After a bad break-up, I flew to India to visit a good friend. My ex tried to chase me down in my taxi as we tore off toward the airport—banged on the window with a torn lease in his hands. I’d be homeless when I returned, he shouted. When I landed in Mumbai, he’d become a speck of dust in the distance. I could wrap myself up in green silk and sulk by the mosque with the white doves squawking at the edges of the ocean.
That trip felt like stepping into quicksand. I couldn’t stay there forever and I didn’t want to return and home was not an option. Another friend came to visit and we became a trio of travelers on long bus rides through cold, starry nights. Grand, royal palaces became the backdrop of our escapist dramas; we delighted in small pleasures, like barfi with chai, mystical men atop tired elephants sauntering through the narrow streets of Udaipur. It’s easy to romanticize a pain that is not yours.
Traveling in a trio, one must tread carefully and leave through side exits. I’d head out on my own to silver shops and chat it up with tired old men with droopy eyes and clever lies to convince me that the rings they chose were just for me. I bought one ring, a slab of thick silver that looked like a mirror on my hand. I constantly caught my reflection in it as we bussed back to Mumbai, and I finally said goodbye. The other friend remained on my friend’s couch for months, imagining many futures.
I returned to Zanzibar, relieved to believe that my ex had grown tired of his stalking and would now leave me alone. I was wrong. I’d so desperately wanted to be known as a poet and now I had no words to describe these circumstances. Instead of leaving, I stayed to investigate the crisis. I stayed to tolerate the delusion. I stayed to stalk my own perimeter, hoping that I could hold my own against the separation. This was a difficult time to live in a place where no one knew my past. On an island, everyone’s an actor and the ocean is stage-left.
I thank my higher self for letting the past get lost in language. If it’s lost in language, it’s not lost but lodged. I read another Wiman essay today, he asks: What wounded you into words? Do you write from a feeling of having been wronged, or because you now feel right? Our bodies always know more than we can tell. Writing is not a way out but a way back in and through.
Let’s go with the deep-diving metaphor. It’s too dangerous to go deep without a breathing apparatus. I’ve never been interested in diving, it terrifies me. But the metaphor is a good one to describe the dangers of staying too long in the subterranean oceans of consciousness. I go down once in a while and find these flashes of experiences as shells that shimmer out there without me. Catching glimpses of these moments is a marvel, but I live on land just fine, no need to hold them in my hand.
I’m nearing the end of this Transit Slips project. Today is my mom’s heavenly 79th birthday. She died dreaming of her jewels, she never got to sort them but we’re still sorting it all for her. I got a letter in the mail from the Jewish Sacred Society, reminding me to light a candle for her. I traveled because she traveled—I close my eyes and see a photo of her waving to the world from the backseat of a rickshaw in China, 1989.
Transit Slips, #27
That trip felt like stepping into quicksand. I couldn’t stay there forever and I didn’t want to return and home was not an option. Another friend came to visit and we became a trio of travelers on long bus rides through cold, starry nights. Grand, royal palaces became the backdrop of our escapist dramas; we delighted in small pleasures, like barfi with chai, mystical men atop tired elephants sauntering through the narrow streets of Udaipur. It’s easy to romanticize a pain that is not yours.
Traveling in a trio, one must tread carefully and leave through side exits. I’d head out on my own to silver shops and chat it up with tired old men with droopy eyes and clever lies to convince me that the rings they chose were just for me. I bought one ring, a slab of thick silver that looked like a mirror on my hand. I constantly caught my reflection in it as we bussed back to Mumbai, and I finally said goodbye. The other friend remained on my friend’s couch for months, imagining many futures.
I returned to Zanzibar, relieved to believe that my ex had grown tired of his stalking and would now leave me alone. I was wrong. I’d so desperately wanted to be known as a poet and now I had no words to describe these circumstances. Instead of leaving, I stayed to investigate the crisis. I stayed to tolerate the delusion. I stayed to stalk my own perimeter, hoping that I could hold my own against the separation. This was a difficult time to live in a place where no one knew my past. On an island, everyone’s an actor and the ocean is stage-left.
I thank my higher self for letting the past get lost in language. If it’s lost in language, it’s not lost but lodged. I read another Wiman essay today, he asks: What wounded you into words? Do you write from a feeling of having been wronged, or because you now feel right? Our bodies always know more than we can tell. Writing is not a way out but a way back in and through.
Let’s go with the deep-diving metaphor. It’s too dangerous to go deep without a breathing apparatus. I’ve never been interested in diving, it terrifies me. But the metaphor is a good one to describe the dangers of staying too long in the subterranean oceans of consciousness. I go down once in a while and find these flashes of experiences as shells that shimmer out there without me. Catching glimpses of these moments is a marvel, but I live on land just fine, no need to hold them in my hand.
I’m nearing the end of this Transit Slips project. Today is my mom’s heavenly 79th birthday. She died dreaming of her jewels, she never got to sort them but we’re still sorting it all for her. I got a letter in the mail from the Jewish Sacred Society, reminding me to light a candle for her. I traveled because she traveled—I close my eyes and see a photo of her waving to the world from the backseat of a rickshaw in China, 1989.
Transit Slips, #27
