I am in Ohio: a beautiful place, truly, especially where I am staying: a huge white farmhouse with white columns surrounded by miles of open land. It is stormy now; I am curled in bed with the window open. The room is very old-fashioned and feminine: rose wallpaper, lace curtains, four poster bed, wooden floors.
I love the rain. I think it is because my surroundings influence me so completely. When it rains, my mind can rest, the world is blanketed like night: my eyes have less to wander over, there is less to get lost in, less to want. It is so consuming - the ground and the sky are united, the old house rattles, the window panes quiver with purple. In the rain I am truly present in the reality of the moment: the softness of a sweater, the space the brass lamp lights so quietly, the earthy smell of of the storm. I am connected more vividly to gravity; the rain offers me a rare opportunity of contentment.
I have not written after Bath because...writing, like breathing, is overwhelming when you begin to dwell in its implications. It asks too much, each breath - another moment - becomes so profound and mysterious the mere practice becomes difficult. I feel either too grand or too insignificant to be, let alone write - the very sound is so sure: one quick, purposeful syllable.
"I am going to write," not only feels delusional to older acquaintances (the ones who, after realizing my major, ask me, so politely, "and what are you going to do with that?"), but to myself: my lack of self-esteem would never allow such a decided response. I mutter something about banks hiring English majors to write their memos or law school or something I think they'll deem worthy of dedication. I don't mention my relentless desire to open up a bakery/night lounge/art house/homeless shelter. Or my other very unambitious designs of working on an organic farm or a dude ranch after I graduate. To hitchhike, work in a diner, fall in love.
"Fall in love" is such a telling cliche: love is an ocean: sink or swim. Neither is enjoyable, though there is a certain satisfaction in drowning, in that much feeling - it is so pure an emotion - but perhaps only for masochists (those who decide to "do" what makes them insane).
Oh dear, this is not sounding very idealistic. I do believe in stormy days, in the necessity of passion, in breaking categories - earth, sky, green, blue, red, breath, letters, swimming - until they coalesce, become something unnameable. There are never enough words for blue - I am always reminded of this when I try to describe the sky. There are not enough words for anything, really, which makes writing frightening, like living: moving until you die...you must live for more.
