The happy place

In the library of my mind, I browse through heaps of disorded yellow scrolls, some of which seem to be made of papyrus.

I am an inexpert — but patient — librarian trying to bring some order into this dust riddled chaos, even though I am still barred from entering the “forbidden section”

Maybe one fine day…

Anyway.

These pages which crumble too, unless handed with care.

Disappear In a cloud of dust.

There are spells in there of considerable power, tricks I’ve learned throughout the years!

And so to bring order to this chaos, I will now look at one which I have seen, there is a type of warm smile I couldn’t place, but I found the memory to which it belongs, so I’ll write it down now, and sort it later.

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It was a dark late summer night, I had been drinking champagne straight from the bottle. Had been holding a beer in the other one, and a cigarette between the fingers even though I no longer smoked.

There was a company event, colleagues.

At one point a few weeks earlier, during lunch, a girl who I didn’t know, but who knew some of the others around the table, she was angry then, talking about having been bullied in school.

There was an anger in her voice, I do not remember exactly what was said, but I reacted to the strong vulgar language.

Then after a while the conversation moved into other topics, like animal cruelty or how a high carb diet was beneficial and healthy.

Meanwhile, I said nothing.

Now during the night, on this event, I saw her again standing alone by the grill from which smoke rose to the dark sky

I went to her and said

— I was bullied in school too

She looked at me then, it took a while for her to place me.

— ”I don’t think it was that bad, though…,” I continued to fill the silence in where I heard only the cracking from the fire, ”…but, I don’t remember anything”.

I think it was the first time I told anyone about the hole in my memory.

— ”are you angry at them?”, she asked

— ”yes”, I said, but I wasn’t really.

— ”I am too, I picture myself hurting them! Murdering then!”

— ”yeah, me too”, but that wasn’t true either.

— ”we’ve gotten our vindications now”, she said

Which was to say that we were both reasonably successful and well paid, having made it still somehow,

— ”that’s true”, I said.

There was a silence,

I saw her turning then to face me, and there, on her face — which had a warm orange glow from the embers — was a smile of compassion, which made me want to cry.

I smiled back, not sure what to say next, so I went to get vegan hot dogs for her, but when I came back, she was gone.

I was listening today, on my last day of work, to the Irreligious album by Moonspell. It’s my favourite one, not because the best track is on there, but rather because every single track (except Raven Claws) is 100/100

And that’s my firm conviction

My cousin, a great philosopher, he played me this album a long time ago and it blew my mind then.

It was during my most eccentric period of life, I had a green cape and green nail polish which miscoloured my nails, a green jacket, hair which was also green, cut in a Romulan fashion (from star trek of course), and green hoodie.

I don’t know why I was so strangely clothed back then, I think it may have been a natural progression of the style I adopted in high school, a rejection from a norm which I felt had rejected me. I wasn’t aware of anyone dressing like this.

Only by becoming very strange, I found a sense of self deep within.

Or something, I felt like something.

This was not to get attention, but rather a way to not disappear. Or maybe a way to seize control of my life. Or maybe a ward against ”normal” people.

So we lent this CD or a copy to the girl I was in love with at the time, she who spat in my food. I remember lending it to her because her favourite track was Raven Claws.

But this is of course all in the past, just like the job I just finished.

And I just try to navigate this life as best I can.

The hot sun behind thick gray clouds — which occasionally rain down on the tall grass from which insects rise in swarms as I go near them — shines with a pleasant warmth.

I see that the lush green apple trees have grown since spring, and I think it’s because of this tropical weather.

The first tree we planted in this orchard, when we were full of dreams, previously thought dead due to having been chewed on by roe deers, now sends its lower branches heavenward, green with life. Only the top half of its crown is dead.

And I sit inside the air conditioned room, working using the topmost of four stacked laptops (It’s the last week, then I’ll be using the one below it), feeling pretty good.

Feeling, I imagine, like the first apple tree I just described.

My wife found a dead mouse behind the door. It looked like it’d moved into a sneaker in which it spent its final breath.

Then it was thrown in the container, the sneaker repurposed as a home now finally repurposed as a casket.

Meanwhile, I was outside in the blazing sun, carpeting slowly. Sweating thirstily.

There’s now blue tarp hanging on the facades, because of renovations, so therefore I get the sense that I’m in a simulation, and there’s nothing out there.

But I know that’s not true, because the mouse is buried in a sneaker in a container outside

And out there, I feel and see the sun.

Hello again, it’s me!

I’m on the train again. A slightly older one without AC, but which has wooden panelling and blue seats.

I’m hearing the wind through the window which is slightly opened.

I am happy with a bit of melancholy mingled into it, bittersweet.

I don’t want to poke into this state of mind right now. Let’s just say that it’s a sore and it itches, but let’s not pick this scab right now, it’ll just make things worse. I think.

Sometimes strong ruthless introspection is the key to progress.

Sometimes it’s best to leave it be.

And that’s that; don’t force conclusions; life is a marathon.

I’m not hungover today, but I didn’t sleep until four, hearing the rain smattering on the roof and I was right by the ceiling

Picturing I was in a tent,

Then thinking about all the blood pumping through my body.

Five litres of blood.

