Floating down a river
Abstract thoughts on life
“We must imagine Sisyphus happy”
Yesterday I was walking outside; no jacket, short-sleeved, smiling. My skin was soaking up the sun and for a second my heart slowed down, as did everything around me. Nothing has changed in the last few months: I still work a job to make a living, I didn’t win any lotteries and I’m surrounded by loving people. My heart is beating slower, my eyes stay closed for longer. I am rolling a boulder up a hill and I am content.
Sometimes I romanticize the dysfunctional life: chaos and unhealthy patterns— follow the rabbit straight down into hell. It’s easier than telling yourself life gets better. It’s easier than being earnest and failing at. You don’t have to blame yourself, just your flaws and past.
A few weeks ago I watched a film where everything got worse until it got better. The message: no one is entrapping us into a bad life. We lock ourselves in self-made cages and call it safety and freedom.
I’m on the verge of breaking my shackles but every time my hands lower they freeze. The cage is comfortable and warm; it has been my home since I stopped being a child.
People ask me what I want to do with my life and I feel hands on my shoulder and around my neck. I used to say that I want to be a full-time writer (and own a cafe, and a jazz bar, perhaps even a writers retreat at my big home somewhere in the italian countryside) but I stopped saying it because I don’t believe anyone believes I can do it.
Telling people your dreams is like giving them a knife hoping they won’t stab you. From now on I keep my dreams to myself, I only share them with pacifists.
I am an addict of disaster. I look at myself in the mirror every day to see if my flaws have returned. They have not. And if they do, I’ll welcome them home; give them soup and bread before sending them off their way again.
I check my bank account to make sure I don’t go broke. I count every penny I have. Money is the least of my worries but you can never be too careful. I feel like a piece of chess; like a card in a Tarot deck waiting for the Tower to sweep the rug under my feet.
Nothing bad happens in a cage. It’s safe, and there’s food and water. You’ll watch life pass you by but at least you won’t fail. Outside you’ll always get your heart broken because you’re unlovable, and no one will peel your pomegranates. The writer’s life is only meant for the rich in the cage of safety. Luck is gold, and gold is not meant for the average person.
If I believed that my heart would stop beating.
I was walking on a street, but in reality I made an exit from the cage and jumped into a river. I am floating down a stream, letting life take me home.
God, the way you crawl into my brain and borrow my thoughts. I used to wear my dreams out on my sleeve and then it hurt too much having to tell people over and over that no, actually that one had failed to happen. It also became embarrassing after a while. I say I want to be a writer and these perfect strangers I work with say “but you need to make money” as if I’m a child that needs to be gently told that Santa Claus doesn’t exist and never has.
I think we’ll prove them wrong though <3
Personally, I believe you can be a writer, because your writing already has that quality that makes people stop and pay attention. This piece made me feel something - which is exactly what good writing is supposed to do.
And what does it mean to live as a writer today anyway? The landscape is changing completely.