WATERMARK

How difficult it is, sometimes, moving this body from one place to
another, heavily, though thick hot air. How many decisions are made to
accomodate its needs.

There is clover in the ivy. I see those small round leaves, hiding —

small dogs
in the summer garden
    smelling everything

how they fall
    the rose petals

speaking into the emptiness, as if there were someone to hear

I’ve not been writing, I’ve not been doing morning pages, I’m dry. I’m
not sure what is blocking me — the heat — the presence of another
person in my house — things I don’t want to write about — or just the
natural cycle of rest & growth, rest & growth —

this day, then another, and another —

A dead squirrel on the path, and I am stricken, and angry. I saw J the
other night, with a slingshot — why kill things? What harm?

Bombs in Mumbai, and I struggle to understand how people are brought to
this, the slaughter of innocents, in the name of some divinity — to be
the cause of grief also too vast for me to comprehend. A world full of
wonders, and this, I suppose, is one of them — that we do such things
to one another.

D. interested in our/ her past, which seems so far to me, so vague. Are
we born, or made? It seems to me that I was just beginning then [in my
teens] — that most of who/ what I am, has come since. Are we to think
we are the products of a father’s abuse; a mother’s indifference; a
grandmother’s care — and nothing since? Perhaps we are — at least in
part — a product of our own artistry?

No?

Perhaps those who keep hold of the thread of their lives feel
otherwise; they can follow it back, see its source. But for me, long
hidden trails and turns into darkness, or brilliance. In places, the
thread is broken, or lost, or seems to belong to someone else, some
other life —

So that I begin again, and again.

I think of sitting on the floor, yarn stretched between my hands, pulled by my grandmother, rolled into a fat ball.

I’ve been tired, very solitary, very leave-me-alone. I feel that
snap-back, that release, that let-down that happens when there’s no
more demand to be present, to be chipper, to respond.

It’s heating up again. Two or three days, then some relief, then heat
again. I suspect this is what the future will be like: heat, extemes,
and surprising storms. I am filled with — weighted with — lethargy.
Even eating requires management, so I make do with pretzels and yogurt.
The rubber band has snapped; I’m limp, broken, useless.

I dream I am in a large, decrepit house. A bomb is ticking down; the
world is ending. I am on the phone with X, we want to be together at
the last moment  — his brusque, abrupt goodbye.