Another weather talk
or on dissociation.
I hear the rain entering my room through the air conditioner. This is a repeated scene of daily annoyance. I think it would have been alright if it was just a matter of wetness. But my inconvenience has to do with the sonority of its wetness. The rain clings to the wall inside, darkens its way down the curtain. It does so noiselessly at first, almost secretly, making use of my absent-mindedness. Then, habitually, I mop into the room with an empty bucket to catch it. Today, I had to bring a bucket and a mug because the rain seemed to be distant from itself, more scattered than usual. There is a duet of taps today, and this probably softens out my habitual irritation at it. I think to myself, when the rain comes to me, it is only noise when I make it so. I think, I would rather collect it as noise. That makes its presence contained, convenient, and familiar. And in moments when I feel increasingly absent from myself, this noise becomes a source of comfort, perhaps precisely through its insistence. Perhaps inconveniences can be a matter of gratitude. They take us out of ourselves only to give us back to ourselves differently, but also safely. Sometimes this difference is necessary.
The humidity was ridiculous today. In the afternoon, I sat outside to write about how I have been feeling increasingly absent from myself. Without myself. To a great extent, it is justified. Things are moving rapidly, and I find myself out of time too often. Not only do I feel that I do not have enough time, I also feel that sometimes I am simply not in time. As I write this, I realise that it is not just a matter of being late or early. It is a question of being present, being inside time. But then again, it’s all a matter of displacement, one way or another. Or maybe it is because I have been in the habit of moving through my life rather myopically. So when bigger things happen, I feel consumed by them. A friend recently told me that these are good problems to have. I agreed, forfeiting my reluctance. An event emerges. Worry makes urgency valuable; premonitions and anticipations enter a game of resemblance where rights and wrongs are already mingling. And one has to stay in it, even if irresolutely. The event makes time feel off. The way time comes to me is off. It is both urgent and unwilling. I greedily want more of it so that I can give it all to the people around me. But if I give it all away, do I remain myself? If I give it all away, desperately trying to make it memory, am I left with any present? And if I empty myself of it, do the people remain at all? Is it fair to them? This humidity is also a thing that is happening to me. The heat happens to me. But there seems to be less responsibility implicated in this other kind of passivity of inconvenience. Familiarity trumps urgency here. I am brought back to myself just enough to be reminded of myself. Enough to neither be consumed by anything nor consume anyone.
Lately when I write about a person or a time, I feel myself consuming it. When I was younger, I used to think it was the other way around, that I needed to write because I felt consumed by something. Perhaps that was also my intention today when I sat down to write. That I needed to write to turn my passivity around. I no longer think it works that way. I can feel the dishonesty in such a claim even as I attempt to vouch for it. So now whenever I write, I find myself within the awkwardness of weather talk, its small compassions of inconveniences. Everything ends in such a submission, only to notice myself enough. Today, in two taps.