A Sad Thing

I thought a sad thing today. A very sad thing. A thing so sad that, if I were not myself, but someone else, a stranger to myself, and I, as a stranger or mere acquaintance, had said that thing aloud to me, or even within earshot of me, I would have stopped what I was doing at once. I would have stopped and turned and reached out and touched my face, a face I could tell I had carefully arranged not to look sad. I would have made a soft sound that expressed my empathy, and my inability to put that empathy into words -- "Oh" or "I'm sorry," something wholly inadequate. But I would have said it with all the gentleness I had.

Maybe I would even have said something that wouldn't be appropriate to say to me, a mere stranger or aquiantance, like "Oh, my dear." If I were a child, and I heard myself say such a thing, I would pick my young self up in my arms, and hold me for a long time. I would wish for myself that I had never learned the thing I had heard myself say. Not that the sad thing isn't true, because it is an undeniable truth. But I would wish for myself that I had managed not to learn it, that chance and happenstance would so collude together that I would never have had to learn that true, sad thing. I would have wished blissful ignorance for myself, if I were an acquaintance I could have sympathy for, could clasp the hand of.

Home: A Villanelle

I don't even know what I mean by 'home':

a shoe leans against another shoe,

a few stray hairs lay tangling in a comb,

(each thing's discarded where it's thrown)

a jacket flings an arm around two shoes --

and what do these have to do with home?

The drunken brothers' laces groaned

to tighten what was always coming loose.

What little they ever knew of home

they shed by leaving, alternate, alone.

The castoff jacket lay disused

among a few stray hairs. Toothed like a comb,

a darkness swept the floors. A night-light shone.

The jacket shrugged and settled, tired from use,

in a silence that does not -- even now -- seem like a home,

though the shoes dropped back, each like a stone,

into the jacket's folds. And tired and loose,

a few hairs caught and tangled in the comb.

I don't even know what I mean by 'home'.

Anecdote #1

Today, I stopped what I was doing to write a note on a small piece of paper, because of a song. The song was melancholy, and made me feel melancholy. The note I wrote because of it said, "It's so sad being in love. It's almost as sad as not being in love." I folded the small piece of paper in half immediately, and put it in my pocket. Then I went back to what I was doing. I don't know if what I wrote is true, or even if I believe it is true. I almost didn't mean to write it; I didn't really think about the note as I wrote it, or after I wrote it. And I soon forgot about the note in my pocket, though the song continued to play.

On our uncertain silences

When neither of us is sure whether a silence is awkward or pleasant, I observe us both deciding whether to say something. And we do decide we must say something, anything really, if we conclude it is an awkward silence we are sharing, or a rude one. It is sad, and funny, too, to watch two people (especially when we are the two) scramble mentally, trying to recall snippets of news caught on the radio, some a topic of general interest. Perhaps one of us will mention a recent, vaguely-remembered study that has proven definitively something we are sure we have known all along -- that friendship makes us happy, or that we have fewer friends now than ever, or that happiness in friendship helps us live longer, or that we're more afraid of dying than ever.

Sometimes we interrupt each other in our eagerness to stop up the silence which is pooling around our ankles, and splashing into our shoes and up our shins, making our conversation seem to be a slow, hard wade. If we were confident of one another, though, things might be different. If we were certain that the other was comfortable, if we each knew that we each knew how to survive the silence that from time to time will flood up between two people, things might be different.

We might smile at each other as we let the silence overflow the dams we had built up against it; we might even hold hands as we held our breath and kicked off from the floor into the surrounding silence. As it is, we struggle and flail, each trying to drag the other to back to dry conversation.

Dream synopsis #1

I had a dream I was being poisoned. I must have been a sort of Juliet in my dream, because it was all part of a plan that I was being poisoned. I was going to be saved at the last minute, and escape. But I had to drink the poison first.

So I drank and drank the poison, trusting the plan. But then I began to feel strange, heavy and sleepy. (It is strange to feel sleepy in a dream.) And I knew that the poison was working, and I became afraid. I went to all the people in my dream, even the ones who weren't involved in the secret plot of my pretend poisoning, and told them I could feel myself dying. I told them I was afraid to die. They all assured me it would be alright, that my dying would not happen: it wasn't a part of the plan.

But I could feel that I was dying, from the poison. It was very lonely. I was very frightened. I couldn't find anyone who would believe that the plan had failed. I woke up before I could.

Principles of Experimentation

Each morning, I make the coffee for my office. Many people like it very strong, and a few people like it very weak. I like it somewhere in the middle. Ever since I have begun making the coffee, I have been carrying on experiments with it. Sometimes I will gradually reduce the amount of coffee grounds I put in the coffee maker, to see how long it takes for those who like strong coffee to complain. Sometimes I gradually increase the amount of coffee grounds I put in the coffee maker, to see how long it takes for those who like weak coffee to complain. Sometimes I purposefully make too few cups of coffee, and see who asks for more first; sometimes I purposefully make too much coffee, and see if anyone complains at the waste.

I know that this means that everyone thinks I do not know how to make coffee, or at least am very bad at it. But they do not know they are a part of a set of secret and beautiful experiments in human nature. Because of this secret, their complaints feel like small victories. If I were to arrange my whole life according to this principle of experimentation, perhaps all objections others have to me would only contribute to my sense of discovery, and of scientific determination.

I wanted to ask her

I wanted to ask her how to live well, alone -- how to be alone and live well.

But this is not the sort of thing one person who is alone can ask another person who is alone.

This is something else people who are alone must be alone in, learning how to be alone.

It isn't the same thing as being lonely, or as being by oneself -- I don't think.

But these are the guesses of someone learning to be alone, guesses that can only be tested by living them,

because there is no one who can tell you how to be alone.