It is a day of little sunlight and much rain.  I sit at my desk, the room is silent. This is what sets me thinking; all was suddenly calm.  So it is again time to spill it all onto the page.

A perfect day begins in death, in the semblance of death, in deep surrender.  The body is soft, the soul has gone forth, all strength, even breath is lax. There is no power for good or evil, the luminous surface of another world is near, enfolding, the branches of trees tremble and stand witness outside.  Morning, I wake slowly, as if touched by the sun. I am alone; the blue-grey coat of my cat curled on the duvet drinks the burning light.

For the day to unfold it must in its blueness, its immensity, hide the conspiracy I live in, enclose it, invisible, like stars in the daytime sky.  Life is contemptuous of knowledge; it forces it to sit in the anterooms, to wait outside. Passion, energy, lies: these are what life admires. Still anything can be endured if all humanity is watching.  The martyrs prove it. We live in the attention of others. We turn to it as flowers turn their lovely faces to the sun. But do I still endure? I feel as if the ground subsides beneath me. I feel as if my own mind has undermined my cause, my plight.  I feel nothing and everything at once, I am overwhelmed.

There is not a complete life.  There are only fragments, selective memories.  We are born to have nothing, take nothing, letting it pour through our hands like a sieve.  And yet this pouring, this flood of encounters, struggles, dreams one must continuously endure.  For whatever we do, even whatever we do not do prevents us from doing the opposite. The very acts demolish their alternatives, that is the paradox, the boolean way of existence.  So that life is a matter of choices, each one final and of little consequence, like dropping stones into the sea, who would notice the displacement? We had children therefore we can never be childless.  We are moderate; we will never know what it is to spill our lives. I am Charlotte, how could I ever be anything different? They all think of me as knowledgeable and capable, but I am shite.  

I am not myself, I am vague, adrift.  I am lost in the woods and the midges are biting.  I am panicking now. I am frantic, so I cannot be calm, I am angry so I cannot be happy, I am very very sad, so I cannot be.

Today is the day they are going to put it back to me, and I was supposed to have a plan.  But all I have is a shell, and I can describe it in great detail, with passion and great regard, but it is only a shell.  Hollow, hear the echo? It is a lovely shade of green, it is my shell. Yes, see the dings and dents? That is the flotsam of life barraging me at all times, and now that I am hollow, it is even louder when it strikes.

~Charlotte    3.27.09