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Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami

"...the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they're watching me. What I've done up till now, what I'm going to do — they know it all. Nothing gets past their watchful eyes. As I sit there under the shining night sky, again a violent fear takes hold of me. My heart's pounding a mile a minute, and I can barely breathe. All these millions of stars looking down on me, and I've never given them more than a passing thought before. Not just stars — how many other things haven't I noticed in the world, things I know nothing about? I suddenly feel helpless, completely powerless. And I know I'll never outrun that awful feeling."

Today is my birthday, and as much as I have looked for the perfect Art to deal with the ensuing “feelings” threading their way through this day, I kept gravitating toward the darker stuff – except I am trying to not be that way so much right now. I know that I cannot shed that persona completely, for better or worse. Maybe this year will be more adventurous, more shape shifting.

Run, Rabbit

A rabbit jumped out in front of me tonight while I was driving and it just kept zigzagging back and forth on the road and whenever he got on the periphery I would go to the opposite side of the road and he would dart in front of me like he wanted me to hit him. Over and over for 30 minutes. I went back and forth with my bright and dim lights because I heard that makes them go off into the ditch but this fucker was relentless. I even tried opening my window and yelling at him to JUST MOVE OVER SO I COULD PASS but nope. This rabbit is me and nature is like, dude, see how ridiculous this is? See how frustrating you are? How your (in)actions make no sense? How inconvenient and stupid you are? Get your shit together and move for crying out loud.

Notes to My Former Self

1. YOU ARE YOU AND NO ONE ELSE: that ill-ease you feel when you see that movie with that guy, that ruggedly handsome one with the beard and the sword and the carnal desire for revenge, is not you, will never be you, so stop hoping. Seeing this movie over and over will not make your facial hair grow faster, will not teach you how to work a sword, and, besides, maneuvering it around an arena with tigers at your heels won't make you any stronger. Your battle is inside yourself, your head, so stop trying to parlay it into something bigger than that.

2. THAT KID DOESN'T LIKE YOU: that one kid in that one class, year four in college, the one who said those maybe kind words about your writing ("I had to stop reading halfway through; it was like some presence had crept up behind me"), the attraction is to your words, not your person. You can think about this kid years and years from that time he said those things, but it's affecting your psyche, now. It's interfering. Stop it.

3. SEPARATE THE PAIN YOU HAVE: you wouldn't have spent those two nights in the hospital if you spoke up that one day after the homecoming parade in high school, when you thought your ruptured appendix was heat exhaustion. If you wanted people to laud your pain tolerance, it's wasted. If you didn't want to inconvenience anybody by misdiagnosing yourself and wasting resources, well, the strawberries you threw up were wasted; the time they took off work to care for your tired, stupid self was wasted; the effort other students expelled to bring your homework to you was wasted, too. People don't know how you feel unless you tell them.

4. THE ONCE KING IS NOT THE FUTURE KING: that time you won the chess championship in third grade, the obstacle course you won by two-tenths of a second, the creative writing scholarship you won without even applying, these are successes, but celebrating them ten years later infantilizes your spirit, belittles your self. Grow up and stop using these in conversation like they happened yesterday; they didn't. Divorce the awards from the inherent abilities involved to gain them – intense contemplation before deciding a move; precision, speed, and focus; dexterity with words just as with ideas – and do something greater with yourself.

5. COMMAS AND SEMICOLONS ARE WORTH MORE THAN PERIODS: think back to those back-to-back continent-jumping summers, the ones that you knew you couldn't afford but you went anyway, saying, "It'll all work itself out, somehow!" You spent two summers climbing on things, famous things, but when everything goes quiet and you relive the trips solely for yourself, what comes back to mind first won't be the facts like how many stairs the Eiffel Tower has, or the dates King So-And-So built this castle that you're standing in, but things like this: singing the Time Warp with some of your favorite people (including the ones you just met in that hostel converted from an old church, the one with the creepy stained glass windows that hovered above you each night) while the thick-accented Scottish audience either heckles your graceless singing and dancing ability, or celebrates it, but it doesn't matter because you're here, it's now, and there's no time to think about it because before you know it the song is over and the emcee sneak-attacks the whole group with some Dr. Seussian-colored candy liqueur shots that you all take like a group of birds getting their first meal. And at some dark hour during the walk back over the ancient cobblestone streets, when the probably too-nice Canadian, Lynda, offers to make you cheese ravioli, it will hit you all at once that sometimes the middle of things is where you belong, where all the important meaning resides, because beginnings are oftentimes scary and difficult and endings are usually too messy.

6. GET YOUR FEET WET: when you were younger, you told them you didn't want to go into the lake because you were afraid that fish would mistake your toes for worms and would attack you, and even though it was mostly true, at the heart of it was the unconscious dread of looking like a fool, not knowing how to properly stay afloat. At twenty-three you fretted over an application to study publishing at NYU, paid copious sums of money to assure that the letters of recommendation, the official transcript, all of it would be mailed as quickly as possible, would arrive before the deadline. When you got the acceptance letter, the nonplus gave way to new frets: how to pay for it, where to live, what to being, how to act. Ultimately, you would give up this opportunity, telling yourself you're trading the potential for failure in a big place, empty pockets and emptier hopes, for the comfortable, yet vacuous, self-aggrandizement; that it's still out there if you want it. Listen: the older you get, the less risk you will have to mess around with, the less people will care about your untoward excuses, your wish for personal accomplishment, your subsequent defeatist attitude. Follow through with the things you want, not for the stories told subjunctively after you've quashed the thing from coming to fruition, but because you want – need – to do, and to do simply.

7. THIS MOMENT IS THE BEST MOMENT: no matter where you are, what you are doing, how muddled and nasty and fragile things are now, you'll always look back on this moment with that longing to return, because the former self always has more promise. Don't forget that.