'Stockholm (Parade of Lights Remix)' / New Division

Stockholm (Parade of Lights Remix)
New Division

Last July I woke up late on a Sunday, after a close friend's amazing bachelorette party. And oh you know those mornings: hangover of a particular kind -- no regret all memory, nauseous but no headache, nerve endings hypersensitive, emotional soup. I was vibrating, literally and figuratively. And I lay in bed for a few hours, feeling. Quietly. Reading. And feeling.

I was living alone, so when I mustered the strength to get out of bed and put on coffee -- no thought about recounting the stories from the night before (yes I rode the bull, to Blink 182 no less!, and the wine glass I painted has the Fibonacci sequence all over it). I've only ever lived solo for about 2 months last year and it's a strange memory -- placeless, almost, transient. I felt like I was on the brink.

I was on the brink.

Coffee in hand, stomach recoiling at the thought of food, I stumbled back into my room and turned on my computer. Sipped. iTunes. I was really into Parade of Lights at the time -- put on Can't Have You as I scrolled through Tumblr, posting self-indulgently. I remember lifting my hand from the mouse and watching it visibly shake.

 i can't really process reality right now, I wrote, and everything feels so intense but there is nowhere to put it. 

So I shook.

Posted the song on Facebook because that's what I do when music has a hand in overwhelming me.

And an old classmate from an acting class commented "Find their remix of 'Stockholm' by New Division.'

Well fucking hell, that didn't help, did it.

I shook.

What is it that takes emotion from the chemicals in your brains out into the tips of your fingers, the core of your gut; makes your eyes roll back in your head, your heart flare, your bones ache? Scientifically, it's supposed to have something to do with your anterior insular cortex -- and as with all brain areas, everyone's works differently, so I can only speak for myself.

But fuck: those days, those moments, where something in the fabric of reality slips and I feel the entire universe in my bloodstream -- what am I supposed to do? Where do I put that? It's not necessarily directed at anyone. It's not necessarily something that can manifest physically -- but my body does its best, she tries, and more often than not I feel like I'm going to levitate or fucking explode, I don't know. If we're gonna value-judge, it's the best I ever feel -- but also the most frustrated. Where does this go?

Sometimes I write through it, or make art, to give voice or face to it. And sometimes I dance, and that helps, because often this is caused by or paired with a song --

-- like goddamn fucking Stockholm.

I had nowhere to put it. No words. No images. I was too hungover to jump up and dance. But I was struck, cell to cell, and so: I shook.

I got my first tattoo on Monday: a little ampersand on my right outer ankle.

I've been wanting it for years but couldn't pick a font, couldn't pick a time, couldn't commit. But something has shifted in the course of the year, since I listened to Stockholm hungover on a hot July afternoon in 2015. And one of my diamonds was in town and said I'm getting a tattoo done while I'm here -- Jill, you should get your ampersand, and I barely hesitated and replied okay. yes. let's do it.

Tattoos don't have to mean anything, but this one does. Among many things -- it's a reminder that there is always something more -- another interpretation, possibility, option. Absolutely nothing is static.

But when you cut the cord you cut me all up inside.

I am sitting at my computer, sipping coffee, on a hot July afternoon, listening to the same song I listened to a year ago.

Not hungover. Not shaking. & -- the same and new things on my mind, shifted interpretations of the words. But still intensely feeling, and I still have nowhere to put it.

We're falling down.