I was thinking about how I should respond should someone ask me where I was at the end of the decade. The satisfying version would be, “in the Amazon,” which is partially true, but not very precise. Amazônas is the name of the province in Brazil which encompasses the rainforest; Amazonas is also the name of the analogous departments in Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela. It also would not be accurate to say so, as I was only at the edge of this part of the Amazon River, not the forest, known for “as encontras das aguas,” where black and brown waters meet. For some reason, as I was thinking about the question, I pictured myself on a dance floor somewhere undiscerning and without a shape, not alone but invariably by myself. There must have been some vague music playing in the background – as not a connossieur of great music (the type who likes anything but not everything) – I could not decide which soundtrack should burn in the echoes of this distilled fantasy. The picture was half full, as a glass. I was in the bottom third of the frame walking out of it, while at the top there was some purple tinged resonance of an air of greed, or lust. Something that would captivate an audience.
But isn’t it the morning that matters? I woke the next morning without an alarm, and got up at around 7:10, made coffee and eggs in the shared kitchen downstairs, and put on my repellent to cover the scars of bites. I had “lost,” or dropped, or had stolen, my debit card the day before, which in the way that things are lost gives way to guilt and mourning that are totally unreasonable and not brief. I feel that I am better at being more concise with it, able to shed with lighter effort the mourning like a skin, of things lost which lingered and which were held for so long that they began to accumulate meaning. It is a wonder artificial intelligence seeks to become more human; and it is no wonder this is an easy feat, easier in all the ways it is possible to transform without a purpose, will, or saying.
This is too morose for New Year’s Day, and I apologize. At least there is the smell of coffee, the oils and the aroma that could accompany almost any edible fruit. As for the dancing, I must admit I can’t. It is not simply a matter of trying – which I’m used to – and not, I think, a question of talent. It is sheer intuition: that other institution which connects parts of the brain to the body, the muscle, the movement.
I am reminded of what the novelist Ottessa Moshfegh mentioned in passing on a podcast, where she was telling an anecdote she had heard which goes something like this: When you are writing a story, there is going to be a breakthrough moment where clarity sets in and the story becomes lucid. But the experience is like being trapped in a room with no visible door. Although trapped may be a tinge too forceful, since you are there of your own will. (Something like that other joke, about being trapped in a haunted house in a dream.) You only know that there is a trap door, but you don’t know where. You know it is possible to find a way, but the way does not appear until it does. I have found this maddening and terrifying since I became aware of it, the picture of a room with square beige walls lingered in my mind. So, it is possible for me to one day spontaneously know how to dance, but until the day arrives the thought is moot, a complete waste of feeling. This is an insane inducing madness. It is easier to write without thinking of such things.