“When I see you unexpectedly, not on my own mapped-out controlled terms, I cannot breath. I choke and want everything I have ever put into my body to be immediately expelled. Every piece of food I have ever eaten and every sip of liquid I have ever had needs to come out. Every kiss I have accepted, every touch, to go far, far away. I need to be turned inside out and shaken and slapped. I wasn’t wrong, I wasn’t mistaken.”
Each day she indulge in earthly pleasures with no thought of the afterlife; learning to delve deeper into all the subtle joys of existence and even appreciating the raw wallowing of real sorrow was a process she grasped onto and refused to let go of. Once she realized that it was all necessary, the pleasures, the pain, and that it was up to her to find them everywhere, everyday, and no one could help her or stop her, she could expect nothing else from life. Inflated and distended with feeling, she paraded around elated, judging others for their bare, minimal effort at living. She became disgusted by the jaded, impassive faces that surrounded her, both strangers and friends who exhibited this sad, closed-off American attitude. She wanted to shake these people, tell them that it was okay to try, okay to take risks, to hurt, to ball and cry and wail so hard that the neighbors could hear and become concerned and know that people are capable of treating one another that horribly. Because this was the purpose of life: to feel, whatever that feeling may be.
“This lightness, this ability to say anything and everything that may be pressured to escape the tongue, is the most beautiful thing in the world. It is the immediate gratification of softness and lightness that normally takes the effort of a lifetime to achieve, here, now. It is a new softness, the smell of straw, the innocent sounds of pleasure that escape as naturally as the sounds of wind flowing over a bottle, that give it validity. It is no more true than its opposite, however; both are filled with intensity, genuine push and pull between what fits, either melding together, or clashing with violence. Both are a part of being, now or never.”
