Journal Entry 9.4.23

Why do I feel like I don’t exist or that my existence doesn’t matter if it is not witnessed? Is it just the byproduct of coming from a lineage populated by famous and storied people whose lives have been documented and reserved for posterity? Is it because I manage an archive of my parents’ lives, every letter sent, every letter received preserved in amber? Is it because I have read too many memoirs and seen too many movies and it has colored my perception of personhood?

I suspect it stems from my father’s belief that only extraordinary things “matter”. He frequently made comments about people in certain professions, or people who wandered from one profession or passion to another as “wasting their lives”. He often told me as a pre-pubescent that I would be extraordinary, utterly crippling me as I pursued the attainment instead of the pursuit of meaning or joy.

I sit here alone on the porch outside my bedroom. The golden, September, afternoon light kissing the fields full of lavender weeds and goldenrod. My dog lies in the grass at my feet. I light a hand rolled cigarette, not because I really smoke, but because it evokes presence, and my lover, and the community in Borneo. I listen to music on my computer as I write. I look out past my studio, an old shingled lobster shack that is framed by the blue water behind it. In the distance I hear the ferry’s fog horn. By now, I have learned that the fog often appears on the other side of the island while it is bright and clear here to the north and east. Why can I not just simply have this moment? Why do I have to document it in order to make it real and to make it matter?

People see my life as fabulous. I know my life is fabulous, except that I cannot experience it. All I can see is the emptiness, the lack, the loneliness, my unworthiness. I look out at the ocean and practice feeling how I feel.

5 Things I know about me:

Sight: The blues and greens are graced with the golden, afternoon, low-angled light.

Sound: Ravens squawk and the Mark Island fog horn blows faintly in the distance.

Smell: I smell the kiss of the tobacco smoke that has touched my linen shirt.

Taste: Bitter, sour seem to be the taste of my mouth most of the time lately. Is it a flavor thing or a metaphor?

Touch: My back aches as a slump over my computer, my chest warm from the sun on my shirt.