camellia

For now she need not think about anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of--to think; well, not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others. Although she continued to knit, and sat upright, it was thus she felt herself, and this self having shed its attachments was free for the strangest adventures. When life sank down for a moment, the range of experience seemed limitless.
--To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf

Last night my roommate and her boyfriend walked in on me while I was puttering around the apartment in a shapeless sweater and wearing no pants at all. I was singing too. Today I took the day for myself, and it was a minor failure, for various reasons. The long and short of it was that at the end of the day I didn't feel well-rested and my run-ins with people made me feel sort of...wilted afterwards. Fact is, I just want some time and space--space--for myself. To perhaps feel and actually be myself. I think I'm half-gasping for air of my own, unpolluted by any other human presence. And I had that today--if only for fifteen glorious minutes when I stood by myself on the sidewalk, contemplating this camellia tree. Layer upon layer of fragile petals, but when you're holding it in your hand, the bud feels strangely resilient. I actually don't have a huge penchant for flowers--too fleeting, too transient. That's why I prefer succulents. But I do love camellias, dahlias, peonies, and flowers with a multiplicity of petals--makes its transience all the more beautiful.

I'm having a hard time accepting transience. Berkeley has been solid these four years. The friends I've made have seemed solid. But I'm beginning to feel like a puff of cloud or wisp of smoke, easily blown hither and thither. Just a wedge-shaped core of darkness, unseen. Feeling that state of being is equal parts liberating, knowing I can so easily be borne away on a wind of possibilities, and isolating, knowing I can also simply be removed and set adrift down no particular course.