CCXIII - why not now

Today, for the briefest, shining instant, I realised that I was happy.

I don't think I could capture the moment again, or the essence of that spontaneous realisation. It seems almost childish now to try to picture the moment. Like a mutt grinning to itself, you know? A little goofy, a little simple. A moment of simple joy, of heedless gaiety. Followed by catching myself, and in a glimmer it slipped away from me. I don't even know if I could fully revisit the magnitude of that moment, the significance of being aware of something almost unattainable, yet dimly, unintuitively, within reach. To be happy, it doesn't seem that hard, but it's actually almost impossible, or maybe it's the illusion that you have to kind of jedi mind trick yourself. Why aren't I happy, after all, why Shouldn't I be happy, after all, and then it's down some kind of rabbit hole. It's a jedi mind trick all right. You have to buy it to believe it. Can you convince yourself that you're happy, or is the realisation ever true? It's such a vulgarly constructed paradox. It's completely, completely Sisyphean. Joy is leaving the apex and running after the stone, even if that seems utterly pitiful. Or is that happiness? Is happiness being able to spend time the way you want to? WHY CAN'T WE? Nothing's stopping us from that, but our own minds, and this world, and other people, and Things! That's why we're never "happy". It's so lame. But you can't run from the stone of scepticism in your belly that something is going to fuck up, not today, not tomorrow, but very soon, just around the corner. Going to come up and completely rain on your parade, you know? That's probably why. The more we live, the more time weighs upon us. It's enough to send shivers down your spine. Take that, present self.

CCXII - not even then

It came to me today, I realised that there was nowhere I could hide, nowhere I could shut off some vestige of myself, to console some inconsolable sliver of my soul, to say that somewhere it could be beautiful.

In no other universe would it have worked out, and that's the truth. I can't hide from that reality any more. In no other world would I hold your hand as we listen to liszt. You will never be mine. And still I love you.

Nice try, Ian. Oh, I guess it was. In any other universe I'd still have to. It is a funny thing it being so fatalistic and all. But at least I know, and that doesn't change anything. You make me glow deep, deep inside. That's all there is to it. I don't have to believe in the universe ultimately working itself good to know that I'd have tried in every other damn universe. Oh, I really guess it was.

CCXI - ever everland

Where have I gone? I find myself circling around and back to this a little lately. Where is that almost mystical, slightly deranged, quixotic questing, the bizarre zealotry, the fanatic puristic, single minded, insatiable self delusion for believing in what must surely be, while fending off the twin wolves of futility and dreadful purposelessness, alienation, no direction home, where has all that youthful madness gone? I don't know. I've lost it. I can barely get out of the house lately. Where's the old yearning, the wistfulness, the embracing of loneliness and fierce despair? I don't know. The lunacy, the silliness, the pride in being alone, grinning at the madness, the sadness, it's all gone. It's given up the ghost. I'm so boring. If I've given up all that old stuff, then I must have decided somewhere along the way: I guess I'd rather be boring. I guess I'd rather be ... Meter Man, than Peter Pan. Meter Man and the soft boys of ever everland. None of us a shadow. I'm sorry, Wendy Darling, Peter's taken his briefcase and gone off to work. 3rd street to the right, and straight on till evening. Best shut the window on the way out. You won't recognise him at first, but a little flicker in the browns of his eyes and I think you'll know it. A dim sort of grasping, and then nothing. A Mister Man, again.

CCX - go on, brother

But come ye back when summer's in the meadow,
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow.
And I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow,
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.

CCIX - heart strings

I once used to keep a photo of this girl I loved with me. Of course, I didn't have her permission, or ask. But I kept it because, because why, because I believed I had the right to keep it. I believed I had the right to look at it every once in a while, to give in to the longing I had to be the object of her gaze, her wonderful, enchanting grin. For her to be mine, in a quiet, solitary moment which no one could take away from me. In a way, I needed it, I needed to possess, to hold, to own, I needed that moment to be mine. Just a god damn photo, but for some reason having it was more valuable than the cost, the shame of keeping something like that, and how silly it really was. Such idleness! And yet I can still remember her face, her grin, without closing my eyes. Every bit of it. So beautiful, she! And would that it tugs no longer at my heart strings.

It's a memory that hasn't resurfaced for so long. I've forgotten it until today. Just now I found a girl's photo that reminded me of that photo, not framed the same, but it brought up the memory, the thought of it, my desire, in just the same way. Oh god, to feel love again, so much longing; I'm not sure I believed it.

I tell myself all the time, to varying degrees of ironic chastisement, that hope springs eternal in the bosom of man. It's funny, and it helps me to laugh in my solitary moments, to get over being defeated. Hope springs eternal! Oh, lord, just a chance.