Catharsis

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�QUOTE:

People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world. - Calvin

Catharsis:
1 : PURGATION
2 a : purification or purgation of the emotions (as pity and fear) primarily through art b : a purification or purgation that brings about spiritual renewal or release from tension
3 : elimination of a complex by bringing it to consciousness and affording it expression

�SENSES:
Listening:
Bjorks Hyperballad remix by Brodsky Quartet

Reading:
Robert Crais' Monkey's Raincoat

Watching:
QAF season 1

Crystalline Cage

Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2003 - 5:28 P.M.
The world as I know it is crystalline cage, or rather it was this morning. Everything was covered in ice, even my breath was a crystalline plume it seems. Everything, the cars on the road, the birds in the sky, the gray on gray clouds moved in that slow dream like motion that overcomes you when you are on the run for your life, no matter how fast you run, you're still not running fast enough. That's what it reminded me of, those slow moving cars on the freeway, everyone not speeding to work, not speeding home, not speeding to anywhere in particular. The only thing that was going its normal speed was me, my shoes,crunching the frozen sleet covered earth underfoot. It was surreal.

I had to work this morning because Ms Baker didn't want to chance the 11 bridges that she crosses from her house to the bookstore. I don't blame her. She was supposed to work because Martha, my boss was supposed to be at a manager's meeting. It was cancelled. So I get to work, my bum near frozen solid and I laugh to myself walking through the parking lot. There are no lines on the lot, for you see, everything is covered over with that blanket of ice. I wanted to see how well everyone parked when the ice all melted away, because while the world was this crystalline cage, at this moment we had no lines to tell us where to park. The mall was deserted, even of the mall walkers who crowd around the tables in the food court with their morning coffee long since cooled, as they have been in the mall since the the crack of dawn.

I'm pondering this whole crystalline cage image that has come to my mind. It reminds me of the ancients who believe that the heavens circled the earth on a crystalline sphere. Everything in its place for all eternity slowly turning. I wonder how much we are all like that. How we have to park in the proverbial lines. How the reality that we have made for ourselves is a reality at all. I'm a firm believer in free will, to do OR to not do whatever we want. But it begs the question when we do or don't do whatever, did we choose freely. Or are our actions the result of everything that has been indoctrinated into us all of our lives. What has made that decision. Me, or a facsimile of me, the one that has lived in a world full of rules, edicts, suggestions, mores, etc etc. Am I truly in a crystalline cage, the world truly spinning around me

slowly until the end of my days.

I watched today, on the way home a father and his son walking across the frozen field in front of my apartments. They carried a laundry basket between them and by the time they got almost to the sidewalk of the office builing at the top of the hill, they stopped, put down the laundry basket and the little boy climbed into the basket, and the father started pushing him around. Watching him slide across that frozen white surface, listening to his glee echo in the silent morning air, was uplifting under that gray sky.

I haven't been watching television for the last 5 days. Not even FRIENDS which is kinda scary. All weekend, no tv. I watched a couple of movies, but no actual "tv". Its quiet in here without the tv on.

You remember I told you about the movie The Hours and how it made me feel, well I was reading mdmcknight and his entry amazed me and confused me and touched me. I don't know why, but to me, Derek seems very optimistic. I know he gets down, but he also seems very up to me. Maybe I just see him in a different light, or maybe I just don't like to know that he feels that way. needless to say reading his entry, I was bothered.

Art touches us in ways that amaze and thrill me. Not only does it make us think, and it does, it forces us, even against our will, it resonates our heart's loves and hates, our fears and loneliness, our joy and happiness, art is inded a mirror of ourselves. Everyday life, in it mundaneness can be so monotonous, but there is a glory in it that I see on occasion that makes me smile. Because as Wade told me after he read my entry about the hours and what I said:

it left me pondering the importance of my life. I mean my existence and whether it matters all the hours I spend each day and how I will live each one and will I live each one and will I want to live each one. Its an overwhelming sensation that is a credit to the film.

He told mehow my life matters because of how I make other people happy, even in small ways, I saw what he meant. Of course I knew this to be true, but it brings to mind again, that crystaline sphere/cage idea. I love to make people happy, to make them smile. Its in my nature. I want people to be happy. The very act of creating a smile on my friends' faces, to put joy in their hearts is an achievement that makes my heart soar. It sounds dopey and sappy, but it's true. I love my friends. I do and they, through no concerted effort of their own, make me feel as though I matter. I wonder who I would be had I not met them. What would I feel, how would I think, how would I view this world now if not for their world around me, and its rules,edits,mores,suggestions, each of them a crstalline bar in this crystalline cage within which we all live. It's a testament to man that we can not survive alone. Well I suppose we can, but I don't believe it. I wouldn't want to. I remember I ued to want to be a Hermit, live in a cabin up in the woods somewhere deserted of humanity, but I am a part of it and it is a part of me and like Virgian Wolfe said in the movie, we can't escape life by moving away from it. We survive not in our own individual little worlds, but rather in a world that we create with the people we surround ourselves with.

I'm feeling philosophical this evening. don't ask me why.

Anyway.....I'm going through withdrawals. I just realized that Buffy is supposed to be on tonight........but i shall persevere. Lent is coming up. Last year I gave up Dr Pepper. This year, now don't hold me to it,becaue I'm not evening Catholic after all, but I'm pondering TV. PONDERING!

You know its almost a year since our trip to California. I remember when I first came back how I didn't think I would ever do that again. Oh man was it a draining trip. I went a little nuts to say the least, all possessive and jealous and angry and I don't know what else. I didn't like the feeling. Wade brought it up the other day how I act when he and Derek go along. How I don't like it when they do but I'm supportive in his efforts to be friends with Derek. I should know better, but I'm terribly insecure, especially where Derek is concerned. I don't know why. he has reassured me time and time again, but it remains true still. Anyway, I digress. I was thinking about California and how awesome it was, how much I enjoyed being there and I know I want to go back. The whole idea of it and us being there leaves me feeling nostalgic. Sigh.........

neurosis ~ catharsis