Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.11.1412281717390.18764@panix5.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.wvu.edu>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: Bad Thoughts
Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 17:22:06 -0500 (EST)
Bad Thoughts http://www.alansondheim.org/badthoughts.png http://www.alansondheim.org/badfragment.mp4 When I wake up in the morning, does this happen to you, please add comments, if I lie in bed, which I do, having had troubled or chopped sleep, which I have, the bad thoughts begin; I try to banish them, think of other things, attempt breathing meditation but nothing helps. There are thoughts of my aging, of dying, of leaving Azure behind (which is the worst); there are memories salvaged from my high-school years, or Soho years in the 70s; memories as well of Nova Scotia, California, driving cross- country, on and on. I try to avoid these, then there are memories of my parents, or growing up in the home in Kingston, Pennsylvania, or further memories of my daughter and our broken relationship. I try to avoid these. Then there are violent feelings of regret, feelings of loss with friends who have died, feelings of abject loneliness (living in Rhode Island), feelings of abandonment (so many of our friends are in NY or out West), feelings of self-pity, of a life badly lived, of work which will disappear when I die. When I count breaths, thoughts intrude; my mind refuses to leave me alone, my mind splits, one part begs the other, it's no use. The bad thoughts are there and will remain until I rise, think of other things. I worry whether or not I'll see my friends again, whether I'll be able to visit my brother's or sister's families, whether I'll be able to work again, even for a pittance, just for community, just to be part of something. I worry about leaving things unsaid, unfinished, I try to avoid such things. I want to think of other things. I think of getting up to avoid such things, it's in the middle of the night, should I take trazodone and more melatonin, should I read or rise for the moment, work on a project, do grunt work, will that get me back to sleep. I worry that my depression will last the rest of my life and contaminate everyone around me, that I'll have a stroke, that I'll be incapacitated, that I will no longer be able to play music. My mind wanders back to childhood, to promises of forthcoming books that will remain stillborn, to recordings I'd like to do, choreography and video and sound I'd want to work on with Foofwa or other dancers, music I'd like to play with Stephen, I worry about car accidents and growing increasingly despondent over the 'world situation.' I try to avoid reading about pain and suffering and death, my reading incapacitates, haunts me in the middle of the night, I shudder in horror over pain and death imagined. My bad thoughts include dying before I want to die, I never want to, I think all the time of suicide as a way of avoiding bad thoughts, I'd never kill myself. I think of pets I've had, of moments driving through the Appalachians, of listening to Scottish music in Nova Scotia, of playing on the banks of the Seine in Paris, about failing to become a scientist, of disappointing everyone who was sure I'd have a stellar career in art or music or literature, of constantly disappointing my father, who said to me recently in a dream, 'you've always been annoying.' Everywhere I turn there are thick curtains, dark ones, behind them there's nothing, not even more of them, the curtains murmur the onslaught of emptiness. I think of missed opportunities, never learning Japanese, never visiting China, no more gallery shows, no more university affiliations. I think of friends who have been cast adrift as well, everyone dealing with misery, depression, death, of friends and relatives, of their own illnesses. I think of the return of slavery by violent states, war and torture everywhere, the darkness setting over humanity. I attempt to wake, I like in bed sometimes for hours with these thoughts, I can't banish them, sooner or later I get up, work for a bit, exhaust myself, collapse back into deep sleep for a half hour to two hours at a time, wake, practice music, and that may be my day. I think about the phenomenology of anguish, of the state of being bereft, of the imperturbability of name, of the world closing down for me. I think of Azure, I turn towards her, cuddle, I prepare myself for the day, I struggle, dawn has not yet struck its discordance, I wake, I get up, I move. I approach the day.