the end of that summer holiday feeling

I've decided to stay in Furukawa at least another year. Working on the logistics of that, but it looks like it's going to happen. I'm really happy about it, but I do extend my apologies to those I assured that I'd be returning to Texas.

So all the Summer festivities are over, and the campaigns for the Japanese general election kicked off this week. Should be an interesting civics lesson for me. Meanwhile, it seems like a good opportunity, with projects coming to a close and a certain renewal of earnestness in the air, to hit the writing again with some vigor. I've allowed myself to lose the love of it, as it was recently put to me.

Back in the stoop days, I was sitting with Elizabeth over a glass of whiskey (she had a merlot in one of her grandmother's glasses, I think) and I was maligning a certain friend for having dropped contact with me for seemingly no reason. You were there when things went wrong, she said, even if you helped in some way, sometimes just reminding someone of pain is enough. I couldn't accept it, but I think I am beginning to agree. Writing saved my sorry ass after the split with the woman, the divorce, the ensuing identity crisis, it was sometimes the only thing I knew I could trust, but as I began to feel more like myself, I became sick of the sound of my own words. They had the feel of disgust, even when they were positive. But I have been living long enough without the love of words, the finding of things on blank screens, that now it is the silence that seems to drone. It is time again, finally, to live in anticipation of the next story, to love my shitty poetry (no joke, it's bad, but I love writing it) and to stop seeing writing as a way into pain.

Also, I need some coffee and some hot water.