I’m not a good fiction writer.
To be fully honest, I’m not the greatest writer to begin with, but I’m even worse at writing fiction. I’m not telling you this so you can tell me how good I am and stroke my ego. I’m saying it cause I know it to be true and I’m thinking that putting it down on paper might make me stop struggling with it so much.
I started writing fiction about two years ago. It was a whimsical decision, not based on any other event in my life at the time. I signed up to a fiction web page, and even from day one, I could tell didn’t have it in me. I loved the idea of having written but not writing itself. When I read over my stuff afterwards, it sucked so bad that I couldn’t even begin to fix it so I’d leave it as is. I forced half the people in my life to read it and I hid it from the other half.
Here we are over two years later, and in no better shape. I’m struggling through what appears to be tidbits of my second novel, when the first one is far from completed. Its pages are collecting dust in the back of one of my drawers, alongside the research I left undone for it. I wrote the outline for this novel, last fall. The characters are nagging me constantly, making me feel bad for not sitting at the keyboard and telling their story. But each time I sit to write it, words refuse to cooperate. Bleak and two-dimensional characters exchange unemotional words. My descriptions are the opposite of vivid. It becomes so unbearable that I need to stop.
Yet I can’t let it go. I can’t stop writing. Well, in reality, I can’t stop thinking of writing. I can’t let my story go, even if it’s a stupid one, it’s my story. I want to tell it. The characters want me to tell it. In the middle of one story, I start getting ideas for another novel. Yet when I want to write a short story, all the ideas have disappeared. It’s a lose-lose game.
When people tell me that my writing shows promise, I know they are being kind and not entirely truthful. When they criticize it, I feel this awful resentment and sadness in my gut. It’s like someone ripped my heart. Neither extreme is healthy for a writer-wannabe. And I know all this.
Yet I simply cannot let it go.
Previously? Ideal vs. Ought.
“Empirical research reveals that there is a significant correlation between low self-esteem and psychological disorders and a high correlation between high self-esteem and happiness.” – Marvin Kohl in Wisdom and the Axiom of Futility
Self-esteem is an issue I’ve grappled with often in my life. When someone has it in high doses, others call him self-centered. When others lack it, they would often give up a body part to accumulate more of it.
I wonder if we’re born with high self-esteem. Is it something that our parents instill in us or is it something that comes with the genetic makeup of every individual? If we’re born with it, then that puts a lot more responsibility on the parents and environment of a child to sustain it. If it doesn’t come inherent in our genetic structure, how exactly do parents, teachers, environment, or mentors establish it?
As I kept reading the above paper, I ran into this most interesting distinction of different causes of lack of self-esteem:
“Of the many sources of low self-esteem, two are central to the present discussion. That is to say, human beings compare their behavior to at least two different kinds of expectancies which typically have become internalized standards (or selves) whose point is to guide self-regulation. These selves are the ideal self and the ought self. The ideal self is the kind of the person an individual would really like to be…The ought self is the kind of person an individual believes he or she had the duty or obligation to be?”
The distinction between the two different forces at play fascinated me. Once I saw it on paper, it was obvious but somehow I’d never made the connections before. Since I’m a list-maker, I took out my pen and paper and tried to list the influences of my two selves. Here are a few from my lists:
| ideal self
weighs less
is less messy
reads more
performs better
is kind, caring and giving
|
ought self
weighs less
knows how to cook
dresses more elegantly
has children
is tidy
|
I think it’s important to make the distinction of feeling bad cause you can’t become who you want to be and feeling bad because you’re not what others want you to be. If your list looks like mine, it has a lot more things on the ‘ought’ category than the ‘ideal’ category. Which is a good thing. It means that I have been reaching the goals I’ve set for myself and that I’m controlling the things that I can. It also symbolizes that the conversations that repeat in my head are just other people’s priorities and I really need to shut them up, which is easier now that I can easily see they are not mine.
What are some of the items in your lists?
Previously? Picky.
A week ago, I called my mom and asked her why she chose to marry my dad.
“I was sixteen,” she replied, matter-of-factly.
She went on to explain that she loved my father and in those days, people were too young to analyze it much further than that. My sister got married when she was twenty-three. Her boyfriend, who became her husband, has consistently been her best friend. So she was using more long-term criteria than my mom, but nothing too detailed.
Many of the unmarried women around me have a much more complicated set of requirements from a plausible marriage partner. To them, it’s not enough to love. It’s not enough to be best friends, either. They wonder if this man will make a good living. Is he successful? Is he patient? Does he like children? Will he make a good father? Will he be caring to her parents? Is he going to let her have her independence? Can he cook? Will he share some of the chores?
