the spring is of sadness.
sadness is good, I think, of melancholy, of longing, of acceptance. do I force things to be, do I move with desire? Is my desire shaped around gears, pulleys, rubber bands, forces, projectile motion? Or is it flow, movement, drift, seeing how things will happen? Do I accept and listen to the flow of life? Or do I try to exist, survive, thrive? Does thriving happen because my stalks push through soil and emerge upwards into the world? Or does it happen because I just exist with my natural rhythms?
Either way. Here we are. Our orbits, moving. I am about to be thirty-four. My orbits existing as large great circles, or curves, occasionally with sharp inflection points. Are we all moving around, on our own orbits? Do we bend around the spacetime of each other, moving around so that we might stay together? Are we in twin orbit, circling in tandem? Instable positions, the three-body problem, a double pendulum, moving ever so which way? Are the paths of our lives carved out for us? Or is it, at the core, just a series of choices that lead us down paved and unpaved paths alike?
What does it mean to move?
How much of this is cultural? My own desires and patterns of gathering, shared rhythm, alignment, pushing together at the plow, the joy of working together, of trying to be together? How much of these come from my memories of Korea, of elementary school and middle school, cleaning the classrooms together in still spring light, hushed tones of classrooms no longer full of people, the school library with its myriad books, light streaming in, summer yells from the school field, a lazy walk home?
is that life? was that life? is it the moments inbetween? or is that the moment. where am I reaching for? is this okay to celebrate, to bask in the sehnsucht / mono-no-aware of things? and to what extent is that a form of privilege, when I could be supporting others to feel that moment? Or is that just my own sense of productivity and scarcity telling me that I should have more, more, more?
suddenly I realize that I am in my mid-thirties. I have been writing here since I was fourteen. two decades of self-introspection, nearly, of trying to understand myself by writing out loud, without knowing if anyone is reading, or knowing exactly how I feel about anyone reading. Maybe the joy and pleasure of this has been that I am, really, writing for myself, but I don't mind if you listen, or watch. Here is a place of pure expression, maybe, my scratch pads, my notebooks, my contemplation externalized. Is there value for this to be seen? I don't know. But this is for me. It is the most decadent and free space I understand how to craft.
--
where will we go? I am open to so many possibilities, suddenly. something has cracked. the universe and all of its paths. I am a many-branched tree leading to many futures. I am full of hurt and woundedness, and care and sadness that somehow leads to joy. I am sad and happy, in a spirit to look back at things that have happened and let them be, accept them as they are. here they have come, here they lie, here they will be. will things change in the future? perhaps. but have they happened? yes.
so here we are. where do I go? where do my desires lie? to move with it, to process, to question; this is what I've always done, I think. I have always been asking myself about my desires. finding spaces where my desires can fly free. what is it to desire? to move in a direction?
the other day I think of a cultivating of a self as a garden. or of a space, perhaps. keeping what I care. crafting habits and patterns that I am full of joy in. getting back in touch with a former self. finding myself.
--
so. where are we? nowhere else. I spun around in a circle. I may be me. I might craft futures with others. with myself. I have my own desires. I have friends that I haven't met yet. former friends with whom I am drifting apart. friends that I am in love with, were in love with, will be in love with. friends with whom I have committed, will commit with. family to take care of, have joy with.
if there's anything I've learned it's my own capacity to hurt and be hurt, to wound and be wounded, and to try to accept all of these things.
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a few notes to myself in the future:
- replace the should with another want
- but how does your body want to move?
- there's tension in your shoulders
- stillness is not the same thing as calmness
- trust yourself
- don't hold on