the habit of being

My window looks out over the Hudson River and the West Side Highway. I have thick drapes to keep out the traffic noise and the light from the streetlamp. It isn’t perfect but I still manage to sleep until late morning or afternoon. My bed has collapsed but the mattress is on the floor and that’s all I really need. Or so I tell myself to avoid calling that antique repair place in Chelsea I found online a week ago. Anything not to have to talk to anyone.

I haven’t left the apartment today. Silvia is back with stories of baracades in Mexico City and political drama I had no idea was happening. Someone gave her friend a sandwich with money hidden inside, a bribe to join the rally for a candidate who lost but refuses to accept that and has taken to blocking traffic. And then there were photos of the All Saints altar for her father, and the story of his death, and then the stories of the deaths of the two cats she had previous to Ally, who is still hanging out with me a fair amount even though Silvia is back.

Tuesday I stayed up until 2 watching the election returns. M had said that we’d lost Virginia for sure and I said that we hadn’t and by Wednesday I was just as excited about having been right about something as about the turnout itself.

On Thursday I panicked in the middle of a neuroscience exam, and it was so surreal, even in the midst of the panic I kept thinking about how it was really the exam and I was really freaking out and how could that be happening? The normal thing is that I panic right up until the exam begins and then I am focussed and fine. But this time I was so nervous I couldn’t collect my thoughts enough to write my essays coherently. I didn’t even feel like there was any material I didn’t know, only that I couldn’t get the words out, my head was so muddled. It is still hard to believe that I actually choked on a test. Choking on tests just isn’t something I do.

But Friday I found out I got into the writing workshop I wanted and it is an enormous relief to know that, at the very least, by January I will be working. As long as I can start writing again I know everything will be alright.