I get very sentimental on walks, by myself. I don't go on them very often. when I do, it is as if I am met with true emotions that have been burrowed in me all along. somehow, looking at the cold buildings and the city's landscape makes it all well up again. and I face what I'm really feeling. somehow, alone, inside, it is not as confrontational. I am not distracted by screens or the ceiling above my bed. somehow, when I walk, with a vague destination, with no music in my ears, that lament faces me and I face it. looking at the environment around me makes me see myself. //// is this psychogeography? (this reminds me, I downloaded the e-book version of the right to the city) (I also went on theedit, and found it really useful - the everyday, architecture, environment and ecologies, materials and materiality..)
on this occasion, I had to walk through my old neighborhood from two years ago. I never had a good feeling there. I suppose walking from there back to my house made me extra sentimental because I know this is one of the last times, very possibly the last, I'll ever walk down this road, across this park, through the residential, and back in this flat again. I move out in three days. I took some videos, some photos. It is not like I particularly like this place. but there is a comfort in familiarity. I've never even strayed away from the single path. and I never will know what it is like down that road, or the other. I didn't have it in me. I'm afraid I'll get too attached suddenly. How do you feel sentimental for a place you don't even know well? I suppose it is just yourself. leaving a version of yourself who had walked this path for a long period of time, a whole year, here. it feels like I'm losing something. saying silent farewells to this place, these strangers I've never seen.
this is why I don't like change. it gives me a bittersweet feeling I crave, I don't like how sad it feels. how scary and unpredictable the future is. I heard myself thinking, wow, I'm sad, I'm really sad. these days I feel I'm fighting through a balancing act of not feeling real feelings because I know if I do, I won't get through this. what I have been the most anxious about, afraid of has come true. this week, my mum texts us, she nearly passed out and died the other day. she has always had heart problems, among other things. I won't go into detail, because like I said, I'm finding it really difficult to face it right now. my mind is getting really good at desensitising, disassociating, distancing itself from the real. I feel actively numbed, like there is a great fog in between that I could just walk through, easily, but I remain stationary, here. where it is familiar, safe. but the guilt eats at me. I don't know if I can hold on here any longer. I don't know what to do, simply. I could make a drastic change, like fly back, but I don't know how, and if that is the right thing, and if it is possible. I already made ties here. signatures. agreements. would I regret this in the future? most certainly. but I am a coward. I can only lie here, and pray even though I am a bad person.
I feel I am preparing for the end of life already. I feel I am grieving. I laugh and watch movies and eat bad food, but the guilt makes the fog dark, it disperses and regroups. it is a weight that cannot be measured, but felt. constantly, on the brink of crying, so human, helpless, and selfish. it's a constant, what's the point? when I finally fall asleep my dreams give me the bittersweet feeling again. the past two nights, good memories with her. but I wake up and know it will be gone. it feels like there is nothing I can do. I cannot even look after myself. I do not know anything of the world. the world has been so good to me, I do not think I deserve it. it is true, what they say, in the religion I grew up in. there is an inevitable cycle of ageing, illness, death. being alive means inevitable suffering. loved ones die easily. everything is fragile.
I know I always try and push the idea of 'life is short so make the most of it' 'life is finite so that makes it all the more precious', especially in my painting (that is now in the British museum right now, which I haven't yet seen in person) Death Chases Life, but So Do We, but it is really hard to believe it when you are in the midst of one of the greatest sufferings in the world, if not the greatest. I think it is the hardest, seeing loved ones in pain or in death. I truly do not think I can recover from that. but I must go on. love like that is a crazy thing. they don't want to see you suffer either, even after their death. so I must go on. but right now, not knowing how much time is left, I feel I am standing at the edge of a cliff. I think of the painting Wanderer above the Sea of Fog. there is something hopeful and overwhelming about it. nature, the sublime, new landscapes, the infinity of it all, how small we are. I don't feel so much about the power or adventure, but just the survival and the observing of it all. the fog breathes through me and I breathe through it. One day, not today, maybe I can feel hopeful again.
I turn to the ghibli film Tales From Earthsea time and time again, but especially in these times, where I feel the balance is tipping over. they talk of the Balance here, how because the great evil in the world is trying to open the door between Life and Death, for Immortality. This film always gives me the greatest comfort because I felt I could feel what Arren was feeling - in the beginning, he killed his father, a great king who thought only of his People, and escaped the kingdom. soon, he faced wild beasts in the desert. but just before he fought back, his sense of panic leaves him and he let them spring towards him. so you are my death, he says. of course, he gets saved by the great wizard, and we go on this adventure from here. what I love about this film is that it feels like real time. it takes time for us to travel from one town to another, and we see the great landscape stretch out beyond the horizon. throughout, Arren is visibly afraid and anxious, feeling like something is going after him. we later find out it is a version of himself that got separated when he killed his father. light, shadow, you need both to be human, whole. the film itself conveys the message of 'Life without Death is not Life' which is what the wizard, and therru, the girl who is symbolic of Life, as are the Dragons, teaches Arren in the end. I find the story and ghibli's interpretation of it very comforting and eye-opening. it teaches me that, too. and I come back to it when the light seems to simmer out. the peculiar music gives a sense of a far away land, an adventure full of hope, in search of something you're not sure of. I am thankful for this film and I am thankful to be alive. it restores balance in me and gives me hope. that's the power of fiction, art. and that is one of the biggest privileges of being alive on this earth. so I shall go on. I must...