The underwater muse
I remember being in Marin and sitting on my sofa looking out to the large cedar tree in the yard and feeling as if I was underwater – suffocating. I woke this morning in my hotel room in New York with a similar feeling. A feeling that I’m underwhelmed by big things and overwhelmed by the details. It all translates into a sort of all repulse response to just about everything – I didn’t want breakfast, nor tea, nor to go out for a walk, nor to write, or read – it’s as if I was just there, a blob, sitting up in my bed wondering what next. Out my window was a collage of skyscrapers, all lit up, and active in the early morning. Beehives of activity.
How do people live here? I wondered. One on top of the other. On the 21st floor of the Grand Hyatt, it all seemed like a spooky forest – dense with no air.
I thought about my mom on the vent – sipping air through a straw is how the vent was described to me – and I felt like I was drawing from the same source. The window that barely opened only served as a flood gate for the noise that was beyond white, more like a disquieting yellow or searching red similar to what Kadinsky used in his art – world in motion noise emanating from the street all the way up to my small room.