I’ve been doing this thing recently where I try not to feel things too deeply. I try to keep a little distance between the thought that pains me and my thoughts about that thought, and I try to keep cool, because that always ends up being the truth anyway. I always end up thinking that things are not so bad. So I’m being less dramatic.
For the first time in a long time I feel glad to be alive. I like being outside and touching things with my hands. That sounds dirty. I’m talking about cooking, and planting, and walking the dog. Doing some stretches.
I’m up on the 29th floor and I’m sounding boring. I know that. There are men suspended outside my window, eight feet from me, scraping the grout out of the windows’ edges. Eight feet away, 29 floors up. They’re chatting and shrugging like it’s no big deal. They’re just at work.
What will happen to me? I wonder if I’ll ever write anything. I mean anything real that people read. I don’t really care, I mean I don’t feel so invested in that, but I’d like to not work in an office after all this is over.
Things could be worse. Do you know that? It’s something that we get to go home and make dinner. There is red wine, all the red wine in the world. We have conversations and friendships. It’s almost too much to handle, all the basic decency that exists.
Nada, says one of the guys outside the window. I swear it’s like they’re on a street corner, not dangling above the world.
