Esmé Weijun Wang

I found myself gulping for air after a particularly painful therapy session the other week.

I also insisted to my psychiatrist that I had not been experiencing any particular stresses in the time before my three-monthlong (and counting) psychotic episode. Because what does that mean, anyway? Everyone has stress. Everyone goes through hard times. I don’t consider myself a person who goes through times that are any harder than the ones faced by any other human being on this planet. I don’t consider having to work extra hours or a career setback or wrist pain to be significant in terms of S-T-R-E-S-S. They are, I think, simply nuisances. And I get through them.

But after I started talking to my therapist about this lack of S-T-R-E-S-S, I took a sharp left and found myself talking about one friend who is no longer in my life — a friend that I’d considered as similar to a sister as I’ve ever had, seeing as how I don’t actually have a sister. And I’d also left a friendship that was obviously toxic to everyone around me — he made me cry more often than he made me laugh — but still, I’d known hin for over a decade, and I’d decided to cut it off.

I’m not going to talk about the details of the last friend here. But I did end that friendship, too, and it was a friendship that I cherished deeply, yet had to let go.

So perhaps it’s no wonder that I’ve been breaking down. Rattle rattle rattle. Stalled in the middle of the road till the night comes and the bats come swarming out. No fireflies to light my way. I call their names into the night. Perhaps it is for the best, but it fucking hurts. Hello! A great whoosh of wings. Say goodbye, babygirl. Say goodbye, and move on.

…and, as a gesture of love and affection for those of you who’ve stuck around and watched my site grow, I’m giving away the newest issue of Kinfolk, Volume 8. Retail price $18. Gorgeous photographs. To enter, simply post a comment with your information (I promise not to spam you!) and a tidbit about your favorite part about getting up in the mornings. The giveaway will end on Sunday, June 23rd at 12PM Pacific Time. Good luck!

I thought I’d say a little bit about my comments policy. I haven’t addressed it before, but with all the kind notes people have been leaving on my virtual doorstep, I feel I need to say something.

Right now, I don’t respond to comments. I read every single comment that is left here. I often copy comments into what a friend of mine calls a “Win Book,” where I keep compliments and sweet words for those days when I feel like a total waste of flesh and bone. I do notice when people come here and comment repeatedly; I think of you, those repeat commenters, as friendly voices in the crowd. I appreciate your words deeply, and it is partially the comments and emails I receive that keep me going on with this blog.

However, I don’t respond to comments for a very simple reason: I don’t have time. I know that some bloggers would argue with this reasoning, giving me flak about how one “makes time” and such, but I honestly struggle with the amount of time I’m given in a day. I get into bed at 8. (Not kidding.) I wake up early, but have only three hours before I must start working at my day job, and I get less time if I need to commute to the office, which I do once a week; in that period, I do anything from blogging to working on my next book to going on a long, head-clearing walk. By the time I’m off the clock at the end of the day, I’m completely exhausted, and often in no mood to look at the computer anymore. I take a shower instead, or read magazines. I chat with friends. I talk to C. I make dinner and eat it. So I don’t respond to comments.

If the fact that I don’t directly respond to a comment bothers you, please don’t feel obligated to write one. I really and sincerely appreciate them; I really and sincerely appreciate your time and your energy. If you have a direct question that you’d like me to address, feel free to email me. I’m slow about email sometimes, but I try my best.

Thank you, all of you, for reading and for visiting. I am deeply grateful.

There is a yellow jacket struggling against the windowpane. Silence, then buzzing. I could try to trap it and let it go, but I find myself wondering how long such a thing will take, especially since I’m trying to write a blog post.

I can’t hear it anymore.

I took so many photographs this morning. 90% of them are junk, I’m sure of it, but there might be a good one in there somewhere. I picked some jasmine off of the wall of jasmine along the fence in the backyard, which reaches up to our bedroom window, so that if I am lucky enough and weather permits, I can leave the window open and the scent of jasmine will come in, a rare gift. For now I have a few skinny twigs of those flowers on a glass dish a foot away from my left hand. There are two elderly women who throw a fantastic garage sale every few weeks. I never plan to go, but usually stumble upon it, which makes its appearance all the more exciting. These golden glass dishes, they said, are from the 1930s. Oh, I said, that’s my favorite decade, aesthetically speaking. So I had to bring them home.

