Here and Gone

I seem lately to have periods of lucidity which suddenly arise from a more general sort of fogginess or dullness. Suddenly, my mind will become sharp and active and I will find myself writing artfully and intelligently. This is not one of those days. Most days are not one of those days. More generally, I will awake in a sort of stupor, wander out to the backyard for a cup of coffee, light up a cigarette, and then just kind of sit there, waiting for my mind to boot up like an old-fashioned desktop computer, like dial-up internet. I drag myself through customary tasks, getting dressed, grabbing something simple to eat, a piece of toast, a boiled egg, preparing for nothing in particular. Eventually, I drag myself out to Starbucks, thinking that I really should do something. Most of the time, I am in pain. The neuropathic problem in my neck and shoulder and back is relentless. So I sit at Starbucks, drinking my coffee, thinking that I should go home and lie down. And then one day, unannounced, unexpected, my mind will suddenly light up, fill up with orderly and purposeful thought. Words will return like rain to a drought pocked landscape and suddenly I am swimming in a freshwater lake. Suddenly I am me again. Words tingle in my fingertips and fall breathlessly upon the open page, irrepressible, bright, shimmering, such that they seem not even my own, more like dictation than invention. And then the lights dim again, the fog rolls in, the water recedes, the sky grows gray and obscure. I recall having awakened for a time, but I don't know how I did it, I don't know how to get back again. I recall the enthusiasm, the joy of engagement, and mourn its departure. I am enveloped by an unnamable, unreasonable loneliness, a stone-like, mountainous sense of regret, fatigue, impotence, exhaustion. The world has boxed itself up and sent itself elsewhere, and I alone remain, longing to be rescued.