If Psyche remains alone, it is first because she is alone in knowing nothing of this. There again the meaning of the sentence bursts. Into bits, I mean. Psyche is the only one who knows nothing (nothing of herself, of her extension, of her recumbent being-extended); but further, by being alone in knowing nothing of this, she is also alone for not knowing anything of this. She finds herself alone without knowing it; her solitude is radical because she knows nothing, nothing of herself, of her extension, of that which others know; she doesn't know what they know and that they know, that is, the content and fact of their knowledge. On the subject of herself. Indeed, she is the submissive subject (extended object), the support or subjectile of their knowledge but not of hers because on her own she knows nothing of herself--on the subject of herself.
--Jacques Derrida, On Touching--Jean-Luc Nancy, trans. Christine Irizarry, p. 15
I always have a good time with him, even now. For one thing, he remains one of the nicest people I've ever been with, completely supportive in so many ways, supportive and successful in a way that makes me almost automatically my best self when I'm around him, my best self in a way that I am for almost no one else, certainly not K., not The Professor, not The Poet. And it was kind of fun, in a way, to find out that he thought of me as an ex, to have retroactive confirmation that what we had last summer wasn't just important to me. What happened to me on the train home, I don't know. But it wasn't like some of the other crying I've done lately--it didn't actually feel like a breakdown until I was on the phone later--and so I wonder if it had simply been mourning. Like I've never really just sat down and let myself cry specifically about what happened last summer and early fall, to mourn the loss of those two months or so when I really was enjoying my life, when I was more confident than I had ever been (or have been since). And maybe in a certain sense this was okay. I never really cried about the abortion at the time; I kept working on my German homework and teaching my class and I went out and found a new apartment and spent the night with K.--yesterday The Professor and I were talking about getting over things and I realize now that it's not a matter of my getting over things faster, it's a matter of my not standing still. And while I have cried over certain losses with E., maybe...I don't know. It could all just be a rationalization for too many vodka tonics and some drunk phone calls. But I'm trying to figure this out because it wasn't like he got to the bar and I wanted to jump him immediately. I don't really want him back, I'm happy for him to be in love with the woman he is in love with (even though I do sometimes panic about always being the person that you're with right before you meet the person you love--or whatever the married-guy equivalent is); I told him last night that I would have liked it to have been possible for us to have been together for a few more months than we were, but probably not forever. And that he had to find me someone just like him, but not him. It's not--or no longer--that drop-everything attraction that I periodically feel for K. So I'm trying to figure out what it is, and also how I can be friends with him and not have the crushing train ride home every time.
The writing is almost nonexistent, though I do have a two-week reprieve on the sublime thing. I think maybe today I'll work a bit at West Village Coffeeshop--maybe even splurge on lunch there--before going to school, where I'll be until at least 8:00 anyway. I'm beginning to think that sitting in front of a computer so much may be doing more harm than good.
I had a dream where my mother was helping me decorate my apartment for Christmas and I thought it was this apartment except that my bedroom was in a different place and there was a window and we watched the lightning with our neighbors and the outside was different. And the dream was set in mid-November, so it was early to be decorating for Christmas but there was some reason why we were doing it that way. We had a lot of red and white lights and my mother was really big on my placing festive objects around the room.
The other dream I remember was a sort of old-time outdoor market--the kind of thing where people are selling handicrafts and jams and things--there's something like this at the big festival that my town holds every September--they call it the Folklife Festival, I think, and they have a bunch of 19th century reenactors. But anyway. I was looking at some rugs but not with the desire to buy them--I don't have any money for that kind of thing right now--but the guy selling them kept following me around and trying to sell them to me--I don't remember it being creepy, more that I was feeling bad about not buying anything. There was also a team dance contest. With the non-Lindsay Lohans.
What I really want for myself this summer is to fall madly, stomachdroppingly, headoverheels in love with someone--someone who has the same effect on me that E. does of making me want to be my best self and actually end up believing it. Because if I don't get swept off my feet, I think there's going to be quite a fair bit of inertia left behind.
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