I’ve been thinking about possessions and materialism, and how I was once asked by a friend whom I liked very much if I “liked to buy things.” I don’t remember what I said, but I think it is true, I like to buy things, I like to surround myself with things that I think are beautiful. I am a magpie who works best, who lives best, with an aesthetic infrastructure. Some of the things I surround myself are found — holly berries left over from winter, all kinds of plants, old photographs, pamphlets, abandoned bottles — and some are bought. I do not spend beyond my means, but my spaces are far from minimal.

For my birthday I am taking a memoir class in the summer.

This October I will be going to a retreat in the English countryside. I have never been to England.

In July something fun will be happening. San Franciscans, take note.

I have been showered with opportunities to do things that speak to me. But I need to go slowly. I need to schedule time for rest.

Time to go, dear hearts. See you around here next time.

photographs by Chris

I told my therapist last night, I have slipped into a deep place where I am feeling increasing amounts of a need for control. My handwriting gets tighter, neater. I make lists and more lists. I tidy. I tidy again. I make plans. I schedule. I pressure myself with existential questions, perhaps to justify my life. Rituals. Rules. Foods to eat and not eat. Control, control, control.

I finally went ahead and bought dictation software, seeing as how my hands are getting worse rather than better, and I keep hoping that if I use them less they’ll be available to me at least some of the time. On Monday I’ll schedule a time to have steroid injections for my wrists. I do hope that works. I also finally started taking fibromyalgia medication, which will take a week to start working if it starts working at all; Chris is the one who picks up my medications, always at the same pharmacy, with the same two employees, and he jokes that they must think he has some kind of invalid wife who lies back on pillows all day and watches her soaps, maybe with a cat.
 

In general I feel that my physical form is falling apart. If  it could it would shed its parts as I walked, letting itself disappear.  I don’t know what to do about the pain, and I’m so used to using my hands, because when I write fiction there’s a certain connection between my brain and my hands to form the sentences; here, in this blog entry, I am tentatively trying a new form of composition — one entirely reliant on verbal dictation.  Not to mention all the other strange pains.

Also I keep canceling on people, and things, because I don’t feel well – well, when will I  feel better, or “well,” again? Are these the new circumstances? I try not to think about it. Daphne wants to play ball with me, but it hurts to throw for her. Still she insists on picking up the ball and dropping it in front of me, over and over again, never giving up. Never giving up.

Keep Trying from esmewwang on 8tracks Radio.

I’ve been entertaining myself with 8tracks lately; here’s something to listen to while you cuddle up under a soft throw and watch the rain/snow/fog come.

This is one of the rooms of my grandmother’s house. Her children try to coax her into moving; she refuses to move. I think one day I will be able to understand that impulse.

I might have fibromyalgia; we’ll know for sure in half a month, or a month. In the meantime, the pain ebbs and flowers.

My book is undergoing changes again, but the newest draft is the closest I’ve come to creating something I can be truly proud of. I will make more changes based on recent feedback, and we will move on from there.

The top three books of 2012, for me, were A SPORT AND A PASTIME (Salter), FAR FROM THE TREE (Solomon), and BLUE NIGHTS (Didion). The Salter is older, while the others came out in 2012.

My word for 2013 is COMFORT. What is yours?

There have been so many beautiful things about being in Taiwan, but through most of it my body — my entire body, my whole physical self below the neck — has been in inexplicable pain, which is kind of a slow torture, and I have used all of the Vicodin I brought even though it did not affect the pain in the slightest, and sometimes I cry, and I don’t know what is wrong with this pain that started with my hands but is now everywhere.

The weather that I associate with San Francisco winters is upon us: white skies in the morning, giving way to gray in the early afternoon, and dusk descending earlier than I’m used to. Rain comes and goes. Daphne perches herself on the couch, cat-like, keeping watch with her scout kerchief on. We begin to use the heater, which gives off a dusty, comforting smell, and Chris and I go to our customary brunch spot on Saturday morning without Daph due to the rain, sometime around 7:30 AM; the place is full of old men wearing suspenders, tattooed, hunched over their coffees. I am literally the only female in the building who is not a waitress.

Today I am working on my book, polishing and sanding it all over, and H, who is reading it now (for the umpteenth time — thank you, H), is going to Lapland in a few weeks to do research for her second novel. She will be staying with reindeer herders, seeing the Northern Lights, and living north of the Arctic Circle. What an adventure, I tell her.

Enjoy your Saturday, lovelies.