Observing
Posted on Sunday, 6 February
I cut my toe again today. And laid in bed all day. Before I hurt my foot, I wasn’t feeling well and called off our trip to the beach. I felt weak and tired. I wondered out loud that it might be remnants of my recent sickness or that my body is having a hard time balancing the cold nights with the boiling hot days. But a part of me thinks that maybe I just didn’t want to leave the house, didn’t want to do anything. I get like that sometimes. Lazy or sad or maybe just content lying in bed watching TV shows online or reading a book. My yoga teacher tells me I should observe my actions and feelings without judgment.
I thought a lot about spending some of my time writing. Thought about it all day, actually. And I’m doing it just now, around five in the evening when the sun is setting and Joe is out with Happy on a walk by the ocean. I kept thinking about writing, but then I wondered what would I write and what would it sound like. Then I worried if it would be any good and if my blog for the English newspaper is going to be any good and if the editor will like it. Then I thought about what Joe told me one day, something along the lines of, people don’t create art just so that it is good. They do it because it makes them happy, he said. So here I am, pressing my fingers onto the little black keys, trying to find my happiness.
Yesterday evening I tackled a pit bull to the ground and then pinned him down with my hands and knees. It was trying to bite our dog. Though the thought of it hurting me badly crossed my mind, I quickly decided when seeing it go toward her with his teeth that I wasn’t going to let it hurt Happy. Joe was there too, and he kicked it. After the adrenaline wore off and we were walking around, calming down, it occurred to me that he kicked the dog and I tackled it and that perhaps it should have been the other way around. But it wasn’t and that is fine. Today when I cut my toe open, on a broken glass on the floor, I looked at him with my eyes huge and scared as blood gushed. He kind of froze. I told him to get paper towels and put pressure on it to stop bleeding. So he did. Afterward, with his hands on his hips and eyes gazing out at the trees, he said, “Man, I’m so bad in emergencies.” It’s okay, I told him, and then reassured myself that it is okay. I’ll be good in emergencies and he’ll be the one to tell me what I need to hear to get me to write.
I’m reading a book right now about Patti Smith and her art, her relationship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe, and all of the artists going in and out of the Chelsea Hotel in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Joe is reading a book about Bob Dylan, and he likes it. We’ve both talked about what we feel when reading their stories. I tell him, after daydreaming about having a little studio with a desk to write at and a city to fall in love with, that I really want to live in New York City. He tells me that after reading about people who work so hard to make their dreams come true and are successful, he wants to do the same thing, but that he also wants to have a family.
Some things never change. We still dream about many points in time that are not the present. My future is totally unclear. He is planning on returning to the University to earn another degree. I might live with my parents and attempt to finish the book I’ve barely gotten far with but have high hopes for. We both agree that after he graduates, we should move to New York. I know, and I assume he knows, that this very well could not happen. We’ll move from Costa Rica to our old home and unpack our things from storage. We might not have the energy to do it all again in three years, to go back to living in a one room apartment on very little money. But I hope we do.
