Sitting here one-eyed, post yesterday's eye surgery, it's hard not to reflect on just how much this year has sucked to date.
I have already attended six funerals this year alone, three of which were for people younger than myself, and two for family. For others, I have been to hospitals in three states (here, Tennessee and Alabama)—including my brother, who had a heart attack, and my mother who collapsed on the floor in front of me, her own heart precariously close to stopping—and for my father, whose health continues to wane, hospitals and VA centers in three states (here, Indiana, Illinois), and for myself have been to four doctors in three cities, facing the unsettling threat of blindness, which I yet have hope of avoiding, though hope and I have little reason to be acquainted these days.
I have seen the end of two of my largest contracts, thanks to this lovely economy, and have found myself in the unhappy position of having to sell a product I neither endorse nor enjoy, as it's myself, finding it damned awkward and frustrating trying to write copy for the blurb and portfolio site.
Friends have been lost, hospitalized, some diagnosed with dreadful things like brain tumors, and I've had no idea what to do for anyone. I've never been good at consolation, or much else apparently, but especially that. Only yesterday I was informed—though I was unable to read it until far later due to the surgery—that a friend apparently attempted suicide the night before and has been hospitalized as a danger to herself. She'd been texting me and I failed to notice the signs.
And now the mail's brought the mockery of my long overdue passport renewal finally arriving. If only these things were the worst this year has brought. There's little left that matters and I'm tired of all of this. I'm tired ot waiting to see which part of my life I can screw up next. "Und das Andere an mir ist / abgetragen und alt und trist; / warum zögert Gott, auf den Mist / alles das hinzulegen." (Rilke)
A friend in Thessaly recently reminded me of Cavafy, which reminded me of a piece of his which I published in May a few years ago. It seems no less apropos now, and I will close this pointless mess with its quotation:
Είπες· «Θα πάγω σ’ άλλη γη, θα πάγω σ’ άλλη θάλασσα.
Μια πόλις άλλη θα βρεθεί καλλίτερη από αυτή.
Κάθε προσπάθεια μου μια καταδίκη είναι γραφτή·
κ’ είν’ η καρδιά μου—σαν νεκρός—θαμμένη.
Ο νους μου ως πότε μες στον μαρασμόν αυτόν θα μένει.
Όπου το μάτι μου γυρίσω, όπου κι αν δω
ερείπια μαύρα της ζωής μου βλέπω εδώ,
που τόσα χρόνια πέρασα και ρήμαξα και χάλασα.»Καινούριους τόπους δεν θα βρεις, δεν θά βρεις άλλες θάλασσες.
Η πόλις θα σε ακολουθεί. Στους δρόμους θα γυρνάς
τους ίδιους. Και στες γειτονιές τες ίδιες θα γερνάς·
και μες στα ίδια σπίτια αυτά θ’ ασπρίζεις.
Πάντα στην πόλι αυτή θα φθάνεις. Για τα αλλού—μη ελπίζεις—
δεν έχει πλοίο για σε, δεν έχει οδό.
Έτσι που τη ζωή σου ρήμαξες εδώ
στην κώχη τούτη την μικρή, σ’ όλην την γη την χάλασες.—Κ.Π. Καβάφης, "Η Πόλις" (1894) από τα Ποιήματα.
You said, “I’ll go to another land, another sea;
I can find another city that’s better than this.
Here, my every effort is doomed to fail,
and my heart, like a corpse, lies buried.
My mind, how long will it linger in this stagnation?
Wherever I turn my eyes, wherever I look here
I see the black ruins of my life,
whose many years I spent, spoiled and ruined.”New places you will not find, nor other seas.
The city will follow you. The roads you take will be
the same. And you’ll age in these same neighborhoods;
and in these same houses you’ll go grey.
You’ll always arrive at this city. For another, do not hope—
there is no ship for you, there is no road.
You have so ruined your life here
in this small place, you’ve spoiled it in all the world.—C.P. Cavafy, "The City" (1894), from The Poems.
“He laughed, glad to be out of that place. People never did anything with their lives. Born there, schooled there, married there and died there was the usual, banal legacy. They all missed out on life, missed out on new ideas and ambitions. The doctor slapped them at birth and, from that point on, their lives just curled up like dead spiders.”
—Richard Christian Matheson, Dystopia, “Third Wind”
5pm, Edited to add: day's not out and there's another funeral. Lovely.
