I lowered my body onto the carpet with a new notebook. I couldn’t place my thoughts on paper, let alone my goals. They felt slippery, not meant to be mine. They’d float away before I could fully form them. I scanned the room for a thought I could hold.
CONQUER 2021
The brushstrokes were sloppy, not quite mine. I tried to make it better, but the more I tried to fix the lettering the more of a mess I made. I tore the page from the hardback spiral notebook and tried again:
LIVE 2021
That felt better, but the letter “v” wouldn’t work. I couldn’t let it go. I tried a couple times on new pages and tore each one out gently. The torn pages gathered as I grew more comfortable throwing out each iteration. Thoughts slipped from mind and grew on one of the discarded sheets before finally, I conceeded:
2021
Accurate. Beneath it I directed myself to “Live with it”. I dotted and lined the letters, embellishing the year with stars and swirls. I wanted to tear it out but let it live. I wrote “GOALS” neatly in the vast space below and turned away. I just want to exist for once, isn’t that enough? No. Yes. Maybe. The beat of Liquid Swords faded in the background, and I was alone with the discarded list of things I was supposed to do.
“I’m stuck”, I said aloud, letting go of the pen in my hand.
I let my forehead rest in the triangle formed by my hands on the soft floor. I focused on my breathing which was slightly more difficult than usual, as my stomach and chest were restricted by the concrete below the soft carpet. A river came to mind. The same river I find each time. It runs through a jungle with Monstera leaves and dry vines. The river itself a cartoon blue with white strokes, remniscent of The Great Wave of Kanagawa. It’s less violent than the wave, but you never know with water.
I started placing thoughts on giant banana leaves that popped into view. A hero’s smiling face, a 501c3 form I had yet to fill out, the borderless pink, dry lips of my boss, 6 individual interns I was to be responsible for next week, a savings account, a pile of legos. They kept coming faster and faster, some thoughts coming back for a second round. I heard my daughter outside of the jungle rumbling above me in the kitchen like thunder. I placed her on a leaf, and my guilt that followed drifted off a waterfall.
The current was moving faster than usual. I thought about how to stop it. I placed that very thought on a leaf and saw more empty leaves piling up behind it. What does this mean? I tried to place that question on a leaf, but the water started moving backwards. I walked upstream and saw a bed of rocks in the river. The water gushed and trickled between them. After the patch of rocks, the water whooshed further upstream, momentum coming from nowhere. The water twisted and spun into a group of threads and the world evaporated around it. There was only my mind in a vast universe. The threads of the river fed into a mouth and were swallowed.
I opened my eyes, the sounds of an organ entering my conciousness. Tocatta and Fugue bubbled from the record player. The last time we listened to this we were playing Jumanji. I couldn’t help but laugh, appreciating that strange river that runs through space and time where I can always place my thoughts.