loose change

another monday another piece! time is really fleeting and i’ve been struggling to remain present. i spent too much time in anticipation of the end of the week just to arrive at the weekend and realize it would not have killed me to be patient and present in the days prior. learning things like this in hindsight is frustrating! this is the way it goes. it’s good to have things to look forward to but not great if they prevent you from acknowledging present joy.

i recently read a substack from a writer/artist i follow who mentioned the three versions of ourselves: the one you think you are, the one you want to be, and the one you are in actuality. you’re all three of them at any given moment. i’m interpreting the third one to equate to the way you are perceived by your peers, but i’m not entirely sure that it’s the same!

i didn’t have any grand revelations about the concept but i’ve thought a good deal about it. i think it’s a good back-pocket concept for moments of self-centeredness–like it could help with open observation instead of self criticism. which version of me is thinking this? it’s very aligned with this advice i’ve received recently to begin pushing back against my thoughts and to begin questioning which ones are really necessary.

i wrote about the word should at the end of 2021, about my obsession with it. i still use it abundantly in spite of the knowledge that it usually bears unnecessary thoughts or self-critiques. i should have focuses on something over which you no longer have control, something that’s already transpired and remains in the past. i think i could spend my entire life in combat with the word should!

maybe i’ll write some more later but for now i think i’ll wrap it up. i wanted to end with this poem, wait, by galway kinnell, in the spirit of being patient!

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven’t they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become interesting.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again;
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. The desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a little and listen:
music of hair,
music of pain,
music of looms weaving our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

until next week ! xxo R