letter 4

I was asked to write.

Shift room- I’m hours off a normal conversation. The last well wishes have now dissipated into the haze of monitor beeps and the flicker of a bathroom light. It’s a quiet one- I can type that and pray no one reads it out loud. It’s bad to predict the future. Expectations are often exceeded so it’s best to keep everything down. Stasis, that still peace that settles in- like when you’re on an airplane with the destination coming soon- but not yet. Limbo; invincible and vulenerable at once.

What do we do in times like these?

Recently I find it hard to breathe in fully- something has settled in my ribs. A light dread that pools and sticks to the walls of my throat. Begging for a hand to reach through me and wring it out. Maybe it’s stress- or rather it’s anticipation. Facing off with something hard to swallow. I’m looking at a future I didn’t expect to like. The strange feeling of liking something you wish to hate. Recently, through work and exposure, I’ve been reflecting on how much I don’t know. How can you remember so much yet know so little?

I’ve been finding it harder to write in abstractions. Life has been too practical and intact. I think in conversations, plan with action in mind. It has made me less anxious. Everything feels vivid and real. It feels true.

I feel as if I have been moving too fast to write. Lately, I have been more like a migrating animal-on my feet for hours, eating in the company of others. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking, rather it feels like I have let things, I would’ve once held onto, go. The thoughts are still there, just not in my hands, pressed against my fingers in a fist—whitening the skin of my palms. All this hard work has helped me more than I thought. It’s good practice for being in your body. Being with your feet; feeling the weight of your body- the heat of your blood pooling in your feet after hours of rounds.

Everyday I walk with the sun as it lights up the dark road. Five or six am- the room will be empty but me. There’s a pride in being so disciplined you can be quiet about it. The order in your life begins to speak for itself. Square peg; square hole.

Recently I have been finding simplicty in the complicated places; realising that all it takes is knowing more and to always be looking into it. At the heart of it- my learning has been about giving a massive shit about everything. Guidelines-The step one-two-threes of a approach. The more you know, the stronger that reassuring feeling you’ll always know what to do becomes. This doesn’t mean I am wasting away in the details. Rather I tend to find that every angle has valuable information. The key to learning is to ask “when will I need this?”

Significance; the things we carve into the skin of memory. You remember better when it all means something.

- swan