Are we living in a simulation ? Because this summer feels like a lucid dream.
When I think about the past I don’t know, 6-10 weeks it tastes like a Covid test Q tip shoved so far up my nose it hits my brain short circuiting the menagerie of menacing caricatures plaguing my newsfeed.
The recent onslaught of information, disinformation, and opinion is physiologically incomprehensible. As cognitive overload ensues the world seems to be spinning faster and faster out of control. The external chaos is met by a pulley system of internal desires for “normal life” to pick back up opposed by a desperate need to slow down. I feel like Molly and Ray in 'Uptown Girls' riding teacups at Coney Island, and I can’t get off the ride.
Awakening is disorienting. Our reality shifts. Time speeds up and slows down. Things feel out of order. Constructs we once believed as fact dissipate like a mirage as we uncover truth. It’s scary. As I grapple with my own fears and anxieties in the midst, I find myself looking in the rearview for solace to ground the uncertainty of the future.
I came across the following entries in my drafts written in the winter months of a pre-Covid world, a season which now feels like eons ago from an entirely different dimension. There I find evidence of a spiral path. The words push me forward as I walk onward knowing I’ve been here before, yet am further along and better equipped for the journey.
Keep going friends. Though we walk through the valley, we are moving up the mountain.
Feb 13, 2020
Note to self: complaining and expressing feelings are not the same. Chronic complaining is an excuse. It’s an avoidance of what you are actually feeling. Circumstances can be really hard, but if you complain about the same thing over and over again, habitually, it is a cover-up for a deeper emotion. Dig into this feeling, its source, and work through it. Igniting the energy to change your life - whether it be cleaning out a closet, rearranging your schedule, or doing that thing you’ve been wanting to do for years - requires work to understand yourself, your wounds, your conditioning, and your perceived reality. Stop complaining and do your work. You will heal. You will be free.
I am wrapped in the arms of the ocean in front and the mountains behind.
Held gently, the sun on my skin.
Both mighty and dangerous, yet calm like a morning kiss.
Jan 28, 2020
Yesterday I went for a “run.” I’m injured, but I went anyway. Ended up in the park, playing. I sat on the swings, and I swung. I ran for a minute, my knee locked up. So I started skipping instead, it felt good. The sun set, the moon sliver peaked up through the clouds. Children playing basketball. Kobe and Gigi. I thought to myself about how miserable people seem. Exhausted from the grind. Shackled to the way it’s been. It’s mile 12, and we’re hurt. But we keep going until the finish line. We run, and we run. Grit our teeth through the pain. But God gives us wings. How do we skip to the finish line, dancing and singing? I don’t think the final destination is changing. I think the mode of transportation could be different. One day I’m on cloud 9. Everything is more than fine. But right now I feel lonely. I feel like that insatiable drive is going away. The infatuation is changing. Part of it is good.
Dec 14, 2019
Today I had “nothing” to do but the availability overwhelmed me. I toggle between happiness and guilt of self indulgence. I could be saving the world or calling my grandmother. Instead I’m dancing in my living room, writing in a coffee shop, reading at a bar and drinking a beer. I bought new shoes. I pierced my ears. I’m musing about Christmas lights and plastic pink flamingos. I think I’ve actually always been this way. God only knows. Omnipotent and me, just little and hoping I haven’t got it all wrong.
(photos by Wallace Morgan: Santa Barbara ocean wave on film 2020 // mountains of Malibu on fujifilm digital 2020)