Evening pages, I suppose. I don’t know why I thought, or rather felt compelled to sit on the couch. That’s not true. I do know why.
Once she came home, it felt like everything I did or planned on doing was a performance.
That is, after all, what defines a performance—the presence of a witness. And once there is a witness, I feel like I must perform, entertain, please, engage.
It took all my strength and a little bit of absentminded whim-ness to sit down on my bed, in my room, where I am hidden.
I walked back and forth, getting a pen, filling up water, throwing away garbage, hanging my towel. I took my sweet time in the bathroom after I showered. I just killed time in the hopes that the witness would excuse herself. Leave the living room, the performance space.
But no. The witness sat, quietly on the couch, eating the stale, coconut, oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies I made last weekend, and swiping vertically, through photos on her Instagram feed. She didn’t say anything. But I could hear her hope loud and clear.
My discomfort in the silence yanked at me like a big, untrained, puppy. Though struggling, I resisted. Pulled back. Kept my conversation in place, where it was, in my head.
As I already mentioned, I paced nervously back and forth. Occupied myself with tasks, hoping to run out the clock. Praying for the witness to get up and leave. But the witness remained idle in her seat. Scrolling through her socials like she was at a bar waiting for her date to arrive, or in a theater waiting for the lights to go down and the curtain to open. What’s my line? Oh it could’ve been anything. I could have spoken at length or started a dialogue. I could have discussed my day. Turned each mundane triviality into a story worth sharing.
But I bit my tongue. I bit my tongue and I bit my tongue. I thought of the songs I listened to today. I like Dance Yourself Clean. And Just Cuz You Feel It, Doesn’t Mean it’s There. That’s not the title. I thought other private thoughts. Thoughts I really care to think about without the reaction or opinion or ears of a witness.
What if I charged a fee to enter the Losing Well? A monthly fee? A fee per entry? Would people pay? Would it defeat the purpose? Is my privacy something that can be bought? If the witness was willing to pay me, would I sell her my inner most thoughts? Thoughts were once worth a penny. These days, with inflation and all, they gotta be worth at least a dime. But what if I only charged a penny for my thoughts. Would it be more art that way? I am using art as an adjective there. If commercialization decreases the inherent value of my art, perhaps the only way to combat that is to treat the commercialization as an artistic medium, too. Render it useless. Pay money—not as a means to consume art but as a participant in a social performance piece.
Eh, I should delete my art. It’s diluting my writing, isn’t it? It dilutes my writing.
Why is this a concern? Why am I so concerned with the viewer. I told my therapist today that my new goal is to stop caring what others think.
I practice it the best I can, but I still do not embrace it.
Accompanied by my silence, by my protest of performance, by my decision to continue what I was doing and was going to do before a witness came along, is guilt. Fear, too. An urge to apologize because I feel like I am hated. I feel like I am, in certain ways, failing.
My nose is dry my mouth is dry. I had something to say to the witness—something I could say, but I chose to ride out the seconds in silence instead. It was scary. I felt out of control, like an inexperienced surfer, tube-riding inside a curling wave, unsure of whether I’ll reach the light at the end of this water spout before it crashes down and swallows me. And at the same time I felt bad about my desire to reach the end. It felt like I was hurting the witness on purpose. when i could have just started the show. And despite all this fear and guilt, I did it. I kept all my words to myself. I went to my room. Sat on my bed. Opened my notebook. Tested my pen and spoke my mind. It was will but mostly luck.
I can’t help but think.
I am thirsty. My cup of water is across the room. The witness resigns. Gets up. Shuts off all of the house lights and disappears into the night. A fly has found me, under the only light still on.
I’ve never known how to keep a notebook organized. I’ve never been able to keep my writing sequential. I’ve always worried and fixed and worried and fixed but how crazy would it be if I stopped?
Gotta read the book Adam gave me
Gotta write the email to Martha
Gotta perform
Gotta get a new witness.
Hello, fly.
Keep the pen going—my phone is between my toes. My wrist hurts. I haven’t stretched with intention in quite a while two weeks?
I ate burrata for dinner. The cashier forgot to charge me for it.
I’m still very thirsty. must reach my water now. the water i filled so as not to choose between performance and failure. I’m happy to have made it through to failure in the end. now I have a water cup. and my words. they’re mine all mine and I am happy enough for now.
I heard one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard in my life today. Spotify recommended it. I didn’t listen to the whole thing, but the beginning went a little something like this:
it’s bad to be it and
worse to admit that
we’re the worst band
to ever exist
we’re trying to be cute
by being self-deprecating
and it’ll work on some of you
but most of you will agree
we’re not very good or cute
I don’t have interest in that kind of band personally. I don’t have a genuine interest in 20-something-year-old white boys rapping ironically either. However, perhaps it is this particular distaste that explains my fear of what people will think of my unfiltered, unpoetic, uncorrected, unedited, unexcellent, unorganized, unimpressive and almost completely nearly un-performative writing.