Lemon Tsupryk Q2 #2: To The End
“What an age! Every one is dying, everything is dying, and the earth is dying also, eaten up by the sun and the wind.”
A mirror tilted towards the face of contemporary America. What an age we are in! It felt as though we were inching forwards before, dragging our feet but still putting one in front of the other, while now it seems the country is taking leaps and bounds in some backwards direction. The government’s withering, history being erased before our eyes, the towers of poker chips the powerful are pushing towards artificial thinking machines…and outside of the country? The same.
Everyone is dying! Israel and Palestine, Russia and Ukraine; how many more will there be before there is one wrong move taken, one wrong wire crossed, until that wrong wire gets cut and there’s no going back—half the planet razed, with the other following suit? Everything is dying!
And the Earth is dying also; with felled forests and polluted waters and extinct birds haunting the apartment buildings which now stand stoic in place of trees. I think I still hear the ghosts sometimes, when I visit any big city. Screeching somewhere softly under the noises of cars. What a hell Americans have built for themselves! Motorways twisting like intestines, dead expanses of parking lots and abandoned warehouses; at times I find my blood harmonizes with those poor spirits—where has all the life gone?
Not the subway station, surely. Not the benches outside the library on which the homeless sleep. Not within the tangles of bureaucracy at the DMV. Where?
Here.
Eaten up by the sun and the wind. Settled heavy as ash. I breathe it in passively, I can’t help it. We all do. And here stands the truth:
“I don’t know where I get the courage to keep on living in the midst of these ruins.”
Ruins they insist aren’t ruins; towers of concrete and steel, of money and power, of plastic and smoke. How do I keep on living? How?
The answer is the same as it has been since 1870, the year the woman writing under the pseudonym of Sand sent these words off in a letter, and maybe since humanity’s very inception. That is, that there is no answer, I don’t think. But what do I know? Nothing; nothing but this:
The most important thing—in this country, in this world, in this life—is the very last line.
“Let us love each other to the end.”
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| [Image drawn by me] The quote is by George Sand from a letter to Gustave Flaubert; the full version can be found here on page 227. |
Hi Lemon! I always enjoy your writing style as I find it very abstract, and it scratches a spot in my brain whenever I read your posts. America today is definitely very confusing and somewhat hypocritical. I mean, it’s American businesses that are the reason for the climate crisis. They set up shop in places like China and India to skirt labor and climate laws.
ReplyDeleteThese same people are also investing way too much money in A.I. and I really enjoyed your metaphor about billionaires and poker chips. Living in the Bay and having to hear