Reflections on 2016 + Resolutions (LONG AF)

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(not) Christmas

Because my paternal grandfather suddenly died of a heart attack. Great. I shall keep my thoughts to myself.

That little red book

As anyone who know me would know, I have this obsession with hoarding notebooks. And I used to make it a point to buy an expensive A6-size Moleskine notebook every year, to use as a journal of sorts. The idea behind the whole point of journaling was similar to that of Mia Thermopolis in the Princess Diaries; in penning down my innermost thoughts, I would be forced to acquaint myself with my emotions and understand them - and therefore myself, better. I used to possess an almost religious exaltation for journaling. Expressing and writing down my secret thoughts, in my mind, held the equivalence of a religious confession - only that I was both the sinner and the pope.

I used to have this really lofty goal that tens of years from now, I'd be sitting in a big cushy leather armchair, with an entire floor-to-ceiling bookshelf filled with all my writings contained within the same series of standardised, expensive, leather-bound notebooks. Both personal and impersonal, fiction and non-fiction, modern and historical, urban and fantasy...the list goes on. Yet as I grew over the years, my personal writings have dwindled significantly because I've come to realize that I was absolutely no stranger to my innermost thoughts and feelings. Penning them down accomplished nothing, for the crux of the problem was not that I DIDN'T know, or wish to know, what I was feeling - rather, it was specifically that I didn't know WHAT to do about it, and that didn't seem like something any amount of writing could fix. I grew frustrated at the ignes fatui of my emotions. Perhaps my unhealthy amount of skepticism towards everything, as a non-commital pyrrhonist, exacerbated this. And since I had "no chill", what I'd do (and still do) is obsess over the issue and my emotions, over and over again, tirelessly and without fail, until that issue is somehow resolved. The problem is that most of the time, these issues may never be resolved.
Hence nothing that I am unhappy about ever actually leaves my mind. I could be enjoying good food and drink, watching a youtube video, or stabbing holes in a polymer clay strawberry, yet I'd still be angrily mulling over how I wasn't exercising and getting my body back into shape (it doesn't help that I can't do so at the moment because I injured myself), angrily mulling over Z's repugnant and very toxic ex and Z himself for being psychologically and emotionally incapable of extricating himself from her, bitterly ruminating upon my ineptness at writing and expressing myself and my sexual frustrations and my lack of an EQ and how I can't seem to sustain a normal conversation with people, both offline and online...the list goes on. There are a lot of things I keep mum about because I feel like if I ever express them to the people around me, I'd irritate them with how obsessive my thoughts are. My journals served as fodder for all my obsessive thoughts, without serving any useful function of abating them. This also explains the sparse posts over this year and the last.

Anyway, out of all the numerous journals that I've written in, there is only one that I have filled completely, from the first page to the last. It is also my worst and most embarrassing journal because that was probably one of the angstiest and most hormonal periods of my life.

The one good thing about the book is that I had a particular obsession with H.P. Lovecraft, an author who is very dear to me (I have added his name to the list of names for my future pets to commemorate his work), hence I recorded bits and pieces of his writings in my book and I'd go back and read it every now and then to feel momentarily calm and at peace. I love his and Poe's brand of cosmic horror. People underestimate the vivid imagination it takes to write them. It's fantasy without all her dumb and boring tropes. I also have other poems, such as Plath's ever-famous villanelle, Mad Girl's Love Song, Drayton's Idea 61 and the various works of Lorca (what is with my obsession with Spanish poets?) I shall record them all here and proceed to burn this journal.

Mad Girl's Love Song

by Sylvia Plath

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;

I lift my lids and all is born again.

(I think I made you up inside my head)

The Stars go Waltzing out in blue and red,

and arbitrary blackness gallops in:

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed

And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.

(I think I made you up inside my head)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:

Exit Seraphim and Satan's men:

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,

But I grow old and forget your name.

(I think I made you up inside my head)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;

At least when spring comes they roar back again

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

(I think I made you up inside my head)

Idea 61

by Michael Drayton

Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part.

Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;

And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,

That thus so cleanly I myself can free.

Shake hands forever, and cancel our vows,

and when we meet at any time again,

Be it not seen in either of our brows

That we one jot of former love retain.

Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,

When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies;

When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,

And Innocence is closing up his eyes -

Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,

From death to life thou might'st him yet recover!

¡Ay, amor

by Lorca

Ay, love

that went away through the air!

One could say that the water carries

a will-o-the-wisp filled with cries!

Ay, love

that went away and never returned

carry orange blossom, carry olives,

Andalusia, down to your seas

Ay, love

that went away through the air!

Procession

by Lorca

Down the narrow street

come strange unicorns.

From what field

from what mythical forest?

Closer still.

now they appear to be astronomers.

Fantastic merlins

and the Ecce Homo,

an enchanted Durandarte,

a furious orlads.

