For a number of days I’ve been feeling really awful. Empty and meaningless, lost in a world where there is no depth or soul. In writers group on Monday I tried to describe it. I thought maybe I was picking it up from somebody. I read the piece to Erica on Wednesday, and she helped me understand what happened. I looked in my journal and found that the whole thing began with the folk singer who played and sang in the gathering room on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Here are the relevant journal entries:<\/p>\n
Sunday, May 7 Monday, May 8 Writers\u2019 group<\/p>\n the sky is pale like a thin haze covering the whole thing.\u00a0 <\/span>It seems ill somehow, weighs me down.\u00a0 <\/span>oppressive.\u00a0 <\/span>suffocating.\u00a0 <\/span>Life feels meaningless we just go on getting more and more tired and then it\u2019s over, fading out, fading away, disappearing into the void.\u00a0 <\/span>Surely there\u2019s something I can distract myself with, a murder mystery or solitaire.\u00a0 <\/span>Looking out the window gets boring fast.\u00a0 <\/span>When will something happen, something wonderful, exciting, full of drama and romance.\u00a0 <\/span>I remember how good my mother was at picking up the latest slang.\u00a0 <\/span>She liked to be \u201cwith it,\u201d in with the latest, the newest, the most recent.\u00a0 <\/span>Deep slow thoughts are not \u201cwith it,\u201d won\u2019t catch any one\u2019s attention.\u00a0 <\/span>I want to write a poem and don\u2019t know how to do it.\u00a0 <\/span>words rise from the tide\u2019s slow turning, and blood seeps from a volcano \u2014 but only a little bit mind you.\u00a0 <\/span>The day\u2019s too far gone and fading into a grey night, without light, oppressive, suffocating.\u00a0 <\/span>Two people trade shadows, coming to the edge of what they share.\u00a0 <\/span>Empty is too clean a word for the blurred and jumbled mass of a fragmented life.<\/p>\n Note: The sentence that starts “I want to write a poem…” comes from a poem I wrote called Blood and Stone<\/a>. In some ways that poem expresses how I felt as a child.<\/p>\n Tuesday, May 9 Dear Inner Teacher, I am feeling so lost and strange.\u00a0 <\/span>Please help me. Note: They were living in a miserable little apartment that smelled of urine.<\/p>\n Wednesday, May 10 It became so clear. I was dealing with “a well of unprocessed grief.” I wanted depth and soul, and was born into a family who, as Jung suggested<\/a>, turned to alcohol because they couldn’t find spirit in their lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For a number of days I’ve been feeling really awful. Empty and meaningless, lost in a world where there is no depth or soul. In writers group on Monday I tried to describe it. I thought maybe I was picking … Continue reading
\nI\u2019m having a strange uncomfortable feeling of being stuck in this place with all these old people and it\u2019s meaningless, empty, waiting for death.\u00a0 <\/span>I picked it up last night at the folk music concert.\u00a0 <\/span>The guy singing was a fascinating entertainer, but he was billed as singing folk songs of the 60\u2019s so of course I expected Dylan.\u00a0 <\/span>No.\u00a0 <\/span>He said one song was Bob Dylan sung by Joan Baez, but it was a sort of sentimental song that neither of them would have had anything to do with.\u00a0 <\/span>He sang the Sloop John B, and Charlie on the MTA, both of which I remembered all the words to.\u00a0 <\/span>And he sang Day-O as a tribute to Harry Belafonte who died recently.\u00a0 <\/span>He also had a fascinating mechanism that somehow added his voice singing harmony.\u00a0 <\/span>But I was disappointed and left early.<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019ve been feeling very strange.\u00a0 <\/span>I think it started Saturday night with the Folk Singer.\u00a0 <\/span>Haven\u2019t been able to find words.\u00a0 <\/span>Empty and meaningless but in a different way from long ago.\u00a0 <\/span>It doesn\u2019t feel like myself.<\/p>\n
\nJudith thought it was a good piece of writing.\u00a0 <\/span>She said it conveyed an atmosphere, which was my intention.\u00a0 <\/span>She said there were a lot of people here at Kendal who felt like that.\u00a0 <\/span>I agreed.\u00a0 <\/span>I said it was a lot like my mother.\u00a0 <\/span>I just read it again and was struck by the people who trade shadows.\u00a0 <\/span>I had meant literal shadows, but I see that it could also mean psychological shadows.\u00a0 <\/span>Mother certainly projected hers onto me.<\/p>\n
\nDear Jenny, you will need Erica\u2019s help with this.\u00a0 <\/span>Yes, it is some young part of you that somehow got tangled with your mother.\u00a0 <\/span>Remember when your mother took you to visit the Rogers sisters, who had been servants to her family, and you thought you were being shown how your life would end.<\/p>\n
\nTalk with Erica:
\nRead her the piece I wrote on Monday
\nShe was struck by the sky being ill<\/span> \u2014 color of an alcoholic\u2019s skin
\nMoves in and out of un-metness
\n* Disappointing *\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>Looking for what might have started it I found the \u201cfolk singer\u201d who came on Saturday, songs from the 60\u2019s.\u00a0 <\/span>I had expected Bob Dylan, songs with soul and depth.\u00a0 <\/span>No \u2014 we had Charlie on the MTA, and Sloop John B.
\n\u2014 can represent so much of my life
\nso much was disappointing in my early life \u2014 a well of unprocessed grief
\nalso needing soulfulness in this community<\/p>\n