Make good the gutter of existence

Why are my hands so empty? I’ve had twenty-seven years to grab onto something.

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All her vaguely artistic desire had long since been directed toward making the days fulfilled and beautiful; over time, her taste for the decorative had developed and supplanted her inner disorder. [...] She had created something at last comprehensible, an adult life. That was what she had wanted and chosen.

— Clarice Lispector, Love (“Amor”)

A breath of relief which has not met with relief yet. It is only a very painful breath. I let trust break off from me towards a relief that exists somewhere down the line. Trust and relief wait like faithful jungle cats. Domesticated, jeweled collars. Mine. Loyal is a more beautiful word than faithful but it is less romantic etymologically. I let trust pull me towards itself. I trust I trust I trust the pull.

Let my life be a magnet for all that is good for me. Let me grow into adulthood as naturally as an orchid blooms. I trust the spider web to catch the raindrops. I trust the spider to dance around the trapped fly. I trust the snow to melt on spring’s warm backside. I trust myself to fly in tempests of love. I trust the cave of my bed to sedate me. I always trusted the red amnesia of the wine. I trust myself to fall short of what you imagine. Why don’t I trust myself to live a life I like? Why can’t I trust in my own obscurity? Why can’t I trust in my natural mystery and cling to it, cultivate it, love it, recognize it as myself? Can I myself be the castle, can I myself be the queen, can my words themselves be the word, can I myself be the rose in the garden at last?

Dominant psychological complexes: are yours kind to you? 

✴

Thankful for writers. Thankful for lucid, linear thinkers. Nothing straightens my head faster than the feline-black eye of that glamorous Brazilian hermetic and the Jungian psychoanalyst whose books I am reading. She writes, “the girl was subterranean and never really flowered.” He writes, “Her symptomatology is proportionate to the pain she suffers. The depression is evidence of the dynamic character of the psyche which wishes life.” I understand but I don’t know what I understand. They confirm something for me that I don’t know how to repeat in my own language. I move back and forth between fiction and analysis wanting more of my condition reflected (I want empathy? I want a guru? I want a physically affectionate God?).

12pm. Saturday afternoon. A struggle to write and endless rain. It’s 9pm already and I have no sense of where the day went. Didn’t I say all of this to you before? Wasn’t I here already last winter? And the winter before—what was that one? A lack of forward-motion. What is this vicious karma that shadows my steps?

Why does it feel as if the materials for life-construction exist so far from me? Why are my hands so empty? I’ve had twenty-seven years to grab onto something. Where is my something? Why have I taken nothing for myself except for the stupid things I feel emboldened to take when I am angry at having never taken what it was I really wanted? What is the condition of my heart? I try to sense it—nothing there. Why am I threadbare? Why do I feel that I have nothing to give you? Matilde invited me out for coffee. Days later I was secretly relieved when she canceled. Will I always need this much time alone? Misery has made me self-righteous in stupid moments. Glorious cow. I bash my head on the gilded gates of my pasture. Something alarms me. Once upon a time I was going to be a beautiful woman. Solitude is the only lover that finds me truly striking. 

I attempt to get my thoughts down longhand (something romantic about a red journal on a day like this) but I end up feeling superfluous to myself and then rageful at the aimless excess of the day (countless sugary espressos paired with cigarettes. Chocolate toast. Orange cake. Dark mood after 1pm). Everything I know feels unimportant in conversation. 

I will shock myself into living. Living as myself. I feel compelled towards a radiant asceticism that I am convinced might save my winter. I will fast for seven days and seven nights. I will purify the muck that stains my spirit. I will blast the sweet-lipped devil of lethargy from my princess blood. I will correct my gut microbiota. I will resurrect my intuition. I will be like the television character who is always on the move. I will solve difficult mysteries. I will dress in Russian black. I will rise at 6am daily. I will write as if it makes me money. I will replace coffee with Japanese tea. I will not sneak another sip of black wine. I will turn my blood into rose water. I will read The Hour of the Star a million times. I will underline phrases like: The truth is always some inner power without explanation. The more genuine part of my life is unrecognizable, extremely intimate and impossible to define. I will trust the place where I am real. I will turn insomniac nights into early days. I will become infinitely more natural, infinitely more myself. I will get a second job and grow tired and peaceful from having less time to think.

I will multiply myself into infinity. With twenty euros to my name I will still live with a touch of luxury. I will use a new language to abstractify the utter BANAL HOPELESS IMAGINATIONAL POVERTY of this time. I look around and nothing is as I would like it. The dimensions of my day negate me. Where is my power, where is my potency? The dirty dishes in the sink are not mine. I am restricted. That is my truth. My energy is drained by the effort I make to accept all that which, for me, is unacceptable. I will place perfume on my retinas. I get my pay from the English school and I go shopping: Soft gray Bardot sweater. White turtleneck. Baby pink underwear. Baby pink spaghetti tank. Soft thick white cotton socks. Cigarettes. I will find peace in the simple decisions I make that remind me of myself. I pacify myself with simple things. But there is an impatience, a wild agony, a dull dread—I want young and beautiful years. I want the days plump like jars of department store cream. I want the full moon, long hair, the heart of a belly dancer. I want Rio de Janeiro and a red bedroom. 

Does anyone have experience with waking up at 6am? I really may have to try it out. I feel like I wake up and already it is time to start on the world’s schedule. I need time for my schedule. I need hours with myself.

William James referred to delusory success as “the bitch goddess.” I think of everything I have wanted, everything I once wanted to be. I don’t know how much was genuine. I don’t know how much would be different if that void was filled in infanthood. I wanted to be an actress. Love at a distance. I wanted to be published in Vogue. I wanted to be someone capable, reliable, sturdy, steadfast. I wanted important meetings on my Google calendar. I wanted a black theater broken in half by the weight of applause. Maybe I wanted to be other people. My father told me that when I landed in Italy, I should’ve changed my name for a different karma. I am currently freelance copywriting for a brand partner of Mac Cosmetics, creating pitch decks for Estée Lauder and all I feel when writing about the toasted brown makeup trend is stupid, stupid, stupid.

I hope the cynicism of this morning has a simple reasoning.

When is my period due….?

✴

I wrote before that I would like to build my life on sturdy pillars of pleasure.

Now the question arises: what material must I use for their construction? Where do I build this palace? Perhaps in my writings it does not seem so destitute. Don’t take me at the most fragrant of my words—in all astrological systems, I am a Venusian: I beautify the gutter because I will not survive here otherwise.

LOVELIST

1. The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector. Clarice is a writer I first tried to read while I was in high school. While I thought her writing was gorgeous even then, I did not understand what she was talking about. Now I do.

2. Additionally: Love (“Amor”) by Clarice Lispector published in The Offing Mag and her short fiction “Spring at Typing Speed” published in Too Much of Life: The Complete Crônicas.

   

3. Faye Wong made the perfect album for bathing, forgetting, writing, remembering.

4. Paintings/pastel works by @thirrrsst. Just divine. The image used for the header of this post is also courtesy of this brilliant-minded and beautiful artist.

5. Paintings by @irelandwisdom. “Sex and Security” and “The High Priestess”

6. My cousin’s POV while reading Cyber Diary. Beauty abounds…

   

XOXO,

CYBER DIARY

PS: if you missed it, last week I published a short fiction story here on Substack.

I am wondering if it would be strange to include original fiction in this newsletter from time to time. I think it’s so nice at times to step away from my own I. What do you think? Always open to and grateful for your feedback.

WITH LOVE!