near wild heaven
i never had any religion to lose
i’ve had a bad week. month. five years.
things are really hard and i am not coping well. my cat died. my kitten had an anaphylactic reaction to a vaccine, and as soon as she recovered we found fleas. my son has what the urgent care doctor thinks are stress hives (they look like pox to me, so i’ll take hives, but also? jesus fucking christ he is fourteen and should not be this stressed). we are hemorrhaging money and i am just waiting to see what payment bounces. i feel like a shit mom. and through all this, i still have to think of something for dinner every single day.
on saturday, my husband and i did the weekly grocery shopping together. i drove, and made it most of the way through the first store before my anxiety got so bad that i abandoned husband and cart near the checkout and went to wait in the car. when he was done, i drove to the second store and waited in the parking lot while he did the shopping. (he actually does most of our grocery shopping. he’s good at it.)
the album i was listening to (the bqe by sufjan stevens) ended and i scrolled apple music until i found something else to listen to: out of time by rem. i hadn't listened to it in a while, but it’s the first rem album i owned. i think i was twelve when it came out, and for decades i've considered automatic for the people more formative and also my favorite, but…let’s just say i started crying in the jon’s parking lot and i couldn’t stop.
it makes sense that i would crave the safety of an old friend right now. i am dysregulated, i do not feel safe. listening to rem is as safe as it gets, because i already know it so, so well. i’ve known them since about 1990, and they’ve never done me wrong. i joke a lot about what i'd use a time machine for, but the real answer (one of them) is that i'd see rem play live; never having seen them is my biggest regret.
it’s crazy what you could have had…
nostalgia has been a common thread in my life, particularly in my creative life. the earliest iteration of this newsletter was almost entirely about my relationship with the past, though not by design. it grew that way organically, as nostalgia is longing and my longing fuels my art. everything is hard right now, so i crave a time when, even though things may have been just as hard, i know now that everything turned out okay.
i haven’t been able to read anything new in weeks, and the only other media i’m engaging with besides instagram is episodes of new girl that i’ve seen a dozen times before. except…we had movie tickets for saturday night.
to see the exorcist in 35mm at vidiots.
i’ve never seen the exorcist. it tops most lists of the best horror movies of all time. (actually, the shining usually edges it out for the top spot. i have seen the shining and i don’t think it deserves the hype.) until about the time we needed to leave, i wasn’t sure if i would go. that $15 was already gone, whether i did or not. we mask indoors, so it’s not like we were looking at another $30+ in concessions. it was just a matter of whether i thought i could handle new-to-me horror more or less than wallowing in my feelings at home.
i decided to go to the movie. it was good! i did not find it even a tiny bit scary, and i think everyone who says it is the scariest movie they’ve ever seen has deep religious trauma. what i saw was a truly excellent drama interspersed with horror stings that felt honestly kind of silly. it is definitely better than the shining (although i do think tony > mr. howdy). i’m glad that i went. i don’t feel better but i am glad i went out.
i don’t know if this says something profound about seeking new experiences when you crave more of the same, or if it just worked out okay. probably the second one.
when i finished listening to out of time, i put on green (moving backward in time i guess) and cried some more. so i guess i’m not cured, and/or i’m still human. oh well.