incandescence

30 Jul 2024

those videos i mentioned went away a lot quicker than even i thought; i guess it was easy to disappear them than to let them simmer as reminders, but it's still a loss i guess. i don't want to belabor it, i just need to do.

that's maybe the only thing i've actually learned, is just to come forth with something, anything, as another dot connection. it doesn't matter if it's perfect, because it never will be if you pay too much attention to every way it moves—even if that's still something i need tons of work on to get over.

speaking of, since i have an idea for this but don't know yet where to take it, you (whoever) should check this out. it's infuriatingly odd and i found it out through tiktok, but who cares; it's still interesting and such a weird lane in how broad and theoretically pointless math can be. i'm sure there's some use somewhere, but packing unit squares feels like a mathematician's vacation hobby (not derogatory).

and i also don't know what to do with a recent day trip i made to niagara falls. coming from cincinnati meant it was a lot of driving, and i found a home to put the pictures at least, but it was a half-empty set of experiences. i don't think i'll fully internalize it all for a while.

driving through the night was calming among all the semis to some capacity, as much as the high wore off by the time i had been in new york for twenty miles. and even if i struggled to feel like what i was doing meant something, or how people would talk about it when i got back, i've been greeted by the fact that, in the moment, i was blissfully half-lucid and content despite underlying nausea with myself and my past, and as i got back—after the mild headaches from sleep deprivation waned—i was met with... nothing.

no words for myself, no further thoughts, no received words or opinions or hands either, and a profound fogginess in clarity that quickly overshadowed the whole trip. i'm almost in awe that so little of what made the trip enjoyable has stuck. listening to candy claws' ceres & calypso in the deep time through such a strange intersection of intense beauty in nature and the monolithic messes built around it should've lasted a lot longer—in the moment it was a dreamy purgatory, but without all the anxiety. afterwards it has become a stain because of how it all played out. nothing went wrong, but nothing went right. it was a blip, and that's the most it could ever be.

maybe i wanted it to mean something more, maybe i just wanted a new reason to talk with people, and maybe the dippin dots were just too good on the walk back to the gift shop. and i'm not sure how it fits into my drive to connect through disconnection, to 'leave' but keep the connections that matter most to me, and make new ones but far from here—because as much as it feels storybook, i never do it. it's what sounds good but i never fall into. instead i just visit the niagara falls library to admire the one interesting addition to the landscape of concrete without uttering a word. except a few back to the security guard when i tried dodging the exit door scanners.

and when i came back with a different resolve, fell back into the (warranted) cycle of work and this, something felt different, or at least unforeseen. maybe it did change something, just not in the way i expected it to. i still move similarly, yet the fuzziness in turns and shaky patterns have kept giving way more to careful flux and in-body acumen, instead of the other way around. still, emotions ran hotter and hotter until i nearly broke down while putting away science books for kids in a delightfully dreary library. i don't even know why. nothing happened. something felt misplaced, even in the midst of what felt like positive swing.

then a coworker came in and she brought up the book i took in with me, a tree grows in brooklyn. i had just minutes prior given up on listening to music to 'calm' myself, since it became a chore, the playlist i rely on becoming horridly repetitive. and it completely flipped me. it wasn't even a particularly interesting conversation i don't think, but it was shockingly animate.

maybe that's all i wanted. common interest or experience is a wonderful thing, and an insane drive. i wanted to ask another coworker about her time there and how it had worked out, and i still might, but i already know the conversation about a book i'm not even a third of the way through will mean more. i already want to stay there. i don't need to know. i just need to reciprocate what i want too. that's all that's worth changing after the trip. no one knows unless i sound it out, which is how i like it a lot of the time; i'm not confrontational, and i fear replies that invalidate something i admire, i am, i relate to. but picking and choosing is still a lot more fun than being an open book. i know the balance is off, but i'm getting closer.