Thomas recommends "Blue Nile" by Alice Coltrane
This is a grief exercise.
STOP. Before you read this, put on the song. I don’t care if you stream it from Spotify or buy it on iTunes—it just needs to be playing in the background. If you’re like me, you are going to ignore the directions and read the rest of this without the music, or read and then listen to the music, or, if you’re really perverted, only listen to the music, because you learned in PreAP bio that playing music in the background while you’re trying to read will redirect some of your neurons, even if you try really hard to tune it out, and you, like me, want to give art your FULL ATTENTION. But don’t worry; even my most complex sentences will only require about 40% of your attention, at most. I’m not a good enough writer to claim anything more. Oh, you’re in a library and you didn’t bring your AirPods? Get up and LEAVE, use Google Maps to locate the nearest park, go sit on a bench and find the song on YouTube. Sorry—but sometimes art requires sacrifice.
You know how when you’re zoned out, your eyes go all unfocused? And then when some sound or whatever brings you back to reality, they immediately refocus on an object in front of you, and you don’t even notice that the world was ever fuzzed out. If you tried really hard to capture that moment—that lacuna of unfocus, that grainy film reel getting archived away somewhere in your unconscious—you would fail. Maybe, with some practice, you’d be able to keep your vision blurry, mechanically speaking, by focusing really hard on your eyes and letting them drift, but the state of mind you were in, when you were in the midst of your little reverie, will always elude you. You and I both know that there’s something there, some state of being that we often experience but fail to grasp.
I thought you’d say that. But look, I’ll prove it:
Okay, so it’s playing now. Good. You’re sitting in a jazz club, and across the table is the only person that’s ever really loved you. I know this is too sentimental, but just play along. NO CHEATING—they can’t be your Mom. Do you see their face? Good. The rest will come. They asked you out on a date here. You were nervous at first, but by now you’re relaxed, and the conversation is flowing. Okay, come on. FOCUS. CONCENTRATE. CLOSE YOUR EYES. Don’t open them—and now tell me, what are they saying to you, right now?
Thomas Hobohm (they/them) is a writer from SF by way of Texas. They're interested in interrogating queer desire and the will to intersubjective knowledge. When they're not reading or writing, they like to play volleyball and explore independent cinemas. They can be found on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thomashobohm.
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