Heya friendos! Today, I don’t have any practical progress things to show, but I do have some feelings and thoughts that I would like to air. In addition to that, I’ll share an impromptu poem I made because this week I’m feeling linguistically elevated. Strap in, it’s going to be… wordy!

How Am I Doing?

I’m feeling good! Things have been a bit slow lately, potentially because winter is really kicking in now, but even though my energy levels are low, my spirits remain high. Interestingly, I had a delightful but… socially challenging weekend for a friend’s birthday party. I returned a bit drained. Quite recently, I had something similar and it knocked me out for about a week, but this time around I’m already recharged after just a single day.

This put me in a reflective mood. At the one hand, I’ve really built a life for myself that feels healthy and allows me to do things my own way. It’s been a long time since I’ve had any kind of anxiety, for example. On the other, I wonder if I’m not starving myself of social contact in such a way that it makes interacting with big groups of people more challenging.

I’ve lately been having a hard time stepping to people I don’t know to try to mingle. It feels like I’m putting myself at the mercy of people who can pierce through that initial barrier and approach me instead. Now the question is, how important is that skill to me? To be frank, I’m not craving new relationships. Still, sometimes I’m in situations where it’s beneficial to socialize with cliques of people I don’t know very well.

I don’t really have a conclusion to this thought yet, it’s just something I’ve been brooding on for now…

What Am I Doing?

On my way to the party I mentioned before, I took the bullet train to where I had to go. I’m not excessively wealthy at the moment so I had to get a really early one because the tickets were cheaper. Initially, I thought it would be a bother to get up so early, especially considering the fact I haven’t had to set my alarm to wake up for the past year.

But it ended up being a really pleasant experience. That early in the morning, my neighborhood was completely silent but for the morning song of the birds. I didn’t see a soul until I got to the metro station. I nestled cozily into a window seat on the bullet train and listened to the entire discography of Japanese Breakfast.

I was awarded with an astonishing sunrise. I drank it bleary-eyed. I tried to take a picture to share with my partner, but failed horribly. A phone camera is not meant to absorb a light sight as natural as that through the dirty window pane of a speeding bullet train. I gave up the first try and just decided to enjoy the view and vibe on the music.

A girl next to me struggled to take a photo as well, but she didn’t give up until after at least 10 tries. I used to be in the camp of grumpy, judgy folks who think that “people don’t enjoy the moment anymore, all they want is to document and put it on Instagram.” I’m still a little bit like that, but I think I feel more empathy now for our intrinsic human need to share profound moments with the people around us. Other people were sleeping or absorbed in their phones or laptops and didn’t even notice the fiery ball that our world revolves around.

I wonder what would’ve happened if I reached out to the girl and just enjoyed the sunrise with her, so we could share that moment together instead of struggling to share it with people who are not with us. I also wondered how it would’ve gone when bullet trains were brand new. With the advent of the internet it feels like we’re both oversocialized and undersocialized equally.

Either way, struck with these thoughts in the early morning made me sentimental. I decided to lean into it (a bit dramatically perhaps) and jot down some quick poetry. I don’t write poetry often, but do sometimes compose rap lyrics as a hobby. In order to overcome the cringe I feel around the topic, I’ll share that poem with y’all today! I’ll put it into a quote in the next line, but I’m not sure if email supports it, so I’ll just add a link to it here to be safe.

Striations in the Sky

Pinks and blues to an explosive blood orange

Black branched silhouttes crack the glass obliette

One arm two arm three

Cartwheels to a red light’s beat

Speeding along the scapes unending

A dirty window only a problem for different frames than mine

First class cheap ass

Journey to a party unkown

What’s to come, makeshift plans

But morning dew makes for calloused hands

Bad coffee burns churning in the bowels of neccesity

Nothing new to me

But still I burn an effigy

For the light of a new day’s glorious poetry

Why Am I Doing? (this)

I love language and linguistics. I love rolling words around in my mouth to feel the texture. I love cutting words up, re-arranging them, and recontextualizing them. That being said, as a writer of fiction, I often feel that this specific part of language does not really have a place.

As of yet, I only find it natural to write into lyrics. But with lyrics comes the baggage of writing a song. I’m not actively making music anymore, and I’ve never been a fantastic vocalist or instrumentalist. I’ve recently found joy in rapping, but I have mixed feelings about “turning it into a project”.

Thus, I feel maybe there’s a place for poetry in my life, as a hobby. But, I’ve always found poetry a bit… cringe? I associate it with angsty teens and the small amount of slam poetry I’ve heard in my local underground scene. Obviously, it’s a childish sentiment, that I don’t agree with anymore on an ideological level. But these feelings often take work to deprogram.

So today, we’re deprogramming by being a bit cringe and sharing poetry on the internet! Hope you enjoyed!