Cogitation

Photo by Luís Feliciano on Unsplash

My love of Spanish revival comes from visiting California missions as a child. I loved the architecture. I was clueless to the genocide and torture that happened within their halls, but I sure fell in love with the aesthetic.

I can picture myself in a small room standing next to a table with a small basin filled with water. A Turkish towel hanging nearby. This scene never happened to me in real life, but I can picture it as if it did, right down to the green and blue accent tiles on the wall.

I’m talking about missions and monasteries because I’ve decided to give up social media for the next forty days for Lent. I’m not religious. I’m not even Catholic. What I am is someone that makes rash decisions based on a whim and then rationalizes them later with a story. A friend posted that they were giving up social media for Lent and stated that they were doing so to get focused on projects. That’s definitely something that I need to do and I decided to give it a go.

Do you know St. Teresa of Avila. One of my favorite songs “St. Teresa” by Joan Osbourne is about her. The patron saint of mysticism. Don’t quote me, I didn’t study apologetics and I take away from stories what works for me. What I remember about her in the song is that she levitated and she had visions during this time.

It’s always about the mysticism with me. If your grandmother was a bruha. If you have stories about energy. That’s what I gravitate towards. Mystical explanations for why things happen that go beyond text and relies on tales of out-of-body experiences and peyote-induced visions. I don’t know what’s out there in the universe, but lets stare into the fire and meditate on it.

I need this right now. Not that I’m detoxing off of something harmful or a habit that is bad for me. No, I’m detoxing off of enjoying myself too much. My serotonin levels have been heightened by this force. A vision that evolves every day and gives me something new to see or think about. It’s addictive. It’s consuming. It fulfills me and so I have to walk away to find my center.

St. Teresa of Avila floated into her visions. She wanted to make sense of them. I’m just trying to keep them under control so it doesn’t completely consume me. The forty days will give me the space to build an immunity that will help me enjoy it without being enraptured.

Will this work? I haven’t a clue. What I do know is I need to stop concentrating on how the jugular vein travels down the neck and runs perpendicular to the intersection where the tie knots. The way the trapezius looks stretched against a cool-colored wool cotton. Or even how it lays at rest against a loose shirt. I have to go to work, there’s no reason for these to be constant thoughts.

A self-imposed exile to see if it’s my writer’s mind or if it’s worse than I think and this force has a hold on my senses. Very dangerous if it’s the latter. Right now there is more fodder for me to open and gorge, but I won’t. I’ll allow the not knowing to kill me. I’ll allow the images to lay unseen for forty days. I will die over and over until I have grown stronger. Damn the handsome. Damn their voodoo magic. Damn their ability to not just be a pretty face and have the ability to hold a conversation. Damn them for not giving me anything to dislike or find suspect. I will cut the joy out of me every day for forty days and come back stronger.

Either I will be better equipped come Easter, or even more ravenous than this very moment. I’m not aiming for Saint status. Just the ability to have a phone in my hand without automatically thinking of the handsome. I’m probably doomed, but at least not for the next forty days.