the days are long and strange, and writing is strange because it sounds the same even though everything is different, the words are stale but the world is entirely new. it is a quieter world. joy is very quiet, like a mouse hiding somewhere in the house, its small and furry breath held. i think it is coming back though; i'd like to think i can hear its gentle scurryings in the walls sometimes.
i wrote a story in the second person so i could hold down my strange experience in my hands like a fluttering bird and pass it on to somebody else, so somebody else could keep the memory in their throats instead of me. although it does not bother me anymore, the memory has a silent existence in my life. i am trying to write fiction, and it is both new and very, very old: it feels as though i have always been writing fiction. as though the voice in my head is familiar with it, with creating from the images around me. does this mean i am a liar, a dreamer, or just confused?
theory threatens to bring down the house, yet U. and i manage somehow to keep this space of intimacy between us like a secret ball full of light, we are gentle with it and kind to it but we do not believe anymore that it will shatter like glass. perhaps it is thin and transparent, but it is not brittle. we whisper to each other in the mornings, and we are sad we cannot wake up next to each others shining backs and arms. yet the words make it okay, they travel through and sometimes we can meet, or even hear the silly lilt of each others voices on the phone, and it is enough. for some time. love is greedy, but it is so wise. i don't know if theory agrees; it scares me that theory cares only about breaking us but not about putting us back together. life must be, can only be, about putting us back together, about the vast project of tracing gold along our fractures and fissures and finding some way to stay whole despite all the breaking.
everything seems different, and some moments i find it hard to recognise myself, but also i have stopped trying. things are hurting less, but for some reason, right now, i am afraid of joy and joy is afraid of me (it skitters into holes in the ground, it falters at my footstep). i want to feel joy like a hurricane in the house rather than a secret presence. i do not want to be a ghost.
i think a lot, but i want also to privilege the mind of my body, i want to know what my ribs say to me when i am asleep. i want to feel the vast giddiness in my chest when i write poetry in the night, or read something glorious, or see a sunset of pink blossoms, or find a leaf the colour of sun. i am doing well after a workshop class on somatics and a talk by a fabulous trans activist about loving, hoping, growing, in ways that academics finds hard to say. i am trying to be less afraid of people, and smile at them widely, and think less, and talk more, and not hide. i think i am progressing. i am not a wonderful friend, but i am taking small steps: i am not stagnating.
perhaps everything will change again, a hundred times. i do not think i will remember this time sharply. it is a blurry time. my emotional landscape seems bland and unpredictable, not even very interesting to trace the curves of. perhaps i will be able to write good fiction. i hope i can write myself well.