The Indifferent Chair

Sherry O'Keefe said, if one moves away from the angry chair, it'd be the indifferent chair. I suppose that's true, except indifference takes a conscious effort. Today I checked out the place I'm moving into, possibly for a short time. It's basically a room in a stylish guesthouse for visiting artists and some locals. Barely enough space even for someone like me who keeps only the essentials of living a daily life. A girl with eight pairs of shoes, including three pairs of sneakers? I'm staying there because I have had too much trouble with rental in the past year, and I'd rather not sign a lease at this point.

Everyone asks when things will fall into places; then they say it'd happen eventually. I imagine staring into oblivion in old age - when the things that won't fall into places, never will, and you've got the rest to live with and let crumble till the end. For now, when we try to take care of the minutes and hours and days of muted screams, things sprawl and combust. I fight back tears a lot. Whatever it is that I want and try to do, it falls into some hole on the ground that at first looks like an opening. And I thought, for the most part, that my wishes were pretty normal? Walk down the streets, go get something to eat, be merry, be emotionally engaged with what's unfolding, giving myself to it?

And there comes the indifferent chair that many of us have sat on for many years. I'm good at being alone, or lonely. I try to remind myself that. Like the five shades of ink in traditional Chinese painting. Beyond black, there are darker shades of black.