The Endless Not (redux)

Dear C.—

Sometimes I have the ocean roaring in my ears, in my head—not the intermittent breaks and ebbs of waves on the shore, but only the crashes—crashes, crashes, crashes—on an endless loop for minutes, hours sometimes. A stream of white noise. Vision becomes strained, as if I were only seeing clearly through the spaces in a chain link fence. But much of this is going on without my awareness—and only when it becomes suddenly silent and my vision resolves, refocuses completely, do I become aware of what has just happened. Where did those minutes or hours go? What was I doing? Was I here all along in my room, in my car, in my office, this museum—or did I go somewhere else and do other things: unconscionable things, while I was out on the waves?

Best,

X

What I’m Reading:

Indeed, this is perhaps the most important question ever to confront culture in the broadest sense for let us make no mistake: the climate crisis is also a crisis of culture, and thus of the imagination.

Culture generates desires for vehicles and appliances, for certain kinds of gardens and dwellings-that are among the principal drivers of the carbon economy.

— Amitav Ghosh / The Great Derangement