Note

I was struck this morning. [Note: this was first jotted down a few weeks ago. June 24, for the record,] I realize I'm always being struck, beginning many entries with something to that effect, reflecting on how amazing it is without getting into the specifics, or to the meat of the issue. Well, I doubt today will be a drastic change from that pattern; I have my style that changes only slowly toward some hoped-for approximation of The Good.

Today: I saw a bunch of people lining up for the streetcar in the subway. What was slighly unusual was that, at the height of rush hour, the line was at least twice as long as the room, so it was forced to bend and curl, sometimes almost iinto itself. Crowds coming off the trains poured through this line in several points, random passers-by squeezed where there were no holes. Yet the line persisted. New arrivals joined at their designated spot at the back.

So, what is so amazing? ...

[Note: after typing this sentence, I gave in. All evening, something had been haunting me: depression?, emptiness?, torpor?. I'm not tyring to be melodramatic. I have never been so close to a walking, joyless, energy-less pile of bones. It was some sort of sucking hole, to use a perfectly worn-through phrase. I don't remember what I did, in fact, find so amazing in the streetcar line, because I set myself on my bed, thinking about how miserable I was. A kind of passive registering of the tremors running through me, or the absence of tremors, or the absence of pleasure in my usual activities. Nothing had brought this on. It was most likely chemical in nature. The echo of the feeling-state of my body at that time is enough to provoke anxiety. I've talked it through, though. I hope it helps. It hasn't come back since. Sorry about the self-confession.]

Consider: "...the Here and Now."