When I take this photograph of a paper towel, I am thinking how this is not a “good” photograph and how one might talk about the large amount of negative space in the center and lower left part of the image. I also think of how the image is only … Continue reading
I have been off all social media lately, only popping in a few times to briefly say something. My phone buzzes with fewer notifications now that I deleted many apps, even ones I thought I could not live without. My days feel more peaceful and my eyes turn to the space in which I live, seeing more what has meaning to me and what does not.
In the last year, I have come to see that openmindedness and tolerance for others’ opinions is nonexistent (or nearly so) among my family, both among those who are close and even more so among those who are of my extended family. The derision, condescension, and hostility is so great when taken together as a whole that I am left to question myself, to question whether I am similarly affected.
Often as a writer I pour over whether what I am writing is something that should command any attention. I reach out for the ethereal words to grasp them from the semi-opaque vapors in my mind that pass for thoughts, trying earnestly to say something significant. It is nearly inexpressible how I often feel that this is an exercise in futility: I can never say it well enough. It will fail, I fear… I believe. I even wrote an untitled poem back in early March that I posted on my personal Instagram (@prramer) that spoke to this feeling of inevitable failure at words.
I don’t have the answers. I never will. Perhaps there are no answers. Perhaps that is what we are supposed to learn in life, if we are wise.
Those who treat leaving one’s former faith as shallowness, cowardice, or a desire to live lasciviously simply do not understand what it is like. They can only see that you “gave up.” They were not there to feel what it was like to be adrift with no rudder, no sails, and no anchor, having lost all that you thought was real, to be left hopelessly without answers.
I have been taking more walks these days. First it started as a way to cope, a return to a method of disconnecting from stress that I had relied on many a weekend when I lived in Monterey. Now it is seeming to become a meditative time I spend between classes or during long breaks.
Today, I took a walk to nowhere in particular, allowing myself to go wherever and through or around any building on campus. I encountered a fellow student I had not seen in while, who mouthed “Hi” and gave me a smile as we passed among others along a crosswalk. I listened to the sounds of people and cars for themselves. I meditated on the sensations of my feet, walking in the snow just to feel it crumble beneath them. I watched students board a bus as though it were the scene from a film. And I touched surfaces just to experience their texture.
Today I emerge from the tunnel. I sought a hope and failed. Now I acknowledge I have no control and accept my failure.
This time was not as bad as the the last one. Only three months had I spent this time compared to the six months the time before. My speed at discernment is increasing: I no longer hope against the hopelessness and wait. I allow for deficiencies, but once the pattern is set, I cease to believe.