I won’t be working for the next two weeks. I’ve counted the days, the hours up to this break. I need it so much. I find it hard to describe how tired I feel, it’s beyond words. A deep feeling of lassitude getting hold of me the minute I open my eyes the morning. It’s the first thought as I get up, an awful awareness that sleep hasn’t done its job, hasn't repaired me, hasn’t made me better. A dull, constant pain – not acute – more of a general nature, spread evenly throughout my body.
I’ve always had it, a tired child with legs, arms, a back, a neck, feet, hands, fingers hurting. Nothing like a blow or a cut. No, more like an intrinsic part of everything that I am, a diffuse unpleasant pressure draining energy, an ache painted all over my bones, my muscles, my nerves, not a single part escaping the discomfort.
Soreness would be the best way to call it. Not a disease. I would say a sad affliction, an insidious permanent condition.
I first used the word ‘tired’ to talk about myself when I was three. I’ve never forgotten the scene. We’re in Cleveland. Our apartment resembles a dark, long tunnel, the rooms at the front and at the back linked by a narrow corridor where freshly washed clothes are hung, dripping on the floor. There’s a big blue metallic chest, a trunk, against the wall, half way through, blocking the way, making it hard to navigate that corridor. White bed sheets are drying, hiding the chest on which I’m sitting, my legs crossed.
I feel I’m at the right place, at the right time. No one can see me. I have disappeared. I no longer exist. I hear, so far away, the voice of an adult calling me, but I am gone. The voice gets lost in the infinite distance, I can't tell whose it is. I’m no longer here. My hideaway place has disconnected itself from the world. I close my eyes to make sure I fully extirpate myself from the universe I know. This little corner made by the chest and the bed sheets forming a curtain have eliminated everything outside their boundaries. I am absolutely certain that I will be here forever, and I know I can do it. That I don’t need anything. That I will never feel any regrets nor desires. That I will never, never feel lonely or miss anything. I have the power to erase, nothing else matters. I am simply so fine, so comfortable. A perfect existence.
Of course, eventually I was found. I don't remember by whom. When the bed sheet was lifted, an incredible weight instantly crashed upon me. Something reached for me, - was it a shout, a slap? - my eyes were hurting while every part of me became immensely old. I felt it, a distressing sensation suddenly running through my veins, attacking every fiber of my being, forbidding escape. In a second, I reached an incalculable age.
I recall an all-powerful surge of feeling before the memory goes blank: Hatred.
Directed at myself, I think. I had truly been meant to become an invisible being. My anatomy was therefore defective. I couldn't understand why.
Ever since, sadly enough, there hasn’t been a moment untouched by this pernicious agony running under my skin.
Every step I take, every letter I type on the keyboard, every time I turn or bend my head - the tiniest movement is undermined by pain. A wave malevolently echoed deep inside.
Back then, my abrupt re-entry into this world must have damaged me. That’s how I see it.
More than 50 years later, my state hasn’t improved. On the contrary. It has worsened.
Doesn’t matter how long or how little I sleep, a slight stretching of my ankles, my shoulder twisting to get up, my wrists pushing on the mattress to lift my back, all of these cry from the knowledge that once again, I’m not rested. Still deliriously depleted. Endlessly fatigued from the effort and the struggle.
Younger, I drank a lot, took dope, danced, spinning my fright like mad. A sublime negation of my physical limitations. An ability to transcend hardship. To command analgesia. Winning for a few hours.
Today, when I don’t need to work, I let go, sinking into the pain as a way to recognize where my existence stands. Every part of my body delineating its shape and consistence using the heat traces left by exhaustion.
I’ve never tried to position myself on a pain scale. It is believed in some circles that when suffering reaches a certain pathological threshold, it does so as a way to distract the mind, diverting it from repressed emotions. A form of protection, would say a shrink.
I wouldn’t know for sure. Lets leave to those wealthier than us the care of articulating the philosophies of pain.
I am sharing all of this now because I want you to know me. My somatic experiences, their duration, their chronic intensity, their throbbing patterns, as well as their demoralizing effect. Whatever unconscious survival benefits they may be said to hold.
