Had an odd kind of weekend. Spent the entire time dodging human contact, slipping through the fence, keeping out of the light. Felt sensitive to people, like I would bruise easily. Had to keep escaping. It was a familiar headspace from many years ago, reappearing with vigour. An overwhelming sensitivity to self in context, perhaps a need to regather the unspooled threads and re-weave the centre.
Not entirely a hermit. Dropping in on the Confusion event, seeing several friends there. Attending the farewell gathering of two other friends. Visiting others and their newborn. But through all of these I didn’t feel right, as if the surface had come out of alignment with what sits beneath.
Before, when I went into this kind of space I would seclude myself and write about it, try to capture the moment in words. I have dozens of pages of that sort of writing but I’ve fallen out of the habit. In the past few years, only three or four scrappy accounts have been added to my archive. This may mean I’ve given up trying to understand; more likely, that I understand enough now to defuse the old urgency and confusion.
I sat in the evening by the lagoon looking across at the city, for an hour or so, listening to the muffled music from the boatshed, skipping thoughts across the surface and watching the ripples that they made.