercises of control that we wield over our paltry existence.
They are laughable if only they were funny. And sometimes they work.
Fifteen years ago, maybe, I counted the number of steps that it took to reach the edge of the white-lined tennis court, counting and spelling, one letter per step. If it coincided perfectly, ^^^ would love me. I spelled his name three hundred times, and three hundred times the last foot-fall ended on the last letter of his name.
And lo, it worked. He loved me, or at least my voodoo had plucked my name out of the thinning air and planted it firmly in his mind. We are more powerful than we think, there is more to this world than the merely tactile, there is less, infinitely less, as well. You taught that to me. Fantasy is not nearly as bad, nor is it nearly as good as reality. It is, nonetheless, what it is.
And then, when I realized that he was excercising some claim over me, I got scared, I fled the scene, I clambered towards liberty, I rejected even the notion that I could ever have wanted to call him mine. I was 12. It was probably a wise choice at the time.
Though I have ingested no substances tonight, (how is this night different from all other nights?, the little one asks) there is a liberation in the letting go of coherent thought. I have reverted to automatic writing, it is original 100 years later, non? Contemplating the monsters of Eros and Thanatos, and the places where we always go wrong. The trail is downhill from here, downhill, downhill. And still I imagine a baby boy. I have seen his face, and the face of his father, he is waiting.
posted by ilana at 1:50 a.m.
8 Comments:
Esa libertad que da el soltarse a veces me asusta porque no quiero volver al momento en que sí debo tener los ojos muy abiertos a la realidad...
Intentaré la receta de los nombres y los pasos y reportaré resultados.
Es como asomarse por el abismo y tentarse a caer. No hay reglas, ni muros para retenernos. Caída libre. An amazing ride. No sé qué es lo que busco, sólo lo que no.
Suerte con la receta, espero con ansias tu resultados (ja ja).
En una clase de yoga llamaron "vigilia" a ese punto en que uno es la nada. No obstante, fue en un lugar muy distinto (la universidad) donde creí entender la sensación de desplome, cuando un profesor nos explicó que hay una teoría astrofísica en la cual se demuestra matemáticamente que el universo va en caída libre.
Contemplar la grandeza del universo siempre me ha causado una especie de profundo desasosiego. Pienso en mi hija y veo que es impresionantemente aguda y empática, pero que no sufre este mundo como yo a su edad; quería morirme porque la vida no tenía ningún sentido, puesto que el universo no tenía límites (todavía no había cursado clase de física en la cual me desminitieron esa noción, es decir, como dices, hay un límite, sólo que se va expandiendo eternamente).
A mi la ausencia de límites más bien es lo que me impulsa a vivir. Mientras hayan rincones por explorar, gente por conocer, y nociones por desarrollar, la vida tiene sentido para mi.
Otrova, creo que coincidimos, me gusta tu forma de pensar, sólo habría que aclarar el concepto de límites que estamos manejando. Lo que me asustaba de niña (que más o menos, ya he aprendido a aceptar) es que no hubiera algo para abrazarnos, para tomarnos entre sus paredes y decir... "hasta aquí llegamos... no nos vamos a reventar en la nada". Imaginaba el universo como una tira de película en la cual todo el contenido estaba dentro de las líneas negras, ¿y afuera qué? un espacio blanco, brillante lleno de luz y de nada... me daba miedo pensar en caer por la nada y no poder nadar de nuevo hacia lo negro de la realidad...
ahora bien, como no eres psicólogo me sentiré cómoda, te doy rienda libre para analizar:) como adulto (si es que me puedo nombrar así) lo que más me aterra es llegar cara a la pared sin tener una salida de escape, le huyo a los espacios cerrados (mentalmente tanto como físicamente) tal vez por eso me ha venido bien esto de "bloggear", de existir como partículas de energía capaces de mover desde aquí para allá sin más ni más, me siento un poco más libre.
¿Claustrofobia?
Coincido contigo que esto de bloggear es liberador, creo que todos lo usamos de terapia. Para mi ha sido maravilloso.
¡y cuesta muchísimo menos!
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