Lately the past has been oddly present to me, but in strange, fretful, half-forgotten ways. For a mild example, when I started writing this entry some time ago, I was wearing a shirt with "Anything Goes" on it. And, as I walked across the Bellevue floor to go to the bathroom before lunch, I became overwhelmed by memories of performing Anything Goes... specifically how important it was at the time, and how my field of experience was so different from what it is now.
I am afraid of the past in many ways, yet I am also afraid of the fluidity with which it slips away. Rachel and I had sort of a collective-yet-separate revisiting of old documents and things from several years ago, in the heat of dire(-seeming), emotionally boiling situations. I certainly (perhaps we all did) went through a time when I was eager to rip myself open, in hopes of getting to the cancer inside, so to speak, and getting it out of me.
But what exactly convinced me that I have something cancerous to get rid of? I suppose that's a whole separate topic, but it seems related. I guess the problem is that I am uncertain of my relationship to myself in the past. Does that make sense? There are feelings I know I had, that I can no longer understand. Or... I feel ashamed of feeling them. Ashamed is the best word I can think of, but what it really feels like is a hot feeling all over my body, sparking and sudden, that makes me want to turn away from what I was.
I can feel the past closer to me now than it used to be, both in terms of mundane events and big sweeping ones. I am also more aware of things I thought I had left behind, that are still there. How is it that something can be dismissed in your mind, but linger in some part of yourself, as hot and strong as ever, ready to rise up again? Maybe not as strong as ever... that's not quite right. But there. There and full of influence. I am disturbed by looking back at how events have unfolded in and around me, because I can see how I might have calculatingly planned it all out, to work to my advantage. I wasn't aware of such a thing... but it's possible.
I realize this is all maddeningly vague, and I still have a lot to say, but it's time to eat dinner now, and clean the kitchen.
Speaking of punches packed from the past.
Well, fuck that, anyway. I have a kitchen in which I can eat dinner. Score one for the great escapee.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Our kitchen is beautiful and CLEAN! Hooray!!!
*laughs* Certainly, yay for clean kitchens. And for having your own kitchen, albeit cramped. I think this year of community living has sparked a sort of uber-recluse instinct in me, so that when I don't have to be with people I sort of run off to my room and stay there instead of doing more interesting things. I also get very annoyed when I'm in the social room and other people come in...but I think that's more because I'm talking to you guys and other people's presence disrupts the channeling. Hmm, I guess none of this really has anything to do with your entry...oh well.
Post a Comment