It’s November, and music and words have long become a refuge for me. They always held open arms for me, but now more so than ever. Every minute without music feels like I am being strangled. My violin has sprouted both a piano and a guitar.
If I don’t write, I explode. I need to describe in great detail the afternoon sun, and so many other things, or the world will crash and burn. I have read so many books this year, but it’s difficult to tell if I have learned much from them.
In summer, the floating emptiness of having no place to be that surrounded me forced me to apply for one too many fall programs. Now my schedule is messy but I make desperate attempts to neaten it. I failed my license test because I didn’t see the red stop sign. My mother sometimes points at one before my eyes find it and reminds me of traffic laws. She has become my best friend. I can’t keep a secret from her. I tell her about my crush on the gelato man. She agrees that he’s dreamy, but more importantly, his gelato is too. Even in November. There are some people I miss beyond feeling. I just want to sit in person and talk with them. I did, a bit. But then family members became sick. Social media is too draining to know how my friends are now.
Some days I forget to go outside and I fall asleep feeling unfulfilled and wronged. My dreams have become vivid and lucid, but never to the point where I can make my own decisions. I don’t see many people other than my family or when I’m working. I make to-do lists to occupy myself with. Oftentimes I think that I didn’t live long enough when everything was normal to truly remember how life can feel. But exercise drowns out my worries. At night, I bike around with my father and I run during the day. I run in the cold November air. It makes me sneeze and my throat winds up dry. Nobody trusts me after a November run.
I cook to bring salvation to my soul. Butternut squash and lentil stew, mushroom and chickpea bake, sourdough bread, lemon and balsamic vinegar glazed brussels sprouts, bowl of oatmeal after bowl of oatmeal after glorious bowl of oatmeal. Maple apple cake. I can’t stop. It’s therapy, to mix ingredients together and then taste something absolutely amazing.
Sometimes I feel down. Like Katerina from Margarita Liberaki’s Three Summers, the rain easily breaks my heart if I am inside the house but it is my greatest joy when I am outside. I read about trees. I read poems by Elizabeth Bishop and books on being a better person. I read about Charles Darwin’s theory of human origin. I read Harry Potter, go through a slight phase, then I read some George Orwell. I read Jane Austen’s letters and encroach on her privacy. I read about the fossils that will be left when we are long gone from this planet.
I fear for the years of my life I am losing. I miss so many things; so many people. But late at night, I pile my blankets on top of me and read even more and write everything down inside Journal Number 5, which somehow I’ve managed to make my way to over these past few years. I feel content, in a mountain of cotton and feathers and old stuffed animals. I sleep deeply and peacefully in November.
If I don’t write, I explode. I need to describe in great detail the afternoon sun, and so many other things, or the world will crash and burn. I have read so many books this year, but it’s difficult to tell if I have learned much from them.
In summer, the floating emptiness of having no place to be that surrounded me forced me to apply for one too many fall programs. Now my schedule is messy but I make desperate attempts to neaten it. I failed my license test because I didn’t see the red stop sign. My mother sometimes points at one before my eyes find it and reminds me of traffic laws. She has become my best friend. I can’t keep a secret from her. I tell her about my crush on the gelato man. She agrees that he’s dreamy, but more importantly, his gelato is too. Even in November. There are some people I miss beyond feeling. I just want to sit in person and talk with them. I did, a bit. But then family members became sick. Social media is too draining to know how my friends are now.
Some days I forget to go outside and I fall asleep feeling unfulfilled and wronged. My dreams have become vivid and lucid, but never to the point where I can make my own decisions. I don’t see many people other than my family or when I’m working. I make to-do lists to occupy myself with. Oftentimes I think that I didn’t live long enough when everything was normal to truly remember how life can feel. But exercise drowns out my worries. At night, I bike around with my father and I run during the day. I run in the cold November air. It makes me sneeze and my throat winds up dry. Nobody trusts me after a November run.
I cook to bring salvation to my soul. Butternut squash and lentil stew, mushroom and chickpea bake, sourdough bread, lemon and balsamic vinegar glazed brussels sprouts, bowl of oatmeal after bowl of oatmeal after glorious bowl of oatmeal. Maple apple cake. I can’t stop. It’s therapy, to mix ingredients together and then taste something absolutely amazing.
Sometimes I feel down. Like Katerina from Margarita Liberaki’s Three Summers, the rain easily breaks my heart if I am inside the house but it is my greatest joy when I am outside. I read about trees. I read poems by Elizabeth Bishop and books on being a better person. I read about Charles Darwin’s theory of human origin. I read Harry Potter, go through a slight phase, then I read some George Orwell. I read Jane Austen’s letters and encroach on her privacy. I read about the fossils that will be left when we are long gone from this planet.
I fear for the years of my life I am losing. I miss so many things; so many people. But late at night, I pile my blankets on top of me and read even more and write everything down inside Journal Number 5, which somehow I’ve managed to make my way to over these past few years. I feel content, in a mountain of cotton and feathers and old stuffed animals. I sleep deeply and peacefully in November.
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