I received today a package from Dish containing several books, among them Sontag’s Journals & Notebooks. And the first page I fell upon – 

“Superficial to understand the journal as just a receptacle for one’s private, secret thoughts – like a confidante who is deaf, dumb, and illiterate. In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could do to any person; I create myself.”

Then;

“Nothing prevents me from being a writer except laziness. A good writer.”

***

To have Gregariousness. I suppose to expend one’s energy in order to exclaim (loudly) requires an extrapolation of the self. As Camus says – lying is also saying more than what you feel. Therefore I shall lie (in the act). 

***

I told my mother this morning about how when I was in Standard 2, entered a storytelling competition at school. I was all dolled up (I remember wearing the plaid school pinafore I used to wear back when I was 4-5 years old in Wales), practiced my lines, memorized the entirety of Little Red Riding Hood book I had at home. We had to draw numbers, and as luck (or bad luck) would have it, I had to go in first. So there I stood, facing all these gaping faces, unable to say a single word. It all lasted for several minutes until the teacher called me back to my seat.

***

“It’s a bit difficult you know, to always remember everything people say”

“Why?”

“I guess it makes forgetting things you want to forget harder“

***

Some days I feel I’m stuck in a very Mrs. Dalloway situation. But I shall endure life, nevertheless. I no longer have Hanna around to say “I want to die” (say “dive” instead, she’d say), randomly, whenever I want to. So plunge I shall.