2025-10-06_writer's Log
20:58
the setting
i sat on the sofa almost thirty minutes ago.
decided i didn't want to code or write or watch tv. i wanted to read something from my physical shelves, a physical book (see: there are so many books).
but what?
i sit.
i look left, am faced with all my books on writing.
i pick one up and the first thing it says to do is focus on "top-down" writing… i have just finished sending out a newsletter (see: ) that mentioned how asphyxiated it's making me to have to follow such a linear structure. i put the book back. i do not like it.
i read the spines of the other books.
i take out one i have on Joanne Kyger, the one i purchased for the tapestry and the web course i took with cody-cook parrott. i flip through the pages. i am not interested in any of the interviews, i'm mostly looking for poetry or the journal entries.
i come across a poem (pg 20,21). beautiful.
a few sentences in a letter written by someone else to joanne (pg 31,32), and think: god i wish i could write like this. KNOWING i CAN write like this but for some reason i am struggling so much to find the poetry these days (probably on account of the exhaustion, the business, the constant need to produce).
but anyways, now we've reached why i put down the book and started writing…
a journal entry where joanne says that she's back in the states after having lived in kyoto for 4 years and she can finally understand the people talking around her (amongst other highlights). but/and the former is the one i focus in on because the question pops up in my head:
what would it feel like, for me, to live in a place where i could not understand most of the chatter around me?
i've always been surrounded by people who could, for the most part understand me and i them. since living in maine, i've found myself having the interesting benefit of being able to speak in spanish knowing the majority won't understand me. there is a freedom to that, i think. on the flip side, my grandmother who barely speaks english, has struggled greatly the past few years.
i think of her and i think of me.
and this sentence reminds me of "It's you, it's me, it's us."
and then i think about the question once more… what would it feel like to live in a place where i could not understand most of the chatter around me?
two immediate words in reply: paranoia and freedom.
both at odds with each other.
yet both realistic and inline with what i would expect my initial reaction to be.
but i recognize, because i've seen it in my grandmother, that there is a level of isolation that may sound inconsequential at first that ultimately renders the act of living quite difficult. because community is invaluable. because communication is how we build that community more often than not. and while, language is not the only way to communicate, it is a large piece of it.
so while i think a part of me yearns for the forced disconnection of those around me to avoid the accidental eavesdrop of less than kind words, i also know that it would bring with it an almost unabated paranoia.
why? dig deeper.
because there would be no means for clarification. and the eyes can speak louder and more clearly than words can sometimes. actions can be interpreted incorrectly especially across cultures. and then what? at least with words you can explain away the misunderstanding.
i guess all this to process and reprimand myself. although, reprimand may be too harsh a word. i can so easily fall into a romantic view of myself and the world. "it would be so amazing to be surrounded by noise i cannot translate."
but its simply not realistic. or perhaps not sustainable. and most definitely not the whole story.
i don't know how else to conclude this. so i guess i will leave it at that.
basically: stop being such a pick me, chris.