Here we go again. The day before a trip: packing... cleaning... running errands... forgetting things... remembering things... making phone calls... getting the passport... tying loose ends... getting EXCITED.... planning...fantasizing...wondering...
It is said that the days prior to a trip are actually the days one is the happiest. Two weeks before the trip is when dopamines are at their most glorious self. Is it because when we wonder, plan and dream things can be wilder than reality? More joyous? Life changing? Is it because we get out of our mundane life and that alone makes us simply... happy? So here I am today, wondering, planning, fantasizing... happy. Simply happy.
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Productivity is my drug. My dependent. My dopamine.
Checking off my to-do list is my Oh-Oh-OHHHH orgasm. Getting shit done makes me feel hot. Horny. Hellish. In my 20s I went clubbing, fucked, snorted, smoked, got wasted, got lost.... and in my 30s here I am researching 'which calendar is the best calendar for 2022!?' Buying organizational gadgets like they are crack. Choosing to stay home on my night off. Any night off. Baking banana bread because the internet told me to. Watching a lecture on philosophy on youtube because that's my idea of a good time now. Adulting. Adulting is a process one has no control on. It just suddenly happens. And one then is flabbergasted by where did the years go... oh, adulting. It is a bitch but also not as bad as you thought it was going to be, but also far far more dreadful, but also not as much, but also exactly how much, but also not... but also yes. In my 20s I lived in my dreams. Now I make my reality of laundry, errands, insurance, meetings, voicemails, tasks, chores, deadlines... a dream. Adulting is turning our reality into a DREAM. There is a gap.
A gap between my dreams of yesterday and my dreams of tomorrow. A gap between who I used to be and who I am turning into. A gap between where I know I should go and where I am. There is a gap. A bridge. A void. A tear. And with the years, it both becomes smaller and smaller and it both distances away. If only I could throw away the gap. Toss it far and away. Be done with it. Let it loose. If only... Then I could merge who I am with who I long to be, and my work will be where I want it to be, and my dreams of tomorrow finally will becomes the waking days of TODAY. There is a gap. A never shrinking gap. An always growing gap. A frickin' frustrating gap. And I am ruled by it and lead by it, following some grandiose illusion that it will somehow go away. But there is a gap. And I am in the gap. In all my ever changing glory. I don't watch the tides, or get swept away by the tides. I AM the tides. There is a gap and she is I. There is a gap and she is NOW. There is a gap and she isn't going ANYWHERE. AMELIA: What do I do? Well, I take pictures of ruins that have been overtaken by nature.
STRANGER: Really. Why? AMELIA: A hobby turned career. Ever heard of the national Geographic? STRANGER: You're kidding. AMELIA: I swear it. Sometimes I pinch myself to make sure that's really what I get to do in my life. STRANGER: So you're a... like a - tornado chaser? Like Twister? AMELIA: Safer. But, sure. I guess I'm a 'ruins overtaken by nature' kinda chaser. STRANGER: Huh. When I was a kid I used to bike to this house in my town. Deserted house. The witch's house - we all called it. The yard was covered with weeds. Ivy was overgrown, blocking the windows. I used to go there to get away from everything. To escape my parents' fighting. To cut school. I never went inside, I just... hung out. Guarding the witch's house. Like a watch dog. Like a soldier at a checkpoint. Some years later the house was demolished. It was to be a parking lot of a new mall. I was long gone and I guess no one took my spot so the witch's house stood lonesome. Guard-less. What was once overtaken by nature was now turned into society's nature: Greed. Gold. Gasoline. I swore to never sat foot in that mall. My little town became a city. And deserted houses became a thing of the past. Nature now is a crystal ball sold in a souvenir shop at a mall. How many of those stories are there... I wonder. How much beauty is overlooked and demolished, just like that. AMELIA: What is to one a ruin - to another - it is an entire world found. STRANGER: I get it. With that camera of yours - you shed a light over everything we don't want to look at. We can build the fanciest most glamorous towers, but those will never bloom like flowers in the spring. I know you will never read this.
They don't hand out mail in the sky, or in the bottom of the earth. No pigeons will fly this over. And no, it won't be found in a bottle at a pirate's shipwreck in the depth of the ocean. But my words, nonetheless, will find their listener. My words will echo far after my life will send its farewell. I know you will never read this, and yet - this letter is for you. Or maybe this letter is despite of you. Or maybe - thanks to you. You are a complex enigma, a big question mark in a sea of a predictable world. I don't get you. I thought I used to, but I only looked at the idea of you, while you adored the idea of me. But did we ever really look at each other? Really LOOKED with no judgment. With no fear. Looked and saw the space in the eyes. The space that shows us that there is more in us than mere ideas. I don't get you now, and perhaps I never did. And I perhaps never will. With the changing of the tides and of the years, my longing to understand grows while my longing to be understood fades off. I know you will see me as what you will, no matter the actions I take, or the words I choose. As one thing I learned about you is: You are headstrong. Stubborn. Fierce in your commitment to see things the way you do. In some ways - I admire that. In other ways - I dread it. Changing perspective is a frightening thing. A brave thing. An enlightening thing. But once one changes perspective - one loses the old perspective. One grieves. One suffers. One misses the old way they saw things. That one is I. I miss knowing you. I miss believing I knew you. Your eyes seemed wonderful before. Now they are distant, cold, hollow, scary, troubling, sad. Or did my eyes change and you remained as you always were? This letter is for you, but you will never read it. You will never know my inner thoughts. My pain. My joy. My sadness. My longing. My dreams. You will never know because one doesn't know those things up in the sky. Or in the bottom of the earth. That one is you. Forever, and never, and any time in between, The one that is I. Art requires creativity and imagination, and specifically the art of acting requires one thing above all:
Empathy (noun) *The ability to understand and share the feelings of another. My unofficial superpower that lets me create, connect and collaborate - is empathy. Without it, I'm alone at sea. A lone wolf. A dimming light. A cold and broken piece of glass. Empathy is truly everything. |
AuthorIn April 2020, while experiencing her first ever global pandemic, Tamar Pelzig pledged to write something every day, even if it's only a word, so she welcomed to the world a daily blog to keep her creative writing wheels rolling. Categories
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Header Art: Daniel Landerman |