numb

often, I find myself quite numb.

numb to crowds. to conversation. numb to good coffee. numb to a perfectly ripe avocado.

i am numb to other people’s news, their engagements, their pregnancies. numb to global warming and bombings and civil wars. numb to my meditation.

i am numb to changes in the weather. it’s mild in cambodia, sam said. here, i never know what the weather is, even when i'm standing in it.

i am sometimes numb to my own ambitions. my check list for today sinks flatly into the journal page, as far away and impersonal to me as the factory in which the ink was made to fill this pen that lies limply in my hand.

i am numb to my thoughts. fickle bastards.

but sometimes, something just breaks on through. like this week i was not numb to the Leonard Cohen interview on youtube. or to the Great Gig in the Sky, which played full volume in my car and transported me home. Or to The Big Chill, which I have seen and seen and will see again, maybe on Thursday.

(i think some people and some things break through because they bring with them no memories, but also no triviality. the two bookends of my shitlist.)

often, i find myself quite numb.

but some days, i like feeling this self-contained.

i am glad i know the comfort of silence.