"I'm worried I'm always in love."

Well, not really. I just really like that song and it seemed appropriate: I was thinking before about how often I say I'm in love - and how often it's true.

Andy was their easy going child. He...called on his cell whenever he was eating a really great meal or looking at something beautiful. In Andy's life these things happened frequently. "The most amazing sunset!" he would say. "The most amazing tapas!"

That's basically me. I used to wonder how I could love so many things so much. Now I just enjoy it. I get that precise thrill of discovery and wonder on a regular basis from so many things, both mundane and extraordinary. But that's just it - to me, it's all extraordinary. Even if it is, at times, painful, as only this kind of staggering awe can be. And like Andy, I always want to share it - usually, unfortunately, with people who aren't there. Isn't that what it's all about though? Falling in love with the small, exquisite moments and sharing them, connecting over them. A line in a song, the way a cloud reveals the sun, the way a certain painting looks. I've fallen in love with them all, shared them all.

I just miss having someone to share them all with.

And having someone who shares theirs with me.

In that sense, it's easier to choose to be alone than it is to be surrounded by people who I can't share things with. To wander a museum, to watch the sunrise, to admire architecture, to observe the way the wind moves tree branches - it's so much easier to do these things alone than it is to try to do these them with people who can't understand or appreciate the way I see them.

In isolating myself like that, though, I find myself not giving people a chance. I don't let them try to see what I see, or even to try to see it their way. Like cauterizing a wound before anything else can infect - or help heal. I'm so clumsy at communicating anything, I get into a funk and feel like there's no point in trying. I hate that. I'm trying not to do that.

The absolute worst, though, are the empty days that I don't get that thrill at all.

I'm trying so hard not to have any of those. When I do have them, it's my fault for not having the gumption or the sense of humor to see the beauty that can always be found.

Story of my life.

I'm in love with illusions,

so saw me in half.

I'm in love with tricks,

so pull another rabbit out' your hat.

"It was November...

...the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines."

Look how icy those blues are. So blue, so blue.

I hate November. In theory, I love it. Or, I suppose, I love my romanticized mental image of it. Crimson sunsets and sad sea hymns? Deeply, painfully lovely. The experience? Just painful.

"The elemental vastness of the windblown world."

"Elemental vastness."

Around here, November is a month of transition. The brisk, rosy days of October and Indian summer don't fade - they drain. The skies are emptied of their life and left drab and dull, and even the sun cools to a stark, hard white, piercing through the listless clouds. The nights are darker than ever, except for the glinting stars. Sometimes the stars help, crowding the "spiritual firmament" with a friendly glow. But sometimes they hurt. Sometimes they seem so far away, and the world seems bigger and emptier than ever. Deep breaths of night air just cut like knives through your lungs. Everything reassuring is gone. And the windows of the apartments, the dorms, the houses - their warm yellow lights warn away trespassers. It gets harder and harder to fill the space between.

All I can remember of last winter is the emptiness of the spaces between, and how badly I want to close the gaps.

I'm getting restless again and I don't know what to do.

----------------
Now playing: Simon & Garfunkel - Bookends

Every stupid, miserable word that falls from my mouth or slips from my fingers sounds feels looks is wrong. Every attempt for smooth, fluid motion stops short and fails in action. The words just die, flat and useless, the moment they materialize. It just all feels so hard and plastic. I want loose and elastic. It's like I'm trying too hard. It feels false and premeditated. But my mind is blank and I flounder - I have to try just to come up with anything at all. These aren't images. They're empty structures with fluff plugged into them. Something's missing.

I need to read more.

Joan: How could you?! How could you just leave me?!

Adam: I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Joan: No! How could you just leave me there?

Adam: I tried! Okay? I couldn't do it. Not after my mother, I . . . I couldn't. I . . . I just couldn't see someone throw her life away like that.

Joan: She didn't . . . she didn't kill herself.

Adam: Some people do it all at once. And some people do it a little bit every day.

Joan: [pause] I loved her.

Adam: I know. And I don't know why that doesn't matter.

I copied this down a few weeks ago after watching this episode with Kay and crying, like I do every time I watch that episode, but I never wrote anything else down about it. I don't really know what I had been thinking about or what I had thought about writing. I just know that every once in a while, those last two lines of Adam's, they pop into my head. When it feels like everyone around me - including myself - is acting self-destructive. When life doesn't seem fair. When I try to help someone and can't. When I can't help someone understand how loved they are. Just in general, when someone I want to be close to, seems so far away, and I can't reach them, or have no right to. When life hurts, sometimes those words will pop into my head. Sometimes they make me feel better. Sometimes they don't.