These are just some of the issues my friends raise. Not to mention the fundamentals, like physical attraction. They are twenty-seven and they have their own career, their own priorities, their own lives and the man is supposed to fit into all of that smoothly or it’s not going to work.
Which is why it doesn’t.
They either can’t find a man or won’t put up with the imperfections of the ones they do find. It seems that the longer you put it off, the more complicated marriage becomes. The older we are, the more established our lives are, the harder it is to fit the man into it. The more demanding we become, the less likely such a man exists.
What’s the right way? Do we marry in faith and with love or do we compile a list of demands and find the man who meets them all?
My opinion is that, as in most things, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. While it’s not a bad idea to make sure the man in your life is kind and caring to babies as well as you, it’s also okay to not dwell on every tiny detail. It’s really not that big a deal if he doesn’t bring you flowers every weekend. He can forget to unfold a piece of clothing. What matters still are the core things. Love, friendship, caring and having similar values.
Sometimes it’s best not to be so demanding.
Previously? Limbo.
Is there an age when the world suddenly starts falling apart?
An age when life-long friends suddenly seem to disappear?
I don’t have that many close friends. I don’t feel like I want to. For me, being a close friend in an intense experience. This is not just a friend. This is someone who is there through the thick and thin. Someone who knows you so well that, you don’t need to say anything for them to understand everything. You know what I mean. It’s all the stereotypical movie stuff.
I guess that friend for me is Jake. The one who loves me not in spite of my quirks but because of them.
Other than him, I had a few close friends. Some I met in college, some before, and some after. All are special. All have significant places in my heart.
All are starting to disappear.
As far as I am concerned, short of death or illness, there are few more awful feelings than losing a friend. One of those few, is limbo.
I hate limbo.
Limbo is when you’re still friends but you know something is wrong. Limbo is when you start thinking whether it’s a good time before you make each call. Limbo is when you are reading into each word so much that conversations start losing meaning. Limbo is when some of the calls get returned and others don’t. Limbo is when you alternate among acting nonchalant, sad and angry. Limbo is when you stop being yourself. Limbo is when you want to grab her and shake her until whatever it is, is gone, but you can’t.
Limbo is when you know it’s dying.
Limbo is what I’m going through with two of my close friends. The uneasy calls. The paranoia. The unusual politeness. Not knowing what’s going on. Feeling scared, lost and angry all in one. Desperate to do the right thing. To stop the inevitable.
I don’t know why it’s happening now. Is there something about growing up?
Is it really possible to have the friendship that the books and movies display? Can you really have a friend who’s normal and has her own family and life and yet is there for you each time you need her? Is it possible to have a great family, husband, children, career and a best friend? Or is it more realistic to assume that you have a friend to hang out and chitchat with but nothing all that deep?
Maybe it’s time to accept that life is not the movies and not a fairy tale. In life, we have friends that come and go. In life we have limbo. Maybe it’s time to let go.
I can’t imagine it will hurt as much as limbo.
Previously? Hedonism.
Today was another Monday, and such, another happiness day.
I’m still struggling with this class. I must say that I don’t like the lack of tangible reality in philosophy. But I do enjoy the mental tug-of-war. Here’s an interesting issue that came up in today’s class.
The passage below outlines a problem Professor Robert Nozick presented.
Nozick is concerned that if we accept hedonism, we will loose sight of those aspects of life which are most important to us; namely, what kind of person we want to be and what kind of life we want to live. In order to illustrate this problem, Nozick imagines a science-fiction type story in which it is possible to plug our brains into machines which would provide us with any kind of experiences we could possibly desire. It is very important to note, here, that Nozick’s experience machine produces experiences of such perfect clarity that we cannot tell the difference between these experiences and reality. Therefore, says Nozick, there is no reason why we would not “plug in” to an experience machine. [ source ]
The teacher gave us the above setting and asked us whether we’d choose to be plugged in to this machine or not.
No? Come on! Here’s a machine that will make you feel like you’re getting all that you desire, are you sure you don’t want to take it?
Well, Nozick claimed that people would not want to be hooked up to this machine. The above-linked article goes on to say “[ Nozick says that] we are concerned with more than just our experiences of pleasure or pain (or any other experiences, in fact); not only do we want to experience things, we want to do things and be a certain way. Nozick contends that we would not be happy if we were plugged in to an experience machine because we would know that we are not actually doing the things we experience.”