I will stay home for the next two weeks. Not to rest. But to be silent, in closer contact with my debilitating joints. Too many cells in my body having a conversation of their own, every syllable deeply accentuated, hammering a meaning that has always kept me so busy: Listening, deciphering all the way to weariness the cryptic connotations of sensory perceptions.
Laolao
I’ve always had it, a tired child with legs, arms, a back, a neck, feet, hands, fingers hurting. Nothing like a blow or a cut. No, more like an intrinsic part of everything that I am, a diffuse unpleasant pressure draining energy, an ache painted all over my bones, my muscles, my nerves, not a single part escaping the discomfort.
Soreness would be the best way to call it. Not a disease. I would say a sad affliction, an insidious permanent condition.
I first used the word ‘tired’ to talk about myself when I was three. I’ve never forgotten the scene. We’re in Cleveland. Our apartment resembles a dark, long tunnel, the rooms at the front and at the back linked by a narrow corridor where freshly washed clothes are hung, dripping on the floor. There’s a big blue metallic chest, a trunk, against the wall, half way through, blocking the way, making it hard to navigate that corridor. White bed sheets are drying, hiding the chest on which I’m sitting, my legs crossed.
I feel I’m at the right place, at the right time. No one can see me. I have disappeared. I no longer exist. I hear, so far away, the voice of an adult calling me, but I am gone. The voice gets lost in the infinite distance, I can't tell whose it is. I’m no longer here. My hideaway place has disconnected itself from the world. I close my eyes to make sure I fully extirpate myself from the universe I know. This little corner made by the chest and the bed sheets forming a curtain have eliminated everything outside their boundaries. I am absolutely certain that I will be here forever, and I know I can do it. That I don’t need anything. That I will never feel any regrets nor desires. That I will never, never feel lonely or miss anything. I have the power to erase, nothing else matters. I am simply so fine, so comfortable. A perfect existence.
Of course, eventually I was found. I don't remember by whom. When the bed sheet was lifted, an incredible weight instantly crashed upon me. Something reached for me, - was it a shout, a slap? - my eyes were hurting while every part of me became immensely old. I felt it, a distressing sensation suddenly running through my veins, attacking every fiber of my being, forbidding escape. In a second, I reached an incalculable age.
I recall an all-powerful surge of feeling before the memory goes blank: Hatred.
Directed at myself, I think. I had truly been meant to become an invisible being. My anatomy was therefore defective. I couldn't understand why.
Ever since, sadly enough, there hasn’t been a moment untouched by this pernicious agony running under my skin.
Every step I take, every letter I type on the keyboard, every time I turn or bend my head - the tiniest movement is undermined by pain. A wave malevolently echoed deep inside.
Back then, my abrupt re-entry into this world must have damaged me. That’s how I see it.
More than 50 years later, my state hasn’t improved. On the contrary. It has worsened.
Doesn’t matter how long or how little I sleep, a slight stretching of my ankles, my shoulder twisting to get up, my wrists pushing on the mattress to lift my back, all of these cry from the knowledge that once again, I’m not rested. Still deliriously depleted. Endlessly fatigued from the effort and the struggle.
Younger, I drank a lot, took dope, danced, spinning my fright like mad. A sublime negation of my physical limitations. An ability to transcend hardship. To command analgesia. Winning for a few hours.
Today, when I don’t need to work, I let go, sinking into the pain as a way to recognize where my existence stands. Every part of my body delineating its shape and consistence using the heat traces left by exhaustion.
I’ve never tried to position myself on a pain scale. It is believed in some circles that when suffering reaches a certain pathological threshold, it does so as a way to distract the mind, diverting it from repressed emotions. A form of protection, would say a shrink.
I wouldn’t know for sure. Lets leave to those wealthier than us the care of articulating the philosophies of pain.
I am sharing all of this now because I want you to know me. My somatic experiences, their duration, their chronic intensity, their throbbing patterns, as well as their demoralizing effect. Whatever unconscious survival benefits they may be said to hold.
I will stay home for the next two weeks. Not to rest. But to be silent, in closer contact with my debilitating joints. Too many cells in my body having a conversation of their own, every syllable deeply accentuated, hammering a meaning that has always kept me so busy: Listening, deciphering all the way to weariness the cryptic connotations of sensory perceptions.
Laolao
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