No Signal

So empty and lifeless today.

Sleepless night again.

I'm hearing in my head the music of this untitled piece for Huang Yi and CloudGate that I am currently penning. There's no full moon or any lunar knot, but I feel restless. I was lying in bed, exhausted and sleepy, yet sleep would not come. 

A mosquito was raging around me in the dark. I felt something in my arm so I used that lethal electric racket, only to find out it was my friend the spider I had just slain. 

At 5a.m. the bed started shaking. It was not my heavy heartbeat pounding through the bed, but an earthquake. The usual effect of earthquake in Taipei is that it feels like someone is gently rocking the house for a second or two. This time it lasted longer and the rocking was more violent. 

"Should I stay or should I go?" 

Since I couldn't sleep, I kept on reading a book about Marilyn Monroe: Marilyn, Dernières Séances (Marilyn, the last sitting) by Michel Schneider, which focuses more on her relationship with her psychoanalyst, Dr. Ralph Greenson during her last years. 

It's amazing how this woman continues to inspire so much literature and yet remain untouchable. We can only project something of ourselves on her.

What I get from myself from the reading is that, like her, I use my music and my look to find love from others. The wounds from childhood have never really ceased to cause pain and have structured the person I am now. Of course I can stand on my own two feet, I can live, feel happy and even carefree. Being creative has been my salvation. But what do I create? I know it's all illusions. I no longer care to leave something. I do enjoy the long moments spend writing and creating this world of mine. But what for? Hardly anyone listens to my music. Looking good? Yes, I'm nearly 42 and maybe more attractive now than I was when I was 20. All these efforts.... I may claim it's for my personal balance. Body and soul. It's a very well oiled survival mechanism. To be so different that no one could even say anything. By being different, I automatically reject myself, so I do not fear to be rejected. Thus, working on an attractive appearance, I can create the illusion that people may want me. To be desired. To be wished for...

On the last night before Jay left for Kaohsiung, he told me, no, urged me to reconnect to the feeling of love. 

"I know you have been hurt more than once. I know you have not been treated well by your lovers. They were like executioners and that's how you view love now. It cannot come without this suffering. But you must, you MUST try to (re)connect to this feeling of love. You don't want to end up in bitterness."

I heard all he said. I understood. But I don't feel it. I don't believe in it. I do believe in love, I hope for it. But not for me. Not anymore. 

Ryan is coming back tomorrow after half a year. But I had written to him that I didn't see any future in our relationship. There wasn't any relationship. We only started to date for a month, then his premature departure to the US forced him to speed up the wooing process and the 'I love you' came out too quickly. I saw pictures of him on Facebook and they seemed to belong to someone from another world. So much innocence, happiness and fresh spirits. I can't be in there.

Jay insisted and insisted. 

"Ryan is different from the others. He's not there to hurt you." 

I keep myself alive from day to day. Music does the trick. Just like Marilyn and the camera, I don't need to feel or say anything when I compose or play music. It just is. But it's not me.

Now I feel no point at all in going on. I will try to finish the current projects (so many of them). Until Berlin...

Maybe the feeling will give way to something positive. I do wish so. Even if I don't mind the challenge, there's no need to make it painful!
I agree with the idea that suicide may not be the desire to die, but the wish to end a painful life.