So, if I understand it correctly, he claims that having pleasure come to us without our doing anything isn’t what humans want. Does that mean that part of the pleasure is accomplishing something or achieving in the face of adversity? I can’t put words in Nocik’s mouth but I must agree that I wouldn’t want to be plugged in either.
As far as I am concerned, if I agree to be plugged into this machine, I am agreeing to give up who I am as I know it. I am choosing delusion over reality. Even the certainty of positive delusions doesn’t convince me to give up reality. Artificial is artificial no matter how pleasant. The idea of exchanging fake for real sounds creepy to me. How could I consciously choose to stop being me?
After the class agreed that most of us wouldn’t hook up to this pleasure machine, the teacher put a twist on the scenario. Imagine, he said, you’re an Ethiopian suffering from starvation and disease, would you now agree to be hooked up? Some people nodded. It seems there is a limit to human suffering where delusion becomes way more desirable than reality. I assume it’s correlated to the amount of lost hope. Maybe even the helplessness that usually leads to extreme measures such as suicide.
Long after the class is over, I’m still thinking about the question. Still trying to properly pinpoint the reasons behind my extremely strong instinct not to agree to be hooked up. Which, once again, proves to me that this is indeed an interesting class. Even if it’s thoroughly frustrating.
What’s your answer? Would you choose the pleasure machine?
Previously? TV.
I’ve been meaning to write.
Wednesday, I came home and stared at the TV.
Thursday, I fasted all day so I spent half of my day watching TV and the other, sleeping.
Today, it’s 9pm and I just got home from Japanese class and I am worn out, tired and my back is exploding with pain.
So you can see that I’ve accomplished a tremendous amount in the last three days. And since I’ve had absolutely no intellectual input, it’s been hard to produce output.
October is going to be a long month for me. I have applications to fill, essays to write, homework to do, a novel to keep writing, a short story to rewrite and another to write from scratch, GMAT to take, two volunteer jobs to maintain, not to mention my actual paying job. Each time I sit down to make a list, it gets so big that I just turn on the TV and watch it till it’s time to sleep.
Of course, my back’s acting up again doesn’t help matters much.
The good news is that much will change after October. The applications will be finished, the essays and the GMAT will be completed. The novel? Well, the novel will probably still have a long way to go. Come January, things will be even further resolved because I will have received many of the answers.
In the meantime, I need to tear my face away from the TV, try and forget the piercing pain, and do what must be done.
So my writing may suffer in quality (and I will not entertain jokes on how it never had any and all that crap) or it might be intermittent and I apologize in advance. Right now it seems crucial to make sure I can accomplish the goals that will ensure my future and do them well, without affecting my health more. All right, enough cheese. I just got work to do. That’s all.
If anything, this entry should make you happy that I’m not writing more often.
I must stop now, the Tivo is calling my name.
Previously? Pursuit of Happiness.
Mondays at 3:45 I was supposed to take a class in Introduction to Theories of Learning. I thought the psychology class would give me a little insight into education theories, but obviously others didn’t. I got a call on Thursday to inform me that the class was cancelled.
Since I cannot not take a class, I went through the catalogue and picked the only other class offered at the same time. Another psychology course: Pursuing Happiness. Actually it’s a mixture of psychology and philosophy. As part of the teacher’s survey of the students, he asked us to write our theory of happiness on the back of an index card.
He said that, in his opinion, everyone has a theory on happiness, on what makes someone happy, what we need to do to be happy. He claimed that people develop this very early on and internalize it. So I thought about mine.
I’ll tell you what I wrote on the index card. My theory of happiness is that for a person to be happy, first the ‘big’ things have to be in place. The big things are: health, financial security, physical safety, etc. You might have other big things or consider some of the ones I mention as not important, but this is my list, so I’m talking about mine.
I think that if you’re not healthy, it becomes very difficult to appreciate other aspects of life. Yesterday, I threw out my back and have been in acute pain since, and it has overshadowed all other good things in my life.
Assuming the big things are in place, happiness is celebrating the little things. Most major accomplishments take time, so it’s crucial to notice and celebrate minor accomplishments. Happiness is noticing details and appreciating life’s little delights. Happiness is accepting others as they are. And accepting yourself as you are while trying to better yourself according to your own standards. It’s minimizing the stumbling blocks while maximizing the celebrations of good events. Knowing that life is not a means to an end, but a journey.
That’s what I wrote, give or take a few words.
I’ve been thinking about it since the class. What makes people happy? There are fatalistic theories of life is life and we let it work without struggling too much. Then there are others who believe that life is what you make it and you create your own happiness or lack thereof.
