tuckova

"but monkeys are so ugly they're cute"

This picture was taken in January 1995, my first winter here. I was 26. I recently spoke to two friends that age, one visiting the Czech Republic for HER first winter, and the other working abroad for the first time.

Since I kept a diary back then, I was able to visit that younger Anne, to see how much of what I remember now was what I thought was important at the time and to ponder how much of who I was then informed who I am now. 

And mostly I'm the same. I wrote sentences like "I think sometimes people practice being unhappy to remind themselves they are still alive." I had a weakness for gimmick novels. I had a dream about a writer whose fingers turned to fountain pen nibs and she ripped apart a person she was trying to hug. 

But I was so fixated on how unattractive I was. For example, I wrote about the boy who took this picture, and how much it meant that he let his skin touch mine here, because it meant he wasn't afraid my ugliness would infect him. 

Now I look and I think -- I was not ugly. How did I think I was ugly? Was it being female, was it the people I socialized with, was it how any insecurity I felt manifested, was it the hair (it's always the hair)? I wish that I had a time machine to go back and tell that girl she was okay. I would have told her she was fine, that there were so many other things worth having all those feelings about. I would have told her that her eyes were incredible and that she should learn to use them to see things more clearly, that her skin was lovely and doing a great job of holding her guts in so she could quit spilling them to dingbats who didn't deserve it, that her hair was perfectly fine and to hell with anybody who told her differently. I would have told her that her beautiful heart was the only thing that mattered but also that she had amazing bones. 

Of course I turned out okay; I'm 95% less likely to stay inside because I am too afraid of frightening people in the street with the horror of my face. So since I like who I am I probably wouldn't use the time machine to go back in time to change anything.* But I have decided to try to tell people a little more often how beautiful they are on the outside. Just in case they don't know.  

_{*Also if you have a time machine you go back and invest in Apple or something USEFUL, duh. TM MIG.}

unutterably alone

I went to a play in London earlier this month partly because I decided that I wanted to be the kind of person who could say "I went to a play in London earlier this month" and there was a really easy way to make that happen. Anyway: play in London. And this is on top of a music festival in Vienna the previous month (partly because pretty much the same reason). Plus going to an unprecedented number of live shows here in town. And what I have felt at all of these shows is really, really lonely. 

I've been thinking about it because on the one hand it makes no sense. I was with friends at both shows; both shows were crowded with people, it was not unfriendly, in fact in some ways I felt more unified with the audience than I often do (that is, I felt like we were enjoying the same show, for the same general reasons, which I don't always feel). And yet I just felt so lonely. I felt like I wanted to stop everything, turn to someone next to me, someone I liked, and say, "Hey, did you just see that?" and know before I even opened my mouth that they did, that they saw what I saw, and that their opinion would help inform mine. I don't mean they'd have to agree with me, but that we would have our experiences clarified and enhanced by each other's. 

But the trick here would be the moment of stopping everything. Because I hate to look away from a moment that is happening to observe it, whether that means taking a picture of it or turning to talk about it or even just smile -- it feels like the moment gets changed irrevocably by the need to observe it, and the more I enjoy the moment, the less I want to turn from it... I want to be in the moment. And that means that I have to be alone in it, and so what I felt, what I've been feeling, from surrendering to being alone in intense moments (not turning away to look at my friend, not taking pictures, etc), is really lonely. And I've been thinking about how much of life is like that, the decision between living the moment and sharing the moment, and how hard it can be to do both, and how even if you do a really really good job of documenting what happened, you cannot really have someone in your experience, I mean no matter what you are alone, even if you could stop the moment you would still be alone. I would still be, I mean. I don't think it means that attempts at connection should not be made; in contrast, I think it's the most important thing to attempt. But it means I'm realizing it's even harder than I thought. 

and it's been so long that I can't explain

It's December 2nd, the fourth birthday since you died. Sometimes I think about how when I am dead the entirety of our friendship will be dead, every experience we shared, every conversation, everything. We were the only witnesses. How we raced elevators, drank beer, tormented the people in the video store with our increasingly obscure requests; how hard we laughed. How much of my time was spent on thinking towards amusing you, just to hear your devil laugh, and even now whenever I find something funny half the time my mind races towards you and then stumbles around on itself, mouth gaping with the loss, fresh wound. I have other friends who have cut themselves off from me and my memories, people who want to pretend like we were never friends because it would mean living up to something they'd promised me, or actually I don't know what, I don't even get the Christmas cards. This time of year I feel all these absences. As good as dead, except you really are and I will never get over it. I miss you so much, I loved you so hard.