Ten

I think about this month in the hospital and try to give you something, to tell something, to say everything. Maybe it is time to say everything. In general, or with art, or with music, or in casual conversations. I could tell you that I do not believe my life to be real despite evidence to the contrary, that I came to Europe to escape a sadness that I know has lived inside me for as long as I remember, or that I believed such a move would make me happier.

I could say that since I have been in Europe that I have become an artist, though I am still confused about the terms of such an identity, or that I am resentful of the idea of identity, and have often sought its opposite, oblivion, and that oblivion is what I got. I guess that essence rare is what I lived for.

I could tell you that after four years of working closely with fellow artists and friends that I grew in so many ways. One of those ways is that I have grown exhausted. In six years I have exploded with ideas and have fashioned those ideas into things. Over fifty films, countless texts, soundtracks for theater, my own music…and I feel I have nothing left to give. I made things to save my life, to buy time. I could tell you that I fell in love and that fell apart in tandem with me falling apart.

I could feel the ground giving way under my feet, and thoughts would chase themselves in small whirlpools, and my speech suffered in this lack of clarity. My heart and mind were broken together and this is a dangerous combination. I could tell you that I was too weak to open the refrigerator and cook even the most simple of meals, and instead would walk around the block endlessly, confused and crying. Or that I would walk from room to room, at a loss as to what had happened.

I could tell you that my reality shifted finally into something cold, clear and practical, but peaceful at last. The sound of gas from an oven is a soft and gentle sound.

I could tell you that I am loved, and even though love is not enough, sometimes it is just enough. That Troy and Kavata showed me an image of myself that I could care for and worry over, and this image I brought to the hospital several weeks ago. I could tell you that Stefanie, Marc, Susanne, Wilhelm, Annette, John and Cornell had placed themselves over that image as to protect it. I could say that Heidi loves me, that Hannah does as well, that Kathy and Ike would teach me to walk again with their son if I could not, and that Cynthia has been in my heart each day in the hospital, Sean too, and that what I have experienced with the other patients has been irreplaceable and profound.

Yesterday I finally felt more in the world than in the ward, and feel free from what keeps me there. I realize what shambles my life is in, but eager to enter it again regardless. This week I will simply kill time and wait for my doctors to return from holiday to dismiss me. I will finish my sculptures and read and wait. I feel to publish such a text is anticlimactic, that I have not even glanced twice at the words, nor have I engaged enough with myself for this to be even truly confessional. The truth is I do not know what has happened to me, but am ready to move on.