Some people say money makes them happy, but often, those people spend their whole life making the money and no time enjoying it. Do they just like to say they have it or are they doing it as a means to an end? The problem with having big goals (like being rich) is that they are often not well defined (how much money exactly) and they take too long to achieve. What makes me happy often is having a sense of self-accomplishment and self-growth, being loved, loving, and being hugged.
I don’t exactly know what my theory of happiness is, I’m still working on developing it. Maybe this class isn’t going to be so useless after all.
What’s your theory of happiness?
Previously? Thirteen.
It’s been thirteen days.
Thirteen.
It doesn’t feel right. When I think of that Tuesday morning, it feels like just yesterday. I’m still dazed and confused as if it were yesterday. I’m still numb and awe-struck as if it were yesterday. I’m still unable to work and function as if it were yesterday. I’m still as confused and frustrated as if it were yesterday.
On the other hand, the Monday before feels like centuries away. The team meeting we had on the eleventh seems so far away that I can’t recall any parts of our conversation. I can’t remember what I did on that Monday. I can’t remember what I wore or what I ate. It feels like a hazy part of my past life, not like only a fortnight ago.
When I walked down to the corner of Broadway and Cedar on Thursday, I was amazed at effect of the layers of dust on the surrounding buildings. The area gave a feeling of having been untouched for months, or maybe even years. As if an area time forgot. If it weren’t for the workmen, ambulances, and the smoke, I’d have bet it was a site preserved from a historical past. As is, it looked more like a film set than real life.
   
Two days ago, Jason aimed me to see if we were interested in going to the prayer service in the Yankee stadium with Shannon and him. I’m not religious and Jake’s even less religious than I am so I hesitated.
I wasn’t sure about the details of the event and thought being in the same place as hundreds of other New Yorkers might help me. I’ve been having a lot of trouble coming to grips with what’s going on. I’ve had a hard time crying. Or feeling in general. I thought being surrounded by others might allow me to grieve.
After confirming with Jake, I told Jason we’d go.
  
  
One side of the stadium spilled with people and the other was completely barren. The home base was covered with flowers and the pitching mound had been converted to a snapshot of the American flag. People were wearing pins and waving flags. Representatives of every religion sat on the L-shaped podium set up in the middle of the field. President Clinton and the New York senator, the governor, the mayor, they were all present. Many people gave inspired speeches. Reassuring the crowd that America was indivisible and that we would rise more powerful from this than before. I choked up several times, but I still didn’t cry.
Many representatives of several religions talked about God watching over us and the victims being proud of us, and God protecting us. While some were good speakers, I would lie if I told you that their words influenced me as strongly as the ones of the mayor and, ironically, Oprah. But only two things brought out my tears today: singing of the National Anthem and, much to Jake’s dismay, Bette Midler’s singing of Wind Beneath My Wings.
It’s been thirteen days.
I still haven’t really wept. I still can’t believe my eyes when I stare at the void in the sky. I still haven’t digested any of it. It doesn’t feel like thirteen days. On one hand it feels like one hour and on the other it feels like it’s been years.
But not thirteen days.
Previously? Two Hours.
A friend of my mother’s sent me a presentation on using one’s time wisely. The presentation was okay and had some interesting points, and some obvious ones. About twenty slides into the show, a question caught my attention.
If you had two extra hours every day, what would you do with them?
My first instinct was, “I’d write my novel.” I’ve been trying to write this novel for the last year and it’s definitely not progressing as quickly as I would like it to. Having left the other one incomplete, I’m scared this book will face the same fate and I really don’t want it to.
But then I realized that I put off writing my novel cause it’s so hard. It requires a lot of my energy to get it all on paper and I tend to put it off until the last minute, so if I had an extra two hours everyday, I doubt I’d actually spend them on my novel.
My next answer was “I’d read.” Another bottomless pit. No matter how much I read, there are always more books to read and I continuously wish for more time. I have a minimum of eight books checked out from the library at any one time and I simply cannot go through them fast enough. Reading was definitely a valid choice for me.
The more I thought about the question, the more I wondered the answers. I wondered what I did with the twenty-four hours I get each day. Don’t get me wrong, I maximize my time a lot. In a week, I manage to volunteer in two places, work in an investment bank, take six classes, read two books, write my novel and at least another essay or short story, see a movie, watch twenty hours of TV, write my site at least five times, and sleep a minimum of eight hours. I am not worried that I’m not getting enough done, I’m just curious how many hours of my day each task takes. And if I had two more hours, what would be the best task for me to do?
