Good fucking morning (pt. 1)

Some thoughts (or lack thereof) of late

pt. 1 / 2

. . .

(Please place blame for all subsequent rhetoric on Ottessa Moshfegh.)

Last night: A crowded paned glass elevator goes down, whence I can’t recall. Its walls divide the outside world into rectangular sections, each showing a different view. “I hope they don’t come for us in here,” a woman’s voice to my left falters as she speaks. She fears confined spaces; fears terror attacks against her and her loved ones. I inspect the surrounding glass to find what she fears but I’m not sure which rectangle she was referring to. The space-time continuum shatters and I’ve been here before. I pull out a recording of this same moment on my phone, and hear the voice again: “I hope they don’t come for us in here.” I look up and a red-haired woman is there, everywhere. She gives me a knowing glance and I understand this is an inter-dimension; limbo. In limbo an elevator is leading us to a private event where no one without an invitation can come in. We’re safe inside our paned glass box. For now.

. . .

My heart beats hard. It’s 4:30AM. I cover my head with the pillow. 5AM. I reheat my hot water bottle and curl myself into it. 5:30AM. I pull the covers over my head and FaceTime my dad in California: the 26-year-old version of crawling into bed with your parents after a bad dream. He sneaks away from a town council meeting where they’re discussing affordable housing to take my call. I’m still not quite sure if I’m awake as I recount my reverie. He assures me that we’re currently in the same dimension, even if divided by a small rectangular screen and with an 8-hour-time difference.

. . .

I ask him why we’re here (don’t forget, it’s early hours). He tells me that if there is a deity, they put us here as a test: to see if even in moments of great weakness, pain or sorrow we can still choose love; if we can be more than our baser instincts and choose kindness. He pulls out a purple silicone wristband with those very words inscribed on it: choose kindness. They’d been handed out earlier in the meeting by Cedars: a residence for adults with developmental disabilities. The type of marketing tactic you can root for, I guess. I want one. Or better yet, I want to inscribe the words on myself, into the the flesh of my palm, between the wriggles on my brain; the underside of my eyelids.

In this dimension I’m safe in bed, staring out my paned glass window.

In this dimension he’s out speaking on behalf of the houseless people in his community whose own voices have been deemed irrelevant, in front of a crowd who has heard it all before.

In some far-off land, somehow still in this dimension, people neither of us knows are experiencing unimaginable acts of violence; others cry out for their loved ones or plot revenge or make peace with the horrors around them and fear whatever life might come in their wake more than the prospect of death. In this dimension I hope that the irony of my words comes across to whatever audience this might have, but I make peace with the fact that my words will never appease anyone, especially not myself.

It’s hard to write these days. Except at 7AM after an hour goes by and you still can’t get back to sleep, so you make a cup of tea and run into your roommate who’s listening to the BBC on her way out the door. You discuss current events as the water boils and it no longer feels like nighttime. You find yourself opening your laptop.

Words simply can’t suffice these days; not that they ever really do. All they seem to be good for is getting thoughts out of our heads and onto the page. But when thoughts can hardly formulate how can their written version be any better? And feelings are clouded by nuance, privilege, hormonal outliers. Words can hardly be tasked to express those, either.

It’s hard to write these days so I sit and think instead, or rather sit and feel as half-baked thoughts swirl like cinnamon rolls in my head. But what are these feelings worth, if anything at all, when experienced within the bounds of this paned glass box?

My dreams are wildly vivid lately. I live out entire lives when I close my eyes; wander around worlds; write the next great novel; use critical thinking to solve sophisticated problems; fall in and out of love. But without context. I walk barefoot across a river in the middle of a bustling city and don’t stop to ask myself why it’s there. I clasp hands with someone I just met as they swing me across a forest floor on a trapeze and I trust them with my life. There is beauty in that, in all of it; even in my nightmares I find myself pausing to feel the cool air on my neck as I run from a predator. Sure, that makes sense.

But I guess this is how I try to live in waking life, too. I try to chew each bite of breakfast 32 times. I go on the same walk every day up the hill past my house and each time try to see the view a little differently. Although, too often I take it all for granted. Even now, as I look out my window—7:45AM in London—and see a morning orange peaking through from behind the grey, I notice that I hadn’t noticed it before.

There is beauty in lack of context. There is also horror. If each time the sun came up I were to stop and wonder why, I'd waste each day away on that question. But if each time I got out of bed I failed to examine my motivations for doing so, I might as well stay asleep.

I’m afraid of falling prey to the lure of lack of context. But when & how do we leverage context effectively?

Here are two examples:

1. Content within context. I follow an influencer on Instagram named Florence Given. Her videos tow the line between cringey and inspiring as she posts, almost every day, videos of herself getting ready and dancing to some 60s or 70s tune, the headline across the screen & voice-over relaying her daily message: GOOD FUCKING MORNING!

She calls it living deliciously, when you savor each moment and express gratitude for simply being alive. Again, tightrope treading that line. But she embraces her “cringe” and aims to motivate others to do the same. Most days I’m here for it. Today was different.

Maybe I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Maybe I’m overdoing it with my news intake. Maybe (definitely) I need to get the fuck off social media. But this is a scenario in which, in my opinion, context matters. On any given day, influencers annoy me, in general. But I’ve come to terms with them, on the whole. Really, I’ve numbed myself to them; even succumbed to the thralls of a few that, like Florence, can bring something in the likeness of “joy” to my daily scroll.

Yet, in the context of highly publicized terrorism, retaliation, mass evacuation and genocide that is the ever-evolving “conflict” between Israel & Palestine, it’s come to feel a bit trite, dare I say even crass, and increasingly bordering on vile.

I’ve personally found it quite challenging & insensitive to even continue journaling about my respectively trivial “problems”, within the privacy of my diary, let alone posting on Instagram any content related to the pleasures of living (live music, time spent with friends, meals that are not only easily acquired but border on luxurious) to my measly thousand or so followers, let alone sharing a reel about a recent fairytale trip to Prague to 666,000 followers (the video that incited my comment—which was reported and removed by the way). It just feels to me like showing up to a funeral wearing pink and a “better them than me” pin.

Maybe I’m exaggerating. Maybe I’m feeling overly sensitive. Maybe these influencers are just being exactly what they are—which they have never claimed to be anything other than—and however we feel about them shouldn’t change based on context.

But maybe not.

I would genuinely love to hear any other thoughts on this (please get me out of my own head).

. . .

2. Colonialism as context. This example is more “complex,” as the media loves to put it these days.

This example also requires more attention than I’m sure any of you who have made it this far down would care to allot, so I’ll pause here and come back in a few days for the rest.

And now, it’s 9AM and I think I’ll rest, perhaps enjoy some context-less dreams, and send this when I wake.

. . .

Until then,

Francesca (Observing)