Effuse, Dilate, Dilute, Drown

Long time no write, long time no words. I have been tasked with a few things, and with it, the time ran away.  I'm slowly befriending it again.

What is there to update on?

Let's begin with marking the months that have passed.

JANUARY

January, for me, melted with those few last days of December where I had my birthday (and read Pisces, on my birthday), was away from my family, had finals and some administrative errands (stuff I absolutely have no idea how to build endurance on - it continues to be hard and draining for me), started on a new term with new shift; in which I started waking up at 3/4 am, almost every day, had no weekend, basically a weird, weird time. I didn't feel January when it arrived, to sum it up. Felt like the same tide, same river, same water, same coldness, soaking, heaving. For most of January, all I felt was being roared in a foreign ocean. In a way, I still feel like it's January now. It's molding, kneading on my face. 

A thing I do remember vividly about January is the books. I read many books, more than what I usually could manage for myself, whilst doing all these other things, but January: books, books, books. The bookworm was infesting me quite ferociously. Listing them (because my brain cannot decide how else to archive them here):

1. This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar

2. The Lost Daughter Collective by Lindsey Drager

3. Voice of the Fish by Lars Horn

4. Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg by Emily Rapp Black

5. Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge

6. Bluets by Maggie Nelson

7. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

8. Idol, Burning by Rin Usami

9. Schizophrene by Bhanu Kapil

10. You Are Eating an Orange. You Are Naked. by Sheung-King

The numerical parameter doesn't matter. It doesn't quite compute to me, too, that these are 10 books. Some subcategories I've conjured up (just now, of course):

I'm glad you exist here, in a form I can recognize, during a lifetime where I am allowed to meet you: books 2, 3, 7 (!!!), 8

I'm glad you were there, comfortable to fall back to: books 1, 4, 5, 9, 10

I'm glad to at least have listened to you myself (after hearing so much noise about it): book 6

You might have noticed I may or may not have displayed a particular level of affection for Book 7. I myself cannot begin to fathom what this book has done to me. It has unknotted and knotted my heart and brain, in the softest, calmest way possible, eases me, ceases me, heals me of my worldly ailments. It has inked me in such way I can't quite remember the before of this hallmarking. It is, quite literally, the embodiment of the subcategory it falls into, the bane of the naming of the classification, for which I may repeat: I'm glad you exist here, in a form I can recognize, during a lifetime where I am allowed to meet you. 

Due to these books, these beauties, I feel like my January, amidst all things and chaos, was worthwhile. 

Whatever else happened on January?

On New Year's Eve, the whole family and I got to travel to Magelang; spent a few days there in a cottage-like getaway dream; got to eat my first cup noodle in a long, long while; celebrated my sister's birthday (and mine, in a sense, belatedly); got to eat many filling meals with my family (<3); and on this short trip I was reading This Is How You Lose the Time War, which bent, twisted, wrung out the muscles of my brain and ribs to endless ache and heart calluses; when we got back and rested for a day or two, I went on a book cafe date with my sisters, got to read few stories from The Best American Short Stories 2014, stories I especially retain: Laura van den Berg's Antartica and Craig Davidson's Medium Tough; I also got to visit a bookstore, also a first in a long, long while, and in this bookstore trip I also got to eat a delicious ramen by myself whilst reading Strange Beasts of China; got to be in a date with one of my sisters, just the two of us, again eating ramen and visiting the same bookstore, whilst I was reading Bluets; went back to school/work/real world, got to have many days at the campus library, in which there was a cat named Gasing who has made it easy to feel safe with them around; and then sometime on one of the last days of the month the whole family went on a simple dinner together again; school/work/real world got really intense; got to meet my friend D, and went on to eat pastas and ice cream and pancakes and milkshake together whilst talking for hours. 

Looking back, January hasn't been unkind. I hope I haven't been unkind to myself. 

FEBRUARY

February was a blur, like all things, in fact, these days it seems. But again, February didn't feel real, doesn't feel present, and somehow it's still February and not anything unnamed, unknown. But here it is, February.

Most of the February I have experienced is spent on a particularly rough, tense work/school shift (the reason I'm using work and school interchangably is because I, too, am confused, whether I'm a student or a capital in training). Since that particularly rough, tense shift has already been happening since January, I never got to properly appreciate the changing of month, the changing of season. In terms of books, I had started Places I've Taken My Body: Essays by Molly McCully Brown since the first of February, so there's that. Sometime on February I also had a number of tests, which meant a number of days of intense studying and preparing and cataloging and panicking. The tests, in fact, haven't been fully completed, pending, but I'm glad I got over the big, big exams and now, I'm just taking care of some leftover auxilaries. 

Meanwhile, for now, I'm in Banyumas. I'm back again here, since December. 

What is there to say?

I'm reading Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc, a little over halfway through. I just got dinner (love love love sunny side up + tempe/mendoan in one meal). I showered. And now, I'm feeling the homesickness. But in a way, I'm always homesick. Strange, strange thing. 

I'm feeling myself becoming more jaded. In more ways than one, I feel bodiless, cataclysmic, a hieroglyph of void, a nano-myth, a thousand lifes away, a vacillating alien hung inside this flesh and blood and hunger, a seismic rhythm haunting ghosts and poems; I'm trying to say that on most days, I feel like I'm gathering my own bones out of the ashes, my body a corporeal graveyard. Maybe it's burnout, or depression, or anxiety, or iron deficiency (it's been a while since my last blood test), or vitamin D deficiency (the epidemiology points out I might have one; in fact, we all might be a little vitamin D deficient), or is this what it's like going through the last few stages of your frontal lobe maturing, metamorphosing, alchemizing into permanence? Permanence of what, exactly?

I'm turning 25 this year. It's still months, months away. But still. What a strange, strange thing to be alive. 

Until then. Until I find time to gather the words. Ciao.