Layers

[greenstorm]

It seems to me fall and early winter have more memories than any other time of year. I can feel them around me today: the past shellacked into clear layers that get only slightly murkier as they recede in time. Today and last night so many of them are crowding around; I suppose the first night I sleep with the windows basically closed and the heat on is such a visceral feeling that things that happen in association with it sink in.

Climbing out of bed happens in stages; it's a sensory experience, coming up out of the warm womb of the covers and into the cooler embrace of the room's; stepping outside is the same again but more, a transition from almost-chilly to the slap of cold and goosebumpy prickles on my arms.

It's dark out earlier and later, and the air carries sound differently. The angle of the sun is greater so there are long, long shadows for so much of the morning. They always slant past my windows instead of in through them. The birdsong stands out as a strong textural element in the air.

That's not what I wanted to write about. I wanted to write that I am queen of ambivalence.

I remember first becoming sharply aware of the difference between ambivalence and words such as 'uncertain' or 'indifferent' on a sunny day at my permaculture course; a friend was talking about how he was ambivalent about a girl-- he both really wanted her and he really didn't. He lived at the extremes without inhabiting the middle ground in between.

I also live at the extremes. I am certain about every contradictory thing at once. I want things that are certainly at odds with each other, and I want them at the same time. This may be merely human, a desire to pick and choose my consequences, but in me it may go a little further.

I find myself gravitating towards situations that are inherently contradictory in nature, or if they are not innately so I will find a way to inject ambivalence into them. When presented with something that is clear and sure, I will often run in the other direction.

I was going to talk about the particular situations I find myself in right now; I was going to write them down in plain English and see if they felt just as heartbreaking here as they do to me from the inside. I was going to say, 'see, this is what I go after, and I have so many options for surety and safety and comfort and I choose to tear myself apart'.

I'm not going to do that now. Something fell apart in my head when I was describing fall; all those years and this, too, will one day be a footnote in my history and so no matter how much I care about it now any entry would just be another slew of words that I may never revisit.

Ambivalence? Maybe I'll allow myself to lapse, just briefly, into apathy. I'll drink tea and nurse my cold and the world will still be there when I come back to it.

Comments

[rogue-priestess.livejournal.com]

I like that the autumn sun has a decidedly amber hue to it; everything it touches looks bathed in sunset, no matter the time of day. The edges and lines of everything are sharper, too, not overexposed like during the spring and summer.