This morning I find myself sitting to the right of a wall consisting primarily of bamboo stalks, although there is also an astonishingly large and successful avocado plant directly behind me, all twisted and up-looking. I say that 'I find myself' here, because I think it's probably the first time in two weeks that I have been able to really, with feeling, locate myself—the last two handfuls of days have felt, more or less or more, like this piece of letter written by the composer Tchaikovsky in the spring of 1870:
'I am sitting at the open window (at four a.m.) and breathing the lovely air of a spring morning… Life is still good, [and] it is worth living on a May morning… I assert that life is beautiful in spite of everything! This “everything” includes the following items: 1. Illness; I am getting much too stout, and my nerves are all to pieces. 2. The Conservatoire oppresses me to extinction; I am more and more convinced that I am absolutely unfitted to teach the theory of music. 3. My pecuniary situation is very bad. 4. I am very doubtful if Undine will be performed. I have heard that they are likely to throw me over.'
There are four parts of it that adhere to me personally:
1. The being up at open windows in the earliest hours of the morning.
2. Nerves are all to pieces (then on the days when you do find your nerve, it looks and feels suspicious).
3. The sense that one is being thrown over.
4. The part where you must continue to believe with an unwavering certainty that life is awfully beautiful in spite of everything.
It's true that things—people, planet, the particulars—are something of a great mess at the moment, and I suppose I bring this up in the hope that you will be able to recognise and perhaps lean into your own small turmoil. I don't think that much (or indeed any) good comes from denial, and in that regard feeling is always better than un-feeling, but my goodness, my goodness is this life-like madness impossible sometimes.
So today, I think that while you should certainly learn about and lean into the discomfort and the inevitable, variably-sized chaos, you should also let yourself, your soul, lie down.
SEE ALSO:
This short and wonderful (relevant) memoir by Marina Benjamin.
THIS WEEK I FELL IN LOVE WITH:
The Art Institute of Chicago, and their announcement concerning the release under the Creative Commons Zero license of over fifty thousand paintings and artworks, which can now be gazed upon and scrolled through in high resolution forevermore. Below: Kay Sage, Henry Ossawa Tanner, André Kertész, Carleton Watkins, Vija Celmins.
I think that's probably quite enough for one day. I'll keep the rest of the maybe-sentences tucked under arms, let you decide what, if anything, the ending is.
Copyright © 2018 Ella Frances Sanders, All rights reserved.