Hang out with friends more, I think. Most of my friends are just as busy as I am and we rarely seem to see each other as often as we say we want to. If we all had two extra hours, maybe it’d be easier to find the time to meet.
I guess I’m better at making a list of things I wouldn’t do with the extra hours. I wouldn’t work or sleep. I wouldn’t sit on the couch and watch TV. I wouldn’t exercise.
The question of what I would do is hard to answer cause I like to do so many things and my list of to-dos never ends. Actually, it never even goes below fifteen items. So another two hours would maybe allow me to keep my list at thirteen items or eleven if I wanted to be optimistic. Which shows me that I am bad at this as I would not appreciate the two added hours as much as I should.
I wonder how many hours would have to be added before I just can’t think of anything more to do. Since I adore reading, I venture to say that the answer would be infinite. There aren’t enough hours you can add to my day.
I think that says a lot of not so great things about me or my lifestyle, but for now, I am choosing not to concentrate on that too much. Instead, I’m going to go and use the next three hours of my day on a dinner and a movie.
What would you do with an extra two hours each day?
Previously? Normal.
“New York City is getting back to normal,” they say. “We really need to get back to the normal,” I hear repeatedly.
Yesterday morning, I took the subway down to the financial district. The train slowed down considerably after Brooklyn Bridge and didn’t even stop on Wall Street. But it did stop on Whitehall, my exit. As we exited the subway, cops told us to go right. What’s usually a hectic street was completely closed off except for a tiny portion of the sidewalk down which we marched like school kids on a museum trip.
As soon as we reached the end of the sidewalk, people rushed into their buildings where another set of cops checked our bags and ids. I pressed the elevator button for the 37th floor, trying to fight back the terrible scenarios that my overactive imagination played. At work, I find out that the stupid virus has caused the firm to shutdown all their internet connections. After I stare at my computer for eight dazed hours, I take a company shuttle up a completely empty FDR drive.
We’re getting back to normal, the words echo in my mind.
Today, the subway driver announced right after Fulton that they planned to make the Wall Street stop. I contemplated getting off, but figured walking around Fulton street would be more horrifying then being patient. The train slowed to a stop for a split second and the lights flickered. On a regular day, this is a common occurrence and besides being annoyed at not getting to read my book, I don’t think twice. Today, I felt like jumping up and hollering for them to move the damn train.
An hour after I get to work, we start hearing loud bangs. All the employees stare at each other uneasily, each afraid to say the words out loud. We still have no net access and therefore cannot check CNN. We rely solely on the firm notifying us of any news. The bangs come and go intermittently for a few hours. I feel sick to my stomach and decide to take a walk.
We’re getting back to normal.
They have opened most of the streets, so I pace up Wall Street and ignore the drizzling rain. I stop in front of the stock exchange to stare at the enormous flag covering the building. My passport might not say so, but I feel American. Even though the rain is getting stronger and my friends advise otherwise, I continue up Broadway. I need to see it, I think to myself. It’s important that I do this.
I reach the corner of Cedar and Liberty. Just like fifty others, I stare. The smoke coming out of the ground, the air tasting thick and bitter. I stare at the hole, the cemetery adjacent to the street and the church right next to that. I look at the broken windows in what used to be Jake’s workplace. People behind me comment on another building and how it looks like it’s expanded in the middle and skewed all over. “Is it an optical illusion?” the man asks. “No, that’s the building they kept saying was going to crumble, but it didn’t. I think it’s damaged, I can’t imagine people can work there again,” the woman replies.
Getting back to normal.
I take out my aiptek and start shooting pictures. For the last week, this has all felt unreal. As if it was a CNN special. I’ve been trying to cry, trying to understand, trying to believe. I see the posters all over my neighborhood, the flags on every building, store and person. I hear the hope, withering away. I walk around like a zombie. I stare at the street I stood in every Thursday morning and wonder if it will ever be open again. I look at the names and faces on the posters. People whose only fault was to get to work on time and to help out others. My stomach knots but my eyes are dry. My tears which flood during even a Goldie Hawn movie are refusing to cooperate.
Back to normal.
I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know if it’s over or just beginning. I don’t know whether to worry about myself or my family in Turkey. I don’t know how many more days I can take the subway. I don’t know how much more CNN I can watch. I don’t know when I will finally break down. I don’t know what this is. But I know what it isn’t:
Normal.
Previously? The Big Prize.