Thinking that I likely have gotten rosacea on my nose through DNA

Thinking that it would help with some cortisone

Thinking that it’ll solve itself once I get back into my regular fitness routine.

All things considered: having these random pointless thoughts and being uncomfortable in a cozy type of way.

I guess that reflects my inner state of mind right now too: The rain on the ceiling.

Yes.

And now I’m going home.

I have been drinking so much coffee today that my urine looks a little bit like coffee too.

That’s why it’s half past two, but I’m still awake at my friend’s place at the loft, near the ceiling.

It used to be a bright and warm day with a big sun followed by a big almost full moon and a pleasant summer evening, but now I hear the sound of rain.

He got married today, technically it was yesterday. And it was a merry and touching event, now existing only as a memory with I will take with me to my grave. I think.

The day before the day before that one, in the evening, upon my arrival, we sat on his veranda drinking beers until it got dark, sharing a bottle of Jägermeister. It made me very drunk. I didn’t expect we’d drink the whole bottle, but we did.

Talking of this and that, smoking a pipe like two sailors.

Drinking Jägermeister.

And that night I slept like a stone

I have been feeling many emotions these days

But right now, I don’t feel anything in particular.

on my last garden party, there was a strong powerful wave of contentment stemming from seeing my friends and neighbours getting along, while I sit parked in the folding chair with one beer resting in each armrest.

I compare myself to a dog then, and I mean it in the best sense of the world.

Having a sense of belonging

Seeing people having a great time without I having to intervene

Like a fat lazy dog basking in the warmth of a budding friendship.

and I spoke to my friend exactly 666 miles from my folding chair; he’d been out with some 100 colleges of the fire brigade to extinguish a fire believed to have been caused by a faulty washing machine; some poor family’s house turned to ashen rubble overnight.

And it blows my mind how these things can happen at the same time.

These contrasts are everywhere all of the time

Of this life in this world, precious and cruel.

indifferent

And in my way, I’m sensitive now to these facts and things because I’m in the rediscovery phase in which the fundaments of my world needs to be reconstructed but the concrete needs time to harden

Or it’ll crack anew, and that I will avoid if possible

And thus the skin is extra sensitive to the undercurrents

And I have so much love to give

And I am loved

And I am no fool, I know this is precious, even more so than saffron

When I was a kid, my neighbour and I found a goat carcass in the forest.

It’d been picked clean revealing the white skull which we brought back home to my grandmother

We wanted to show it to her

Apparently it was one of her dead goats she’d pulled into the forest herself,

And we’d pulled it back, (partially)

Probably it couldn’t be buried properly in the frozen grounds, and there was no room in the freezer

She really loved her goats.

I didn’t think about it being one of her goats, it was just a skull with horns and teeth

I don’t remember how she reacted when she saw it or why we did it, but I remember the pungent stench of death on my mittens

They threw them away

firstly

I my BFF was visiting me this week; he just bought an old beat down Volvo s70 which was found in a barn; he just fixed it and drove north for seven hours to see me — that’s the type of person he is.

The colour somehow stuck in my brain because I can’t really classify it even though he says it’s maroon, but I think in such case a very plum coloured maroon. It’s just gorgeous I think, maybe the car looks like a candy or something …

When I was a kid I used to picture travelling into space and to find a new colour which nobody seen before there, on a planet without atmosphere, like on a moon I would find this new unimaginable colour

that’s what it looks like, maybe

Inside it’s beige, like a picture from one of those cassette futurism communities or something

There was something very compelling about the car.

When I open the passenger seat door, it makes the same noises I do when rising to get out.

Anyway these small sounds I think are fanfares in a way, because even though it’s not easy, the doors open and knees bend and stand straight and I stand erect and nobody said it would be easy

We took a trip with this car, called I think Betsy, to buy me a miter saw and a table saw, and I ran over a nail with the new blade

Then I sawed into some aluminium

And it was disproportionally saddening to dull such a nice new saw blade the first thing I did.

And to know that this is a type of mistake I am unlikely to learn from

I didn’t see it.

we built a pergola before celebrating in it

With some friends and neighbours

Having some friends over

Normally I would’ve invited my mother, but this year is not normal, so I didn’t

And I felt bad about not inviting her

I think people in my biological family might have been leaning on me because I always was very trustworthy and caregiving but I can’t do that no more

I think that I didn’t mean as much to them as they did to me

I think that I had made in my mind idealistic images of them which I held onto very strongly even when there was no supporting facts, but rather the contrary

I think that I did that to have something to hold on to

But now I don’t need that

I see things now as an adult

I think I was selling myself short

And it’s a terrible realisation, what does that say about me?

And what does that say about them?

Anyway

My neighbour had an interesting anecdote; they were once on a school trip to some or other old house where there was a lampshade made of human skin

And anyway I love building stuff

The sun is shining night and day. Mosquitoes hidden in the greenery are drinking my blood through straw lips to feed their families as I mind my own business.

And now I’m on the commuter train again, listening to :Wumpscut: again

”Siamese”

Niemals geboren worden zu sein, ist vielleicht der größte Segen von allen

I see the world speeding by through the window; a few red houses but mostly trees and a lake

And a great gray sky

Man, I love this place