journal excerpts, etc
reflections on winter & wounds
october 24: in a nyc thrift store trying to find my halloween costume. i stumble on a shirt from the colorado university my brother attended. it reads “we love to CU smile!” it’s always the most mundane things that have the ability to stop me in my tracks.
november 15: on a two hour bus ride by myself. the moon is incomprehensibly large. holding my backpack in my lap, caressing my own hand. it’s hard to heal a wound thats’ openness has become a comfort.
november 17: walking down a sidewalk i ambled down when i was 15. looking into lit rooms in dark houses and stopping to stare at the stars. i almost never see stars in new york city. i know that what i’ve lost will never return to me.
december 4: everytime i read eve babitz i pretend i’m going to move to la and become a different person. become someone who attends tango classes and knows how to be honest. but i’ve never been adventurous. i’d rip my fingernails off before being bold.
december 14: getting drunk at a restaurant, staring at a painting that reminds me of the “anything” album cover. burning “hillbilly elegy” on the sidewalk in upper manhattan. watching until each word is a flame. crouching down so the heat can warm my face.
december 20: i’m rushing to finish a few books before the end of the year. i continue to resent myself for not being better. i fear that trauma has made my body ill beyond repair. jeanette winterson wrote, “I thought that love was loss.”
january 10: gazing at the nearly full moon through the fog and freezing my fingers off. i continue to torment myself by refusing to wear gloves. i wonder what it would be like to start over; if i’m even capable of being something beyond what i am.
january 13: theres a line in a book i’ve never read that says “it wasn’t made for love, the house.” i feel like a haunted house.
january 16: i ruin the sincerity of my thoughts by speaking them aloud.
january 17: i’ve long thought that there are right and wrong times to read a book. i believe that when i can’t get into a book it’s because i’m meant to read it at a different time. that books come to me when i need them, whether i know it or not. everyone always says that love finds you when you least expect it. it’s unfortunate that the corny lines are always true. but maybe unfortunate is the wrong word for it.
january 19: i finally feel like i recognize my own face in the mirror. i got caught in the snow on my walk home. I miss how it felt to be ten and stand in the snow while i waited to be picked up from school. louise glück once said, “We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory.”
january 21: drinking tea and watching sex and the city by candlelight. i like the feeling of tea scalding my throat. i love watching tv shows that are set in new york city. it makes my life feel more romantic.
january 24: watching the sunset through my bedroom curtains and wondering what my life would look like if i chose a different city to live in. if i never left colorado. but then i wonder if moving to new york was even a choice. i never knew who i was before i moved here.
one of my favorite benches reads, “dedicated to new york city, where i came into my own, and central park which was a haven through it all.”