paradoxical sentiments

I type this with mazzy starr’s she hangs brightly in my ears through cheap headphones, moody and incandescent, with the sting of gin and bitters on my tongue. writing does not come as natural to me as it once did, hence the drink, hence the soundtrack. I close my eyes and I think maybe the muscle memory will kick in. I pray it will

I wrote a lot about it once, but I haven’t in awhile. about how I miss this old practice of putting my brain and heart on display for mostly a bunch of strangers on the internet. how cathartic it was to share and uncover, for myself, who I am, and who I am becoming, in the process

I don’t write much these days, at least not like this. ironic, of course: I write all the time. I write for a living, but when was the last time I wrote for me? in a journal? on my blog? people laugh when they hear me talk about my blog, like a relic of the past in more ways than one. every couple of months, I head to a bookshop and buy a fresh moleskine, same as I did back then. a promise to rediscover a practice that once defined my entire being, a promise wholly unfulfilled

some of the last things I wrote about, a handful of years ago, were about trauma and memory. I think about this almost every day, still. I made this blog more than ten years ago as a very different person. I am out of my body when I remember that person. I barely know that person. it emotionally brings me to my knees to remember how small, feeble, unsure she was. I am different today in many ways, but not necessarily more sure of anything

first I want to unpack the relationship between trauma and memory as it manifests in my own life, and it manifests more often these days than it used to. I never like thinking about this, let alone writing about it, because it sounds so symptomatic and silly. and yet

there is a year of my life that is a gray fog, it is very heavy, and it sits over everything that happened to me for twelve whole months. I remember bits and pieces. I remember still images, but I can’t piece the images together into a cohesive narrative that explains how it all happened. I remember: sitting on the cool floor of a hospital emergency room (no, this wasn’t the psychiatric hospital - that was something else entirely and the floors were carpeted), my mother is lying on a bed beside me and my arm is on her leg and I am probably crying, or was moments before. I think we are here because I called an ambulance on my mother when she threatened to kill herself for the second or third time that summer, but I don’t remember riding in an ambulance so I don’t know how I got to the hospital. I don’t remember a voice at the other end of the phone line, and I don’t remember what any of the words that were exchanged

there are so many memories like this. less like memories, more like pictures. less like pictures, more like dreams

and then there is the rift between the person I was before everything happened, and the person I am now. my experiences between ages 17-18 altered me so deeply that I look at my old self as a stranger, I recognize her like an old friend or a person I knew, but not a person I was. nostalgia for my own former life is like reliving a vacation that someone else took, that I only heard about, or saw a photo album. this is how it feels when I look back at my old pictures that predate 2011-2012

the shift that is happening now is a remembering. I am suddenly, without warning, and for no explainable reason, flooded with memories/pictures/dreams from before everything happened. usually the pictures are from the trauma, or of the trauma, but I don’t remember the last time that I remember something from prior -- not really. in the last few days, I remember:

JP’s house in Rye, the softness of the mattress in his bedroom and the always-white sheets, falling asleep for an impromptu nap after school, and waking up to a door knock by his mother, who came bearing snacks. his shelf of records, especially the Velvet Underground and Is This It by the Strokes (how did he get his hands on the alternative cover?), watching him cook entire boxes of Kraft mac and cheese but I forget whether I helped him eat some

the interior of bunk ten at camp, where the showers were so narrow and we were generally only permitted to spend two minutes at a time, that was when I learned how to shower quickly and also how to truly consider the time and space of everyone around me. my quilt was pink with different patches, and I was still in the habit of collecting too many stuffed animals at the foot of my bed. my clothes were meticulously folded in a cube-shaped structure. more places and faces from camp: canteen, the outdoor services, the rec hall, our unit heads, my friends

the synagogue that saw me grow up, I guess, the once-purple carpet that was later renovated to a deep forrest green. I stood at the top of the steps once a week and practiced my torah portion, age 12, feeble voice, learning to be strong but without a single clue what strong meant yet, wouldn’t know for a long time. didn’t know to hold onto that ignorance, but grasped it loosely for years regardless. the weight of the torah in my arms when we practiced handing it down from father, to mother, to me

exciting news - dave and I booked a trip to Spain next month! we will be in Barcelona and Valencia for 8 days

please share any and all recommendations - art to see, parks to visit, best beaches, what to drink, and um mostly food is what I’m after really (to no one’s surprise)

tell me who to follow?

art, film, writing, photography, quotes, personal accounts, what have you

sprucing up my dashboard should help

I’m finally making a website

maybe a new blog too?