newest entry 2002-10-10 11:03 a.m.


Mastery of the mind leads to wisdom.

Practice meditation. Stop all vain talk.

The highest state is beyond reach of thought,

For it lies beyond all duality.

Keep repeating the ancient mantram OM

Until it reverberates in your heart.

--Amritabindu Upanishad

I had lunch with FilmThreat the other day, shortly before his departure to a new life, and spent the rest of the afternoon feeling a heavy shade of blue. I flan�d around town a little and ended up at Monkey�s office, weeping with the door closed. It wasn�t the sadness of loss, or a romantic sadness, but something expansive and instructive. The Germans probably have a word for it, but in English I guess it�s just a wistfulness at how my community is bursting apart and flinging itself all over. And with all that flinging comes the challenge of figuring out who my people really are now (and what place I occupy among them).

I have felt this way about my real family for some time. Even before my mom passed away, I could feel the centrifugal force of my kinship ties growing weaker. Then when she died (3 years ago to the day, almost), it seemed to have fallen apart for good.

Now the little family I tried to construct out of my friends is also disintegrating, with no strong leaders and a tenuous connection between constituents. This unnerves me. Who am I without a family? I have always, but always, rebelled against my family, and then as I got out into the world I rebelled a little more subtly against the pseudo-families I found myself in. Now I have to do a 180 and start preserving these relationships. Or creating new ones out of thin air. All this preservation and creation and middle-aged grief while I still feel half-baked and adolescent myself.

Anyway, after a good cry, I felt a little better, and then the next day (yesterday) I felt better than I have in ages, like someone flipped a switch and turned off �crazy, sad person� and turned on �competent person.� After months and months of depression, the world is starting to present itself to me in bite-sized, manageable chunks. It helps that my job just got about 300% busier.


I started Word Freak this morning and it's really entertaining. I love books about odd subcultures, and this is about the world of competitive Scrabble.

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