nostalgia

i asked her to write a book, because she had the best stories. "i'd never do that," she said, putting on her shoes. "i don't want to live in the past anymore, and everytime i write, it means i'm living in the past." i nodded, conflicted: i was at once saddened that her rejection of memoirs meant that i could never experience her life from a distance, but i admired her commitment to living in the present. she lived in the present more than anybody i've ever met.

i'm not like her. i have a compulsion that strikes me in the earliest hours of the morning to write, especially about the past, as i am right now. the silence creates a compulsion for cartography, mapping out the narratives of my infinitely entangled life in search of a thread. crackling vinyl records, a crate of unopened CDs, scattered rolling papers, old love letters surround me in a crushing, overwhelming nothingness for me to solve. it goes without saying that i am an archaeologist of my own life, especially when it comes to intense, lost romances. i always thought those were exaggerations that existed only in the hyperrealism of art. apparently not. champagne supernova is a work of journalism, and romcoms are documentaries.