3:11 p.m. - 2003-09-01
berries
went out blackberry picking and stained my hands with purple and blue and fuchsia. i can't even imagine what would bleed that colour. tinky winky? barney? blueberry waffles?
the only place around to pick, what with park closures and backcountry bans, was under the electrical towers. will these blackberries glow in the dark?
shankhini and i had a sleepover last night, just talking into the dark about the things that we don't know how to talk about, trying to verbalize the fears and uncertainties that keep us awake at night. she's headed upcountry for a few weeks to get away from it all, and i'm trying to understand just what it is i need to get away from right now.
i know i need to get away from the cities again, but (broken record) it isn't enough to just go away, i need to be going towards. something. anything.
i keep getting told i should be a motorcycle mechanic, which would be pretty funny if it weren't so ridiculous. for starters, it would seem far more reasonable if i rode a motorcycle, or understood vehicle mechanics, or wanted to spend the next few years with grease permanently ground into my hands. actually, that last one doesn't sound too bad - at the very least, i like the way a shop smells, so i wouldn't hate going to work. i can't imagine working somewhere like walmart, and having to smell badly pressed polyester every time i walked through the doors of my workplace. bad fluorescent lighting, subliminally aggressive music, and entirely crappy merchandise - it's a wonder that walmart employees don't go postal. in either sense of the word.
jason. am i trying to sabotage what we've got? the more time we spend together, the more i appreciate how good he is to me, how he listens and tries to understand (a challenge, as i don't always understand me) and cares about me as a friend first. or at least, that's what i tell myself. so i wrote him an email trying to express that - i know it would be better to say it in person, but either it isn't a good time, or i don't think of it, or i just can't find the words. and, having sent the email, i'm wondering if it wouldn't have been better to just make the time, create the words, say it all out loud. i'm afraid of being misunderstood in text - i know what i mean, but i don't think it comes through that way when i write it down. and i know i'm afraid of him walking away, afraid of feeling rejected and unwanted yet again, and i really don't want to let that show through. everybody is afraid of rejection, nobody wants to feel unloved, but most of us don't make a big deal about that, and i hate coming across as needy. er. as do most people. this isn't working. i can't even find the words to express what i'm afraid of. i can't make my brain look at it clearly. like looking at the back of your head in a mirror... or like looking at your perineum in a mirror. it's all backwards and confusing and the more i try to resolve it into some sort of clarity, the less i understand it. i think it's just my general indecision and uncertainty bleeding over into everything else in my life.
- the room starts to shake and i struggle to make sense out of the low roar, the shifting floor, and the way everything comes towards me in the corner i choose to hide in. architecture stops making sense, and i fight the urge to go to the window, to watch the city crumble into the earth again.
climb out the window, scale the roof, bark at the moon. stretching the wings i remember having, reaching for the next invisible step. -