The New School Drama School has a very popular program called Inside the Actor’s Studio. Yesterday’s show was a rerun with the guest as Kevin Spacey.
During the last ten minutes of the show the audience, students, are given ten minutes to ask the guest questions. One of the students asked Kevin what he recommended the students do as they launch into their acting career. He said something along the lines of “what advice do you have for us for the road while we work to reach the prize.” Okay, so I don’t remember the exact words, but trust me they were something like that. The question doesn’t matter, anyway, the answer does.
Kevin Spacey said, “There is no prize.” He went on to say many more pithy words that I can not recall. But the first sentence stayed with me.
I spent the last decade of my life trying to reach a prize. A collection of prizes. Getting into college in the United States, graduating with two degrees, securing a job, and my green card. I had so many goals and plans that my friends thought it was impossible to reach them all. But I did. I kept thinking that I had no other choice.
I’ve read and repeated many of those “don’t worry about the past or future but concentrate on today” quotes. I know that the past is past and the future is anyone’s guess. But still. I couldn’t stop making plans. Until a year ago, I worried that unless I thought about my future, it would never happen. All I needed to do was keep my eyes on the prize and I was sure to earn it.
And I did. I earned them all. I got to come here, I graduated with honors, I got my green card, I even got to work part time when I decided I wanted more than a job. I found myself, at twenty-six, without a prize to work towards. I had collected all the so-called prizes and there weren’t any more. None that I cared to have, at least.
It took me more than a decade to realize the four little words Kevin used. Life is not about prizes. Each day is a prize. Each smile, each hug, each touch, each sunrise and sunset. I know it sounds cheesy, but it really is true. Don’t get me wrong, I am proud of my accomplishments. I consider my degrees and my green card to be major prizes, but I also recognize that they don’t fulfill you in the way you think they will. A green card doesn’t suddenly make you stop worrying. It only makes you stop worrying about getting a green card. There is no ultimate prize that makes everything perfect.
My friend Eric’s favorite quote was, “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making plans.” I’m a planner, it’s not possible for me to stop it, but it is possible for me to not create mock prizes. It is possible for me to recognize the value of little daily things. It is possible for me to appreciate the journey. To start paying attention.
And I intend to.
Previously? Safe.
“Yes, thank you. We’re alive and okay.” I write in another one of the many emails I sent this week.
I’m not complaining. Many friends and relatives have popped out of the blue to ask us how we were doing and I am thankful for their concerns. This is not about how popular I am; it’s about the contents of the emails. The words I type and then erase in each letter.
I always start to type “We’re alive and safe.” But then I delete the last word. It doesn’t ring true. Yes, I am alive and my back, neck, and jaw might be in excruciating pain, but none of it matters compared to the fact that I’ve survived. So I don’t whine about my health. I am thankful.
But I don’t feel safe. I haven’t felt safe since Tuesday morning. For the first few days, I was scared to leave my apartment. And then, we went out and took a long walk. I wanted to get as close as possible to downtown. We walked twenty blocks south to Union Square but couldn’t go farther. On Friday, we met a few fellow New Yorkers. The feeling of unease never left me.
On Saturday, we went to the movies. As Keanu Reeves taught several kids how to play baseball, I kept thinking a bomb was going to fall into the theater. What if? I kept asking myself. What if a bomb fell? I had no idea of course. I have no idea. Deep down I know that the chances of a bunch of terrorists bombing my local movie theater are highly unlikely, if not ridiculous, yet I can’t get the thought out of my mind.
Today, I walked into a high-rise: a work building in midtown Manhattan. As I rode the elevator to the seventeenth floor, alone, negative thoughts overloaded my mind. I have never suffered from anxiety attacks, but today I got as close to one as I ever remember.
It’s been almost a week since the awful day. I’ve accomplished pretty much nothing in the last week, unless watching CNN can be considered an achievement. In the last two days, I’ve read a most amazing work of non-fiction about the trials and triumphs of twelve gifted inner-city school students. Their stories are inspiring, disappointing, heart wrenching, uplifting and educational. The writing is captivating and flows effortlessly. I have enjoyed the book thoroughly and learned a tremendous amount. And I’m thankful for the few hours of distraction it gave me.
But I don’t think I can feel safe again for a long time. I know this isn’t over. I know it barely began. I’m worried about the rest. I’m worried, each night I go to bed, about the world that might wait for me when I wake.
Yes, I am alive, for now. But I am far from safe.
Previously? Motion.
|
projects for twenty twenty-six
projects for twenty twenty-five
projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
|
