slump
reflecting on the ecstatic impulse and where did it go?
When I was in elementary school they used to give out these things I’ve called “Character Awards” in my brain. At the start of the month the guidance counselor would come to class and have a lesson on compassion or perseverance, and then at the end of the month, through some autocratic process, the teacher would select a boy and a girl to win the award for the month. My mother hated this ritual. Separate from self-explanatory teacher-y child development reasons (my resulting belief that there was a way to win at “having character,”) she had one particular piece of anecdotal evidence that seemed to obliterate all merits of the practice. When I was in kindergarten, I won the character award for self-control. My brother Michael also won a couple years earlier. This would’ve been fine, except the fact that both Michael and I were both deathly shy and usually needed to be addressed to speak aloud. Sometimes we would even respond. “You didn’t have self-control,” my mother concludes. “You were too terrified to be impulsive.”
It’s typical how this remains true. Much less is the issue of the will to hold yourself back, but more so the will to do something. I can never remember what July feels like from year to year, but I have to believe it typically feels like this: the swirling, constant belief that you need to do something, actually thinking of quite a few things that could be done, but also believing that nothing will fill that shifting and unfocused black hole of desire. I have many associations with a hot, tense, ashamed feeling that often comes after taking a too-long, unintentional nap.
When I imagine the feeling doing something should give me, it’s never terribly profound. It could possibly be the feeling you get after having a conversation with someone you’ve been meaning to see for a while, or cooking something. A general settled feeling. A few days ago I described it as though your middle is constantly clenched, and once I find the thing that I will simply want to do, the ecstatic impulse, and know it’s been done well, I will finally be released. The thing is that I know what I need to do isn’t what I want. The ecstatic impulse needs to be created, it doesn’t just happen. It doesn’t feel profound, the knowledge of what is general maintenance for the mind. But I’ve never felt the need before to cultivate the self-discipline to feel okay.
I wish I could find a hook to pull a certain feeling out of me and that I didn’t need to rely on external things to happen. But things tend to happen anyway, and I’ve been feeling better regardless. I’ve been focusing less on the disparity between what I am feeling and what I should be feeling, and more just forcing myself– to do what exactly is unclear. Get to figuring out the shape of things? Un-intuitively make myself do something, which inevitably makes me feel the slightest bit better? Unfortunately, it seems that even when you feel that forcing doing something will make everything worse, it’s usually what you need.
I’ve found that when you force yourself, you may find yourself:
Playing upright bass in an unconditioned church classroom, lovingly contemplating “Surrey with the Fringe on Top,” but it’s in a dream sequence so it’s evil. I love music and I love community theater.
Weeks later in the car after a dress rehearsal for said community theater show feeling tears in your eyes at the mere thought of “Oh! What a Beautiful Morning,” because really, have you heard those chords? Oh, what a beautiful day.
Waiting. Attempting to pick up an order at an apparently very respected bar nearby (you’ve never heard of it,) surrounded by people just trying to get in to drink and watch sparkly eyeshadow gleam in the dim bar light and yet you’re also trying to just get in, just let me in to chauffeur this person’s reuben to the secondary location.
Wondering why there’s nothing to write about until suddenly there is.
Constantly imagining the shape of the future, never quite realizing it’s waiting to be created.
Stay safe out there, folks.
Oh what a beautiful morning! And sometimes it rlly is!!