Organized, the death of the artist
If ever I have to use one word to describe myself, organized may be the most far-off word.
As I am writing, I look around my desk — — books that I scanned through, books that I flipped for some pages and left aside, books that I had to finish, handouts I had to digest, language textbooks that I had to read through………
My mug, folders, earrings…..
I don’t know.
Today I was having great difficulty breathing. Normally I had severe issues breathing properly, I had to lean myself against staircase or desk surface or whatever solid object that’s in my vicinity to lift my Thoracic diaphragm, just to breathe.
And that got me frustrated for years. I had this syndrome since high school, and the situation worsened as I drank coffee. But I couldn’t quit coffee because of the piles of homework.
Things were a lot. Today was even worse, maybe the worst. I thought about suicide to refrain from the pain of breathing. Maybe it would be my last scenario, dying on the ground simply because I couldn’t even breathe.
Things could be THAT worse. Especially when you had a minor car accident today, and that you were sitting in your patron cafe talking to the barista, your biological mom happend to walk through the alley and saw your bike. Now she knew you were inside the cafe. You saw her confused, and then comprehended. Damn. Your hidden cave is now found. You hate it. You felt you’ve been stalked. You guys haven’t talked for a year. And that’s by far the best scenario you can think of. You didn’t curse her, you wish her all the best, but you also don’t want to interact with her anymore.
The barista told you about her husband and her family, she was surprised that you held such a stern relationship with your mom. You said you weren’t born by choice. The conversation stopped.
Afterwards you went home and studied math and the algorithm homework that you promised yourself to finish today. But man, it was damn hard. You focused for a while, and realized that you couldn’t breath again.
You need to go out. A voice thundered.
I went out desperately because maybe being on the road could save me.
No, the immersive traffic devoured me. Horns, snaking motorbikes….. By the time when I got to the bookstore, I sweat even more, and almost couldn’t breathe anymore.
I walked straight into the shelves, grabbed some architectural books, and a book stood out among all the other books — — “the death of the artist.” I know I should be reading something relevant to the application of Bauhaus summer school. But I always landed on something else.
The book talked about how, among all the other elusive artistic dreams, the artist nowadays deal with survival — — not earning money, no, just to survive.
It is so well written, enumerating lots of fieldwork data and interviews reflecting the modern American economics, that I started to wonder if ever, investing on an architectural summer school is worthy of it. Because anyway, my short term goal is not to be an architect but a software engineer. But that still evoked my bewildering youth, that I could earn my living by selling paintings on social media, running my own instagram account…….until one day I had to surrender to the fact that I had such social phobia that I would rather die than exposing myself and my work.
The book hasn’t been finished yet and the running time of the shop is approaching. I’ll keep reading it tomorrow.
As I went home, I started sending text message to a friend telling her where to meet up the day before my birthday. This got me really stressed out — — she’s very classy, detail-oriented, middle class. And she insisted on fine dining with me on my birthday, because on her birthday I gave her a proper surprise. But guess what, I am floppy, sloppy, and baggy. Our conversation context couldn’t lead me to a deep reflective mindset on worldviews or career development, or personal growth but mostly on relationships, trivial daily lives and who to date. I don’t do fancy stuff, I just want a cozy dinner in a plain restaurant that I could easily afford, so that afterwards whenever I go, I can always remind myself that this is the restaurant of my birthday. That would certainly cheer me up. Oh, and last but not least, I want to just be with myself on my birthday. Nobody around. So that when the day goes really bad, I have nobody but myself to blame on. I just need to figure out by myself on that day what a proper 29 year old should be like.
So I told her the location and time of a random cheap restaurant to meet up. And she texted back, ‘yes of course!’
I fell back to my chair. Now thinking about the next tricky email that I had to write.
A dear friend just quit his job as a residential doctor and would move back to Taipei soon. He asked me if I could arrange a fairwell dinner of 4 people — — him, my godmother, a mutual friend and me myself. By arrange, he meant if I could cook. That’ll be on the 1st of December, 3 days after my birthday.
Well, I am happy that he left the toxic place. But also I am stressed out to death by the duty itself, what if my taste doesn’t please them? What if I couldn’t arrive on time? What if that day the materials run out of the market?
Another thing I was avoiding was that I didn’t really want to meet my godmother these days — — As she’s starting her business recently, I am afraid she would propose another idea, giving her a painting, teaching English at her friend’s place, cook for Dean…..and I couldn’t say no but felt annoyed because I merited her before.
I don’t know. I started to hate it.
I experimented 3 dishes that I myself would cook in my daily life: Ratatouille, Risotto with salmon and cabbage, avocado with goat cheese, tomato, and nuts. Just whatever representative regional dishes that reminded me of my autumn days in Marseille, Barcelona and Tainan.
They tasted so great that I finished my dishes. I was just worried if they wouldn’t like the exotic taste.
As I am writing this journal, I just had a Balsamic salad with tomato, zucchini and goat cheese to sooth my anxiety.
It worked so well. That when I did my yoga, I managed to relax.
Life is good, life is good. We just need one more email to decline the dinner and it’s done. The maturity of being 29.