Paisaje

by Lorca

The field

of olive trees

opens and closes

like a fan.

Above the olive grove

there is a sunken sky

and a dark shower

of cold stars.

Bullrush and twilight tremble.

at the edge of the river.

The river air ripples.

The olive trees

are charged

with cries

A flock

of captive birds

shaking their very big

tail feathers in the   

gloomy sombrío.

Y Después

by Lorca

And after that

The labyrinths

that time creates

vanish.

(Only the desert remains)

The illusion of dawn

and kisses

vanish.

(Only the desert remains)

The illusion of dawn

and kisses

vanish.

Only the desert remains.

A rolling

desert.

Encuentro

by Lorca

Neither you nor I are

ready

to find one another.

You...for reasons you know.

I loved her so much!

Follow that narrow path.

In my hands

I've got holes from the nails.

Can't you see how

I'm bleeding to death?

Never glance back, continue on slowly

and pray the way I do,

to San Cayentano,

for neither you nor I are

ready

to find one another.

AND NOW, Lovecraft, my vacation. From The Tomb:

Come hither, my lads, with your tankards of ale,

and drink to the present before it shall fail

Pile each on your platter a mountain of beef,

For tis' eating and drinking that bring us relief:

So fill up your glass,

For life will soon pass;

When you're dead ye'll ne'er drink your king or your lass!

Anacreon had a red nose, so they say;

But what's a red nose if you're happy and gay?

Gad split me! I'd rather be red whilst I'm here,

Than white as a lily - and dead half a year!

So Betty, my miss,

Come give me a kiss;

In hell there's no innkeeper's daughter like this!

Young Henry, propp'd up just as straight as he's able,

Will soon lose his wig and slip under the table;

But fill up your goblets and pass'em around -

better under the table than under the ground!

So revel and chaff

As ye thirstily quaff

Under six feet of dirt tis' less easy to laugh!

The fiend strike me blue! I'm scarce able to walk,

And damn me if I can stand upright or talk!

here, landlord, bid Betty to summon a chair;

I'll try home for a while, for my wife is not there!

So, lend me a hand,

I'm not able to stand,

But I'm gay whilst I linger on top of the land!

From The White Ship:

Where dwell all the dreams and thoughts of beauty that come to men once and then are forgotten. And when I looked upon the terraces again I saw that what he said was true, for among the sights before me were many things that I had once seen though the mists beyond the horizon and in the phosphorescent depths of the ocean. There too were forms and fantasies more splendid than any I had ever known, the visions of young poets who died in want before the world could learn of what they had seen and dreamed. Green shore of far lands, bright and beautiful and to me unknown.. Up from the sea rose lordly terraces of verdure, tree-studded, and shewing here and there the gleaming white roofs and colonnades of strange temples. (Zar)

The city of a thousand wonders...

The city was greater than any city I have dreamed of before. Into the sky the spires of its temples reached, so that no man might behold their peaks; and far back beyond the horizon stretched the grim, grey walls, over which one might spy only a few roofs, weird and ominous, yet adorned with rich friezes and alluring sculptures. Therein walk only daemons and mad things that are no longer men, and the streets are white with the unburied bones of those who have looked upon the eidolon Lathi, that reigns over the city. (Thalarion)

The land of pleasures unattained. There came we to a pleasant coast gay with blossoms of every hue, where as far inland as we could see basked lovely groves and radiant arbours beneath a meridian sun. From bowers beyond our view came bursts of song and snatches of lyric harmony interspersed with faint laughter so delicious [...]. We approached the lily-lined shore. Suddenly a wind blowing from over the flowery meadows and leafy woods brought a scent at which I trembled. The wind grew stronger, and the air was filled with the lethal, charnel, odour or plague-stricken towns and uncovered cemeteries. (Xura)

Where there is neither time nor space, neither suffering nor death. Green are the groves of the pastures, bright and fragrant the flowers, blue and mystical the streams, clear and cool the fountains, and stately and gorgeous the temples, castles and cities of Sona-Nyl. Of that land there is no bound, for beyond each vista of beauty rises another more beautiful. Over the countryside and amidst the splendour of cities rove at will the happy folk, of whom all are gifted with unmarred grace and unalloyed happiness. Gardens where quaint pagodas peep from pleasing clumps of bushes, and where the white walks are bordered with delicate blossoms. I climbed gentle hills from whose summits could see entrancing panaromas of loveliness, with steepled towns nestling in verdant valleys, and with the golden domes of gigantic cities glittering in the infinitely distant horizon. And I viewed by moonlight the sparkling sea, the crystal headlands and the placid harbour..." (Sona-Nyl)

Gotta love the last one, it sounds like my name.

NOW THAT I'VE COMPILED EVERYTHING, THIS BOOK SHALL BE BURNED.