Summary: The summer of 2019 is almost over now and the air, to my immense pleasure, throughout this last week has significantly cooled down…almost unseasonably so......Overlooking the sadness or nostalgia we sometimes feel in response to our awareness that life simply happens then ends, and that thus, experiences do not and cannot “happen again” (except within memory, the perception of its audio or visual record)… I enjoy the seasons changing. One aesthetic benefit of living in a “temperate” area as opposed to, say, a tropical one, or a desert, is that you get not just the changes of temperature and weather, but also, the visual changes—leaves turning yellow, brown, orange, red and then falling to the ground, eventually snow and ice, and then a burst of green and other flowery colors! Mental stimulation!This outlook is relatively new for me......in a very panicked fury, I said to my mother: “fuck you!”Before I proceed I must make emphatically clear my shame and regret about this. Of course, who among us have not said at one point or another to our parents some version of “I hate you!” or “fuck you!”---? Not that this coming of age and rites of passage thing justifies such a traditional adolescent vitriol and angst but I don’t imagine my own gracelessness here that I unfairly subjected my mother to was exceptionally unique or even personal. I imagine even the most polite teenager demonstrates a capacity for critical thought if he or she at some point contradicts his or her parents to his or her parents’ profound dismay. I understand though this always deeply upset my mother.......My mother should write a book espousing her views on motherhood. It would make the world a better place......(On the matter of my connection to my feelings I should like to bring up that individuals occasionally offer in the bodies of their critiques that I may come across as detached from feelings. A few people mentioned to me that I come across to them as “pretentious,” “condescending” or as though I were hiding, even if only inadvertently, my more “human” layers......Contrasting that awful burnout feeling and context with the peace and quiet, especially in Durham, New Hampshire and that surrounding area, which was significantly less built up and less populated than central New Jersey, and how that refreshing vibe was so accentuated by the snow…and not a fierce, blizzardy snow, but a calm, soft kissing kind of snow…
