High Anxiety Week

[rinue]

I am anxious about everything, because everything is due this week. Documentary proposal, script proposal, National Gallery screening, panel critique, progress journal, financial aid paper work. My nervousness has moved beyond attachment to any specific thing, and is instead free floating and misery making. Skype or the internet is acting up; conversations with Ciro now have a minute-and-a-half lag, which doesn't much count as conversation. If you miss something, the other person hears your question two minutes too late. Like phoning from the moon.

Complicating everything, because I am letting it, is the fact that Ciro and my anniversary is on Friday - the same day I'll be screening my film. My film about how I miss Ciro. It screens both during the day and during the evening, so I may not be able to actually talk to Ciro until the following day. Because I feel bad about this, and worse about not being there, and miserable that I missed his birthday, and confused what my role will be when I'm back in Boston, I've been trying to write a song to make up for everything. I found a piano in the basement, which I put up with even though it's out of tune and I hate playing in public, and I taught myself the sequencing software on my computer so I could transcribe it electronically. But I hate what I've written so far, and can't write more. Don't have time even if I had inspiration.

I'm no good at songs; most of the time, I write tunes and they don't go anywhere - they just resolve. Song haiku. I feel like a failure; I really wanted to do this. It's reminding me of the unfinished musical, so I'm feeling the failure of that, too. The reason the failure hurts so much is the reason I'm failing: three months is too long a time. The feelings don't fade, or the regard, but the memories get less specific. What I have left is a tilt of a head, a laugh, a voice saying my name, the fabric of a shirt and button, and the top notes of a smell. These are still clear, although they are getting shiny from the rub of my fingers. Soon I will wear them to translucence.

I don't remember what sex feels like, or kissing. I remember hand holding. All of this makes it easier to be apart, but is inimical to writing. Three months means being apart is the norm; being together is an aberration. The main themes of the relationship so far are limbo and dislocation. Hard to write a love song about that, a song of anniversary.

I probably shouldn't be so melancholy considering I'll see Ciro in about a week - or so grouchy considering that I'm the only one who expected me to write a song. But damnit, I feel like I'm letting the side down. This is a grand love for the ages, one that continues despite innumerable obstacles including a marriage and UK customs, and I can't write a silly fucking song. I should just set myself a more reasonable goal like independently conceiving, bearing, and raising a child to adulthood in the space of two months.

Comments

[rinue.livejournal.com]

Although my memory is admittedly fuzzy, I think you and I might have different definitions of "squishy." Then again, we also have divergent organ sets. I do remember breasts as being squishy, perhaps because I conveniently have two for reference, but this is not as relevant as it could be.