Q

I’ve been itching to write, for various reasons. The primary one being that when i write – things fall into perspective, they start to make sense… which is what i need now; have been feeling eerily spacey recently.

At first i was hoping it would be catalyst for some prose/poetry but nup – creative constipation still insisting it’s stay (save me, CAP/CAP friends). So right now i’m taking the easy way out – and also cleverly avoiding having to explicitly explain my wonked-out mental state by mashing this together with a pseud0 book review.

Banana Yoshimoto’s Asleep.

Three micro stories into one mini novel. They aren’t even about anything much. Take moments out of someone’s life, as far away from anything momentous as possible. Allude to deaths at only it’s most casual and stunning. Magnify every present thought and movement to it’s very barest and most truthful. That’s basically what Yoshimoto does. It feels like i’m reading sentences off a blank wall.. there’s little chronology or sense. Which scares me slightly because that’s how i’ve been feeling recently.

It’s not that i’m not happy, or that i’m dreading anything. If anything, i’m excited. I’ll be in Uni! And with close friends i’ve already had for six/thirteen years. There’s almost nothing i can fear. But i’m naturally pretty resistant to change. Kundera says, in Unbearable Lightness, that happiness is the longing for repetition. Maybe this is why, after three years, i’m still stuck on the need to return to St. Nicks, where i felt the most alive and vivid and real.

Because now i don’t. It’s not anything bad i guess – in fact it’s probably my (very effective) defensive system at work. It’s like there’s an overload of changes – people, situations, culture, work, relationships, family – and all i need is some time off from re-adjusting.

So recently i’ve been feeling rather detached from reality (which in itself is such a trite term, i feel literary guilt using it). I find myself floating in thoughts – just letting them carry me – which is worryingly unlike my usual annoyingly obnoxious, clear and unnaturally controlled inner voice. I’ll find myself zoning out and getting distracted, or i’m there but i’m not really processing everything. Else, i’d be say or do things bypassing the megazoid filter i’ve built through the years. The thing is i’m not distracted by anything in particular. I just can’t focus.

Reading Asleep was so incredibly surreal i made myself stop to eat some solid carbs just so i wouldn’t fly away somewhere.

I know everyone has phases where they feel out of it. I’m just not used to not being in control. It seems like ages since i’ve been able to center everything, make sense of it all, and feel like every part of me is – in that very moment – alive. I think i can only be that whole with the St. Nick’s girls, especially the Mugs. And while i’m in the nehnehchickenwing mode without my appropriate anti-maudlin filters – i’ll just say it: with the Mugs around i’ll be safe because i know we already have a part of ourselves in each other, so i’d never get lost.

Now i shall drown myself for that little piece of schmaltz.

I didn’t find Asleep an especially good read, it was just congruent with my current state. It’s a book that sits on froth where everything looks safe and off-handed and casual, but being the sitter you know there’s something darker underneath right below. Something like that.

I’m unnaturally concerned with the over-usage of the starter ‘I feel’ in this entire post and have been consciously trying to rid of them.

Cannot cannot cannot i really need to get out of this weird cloud stage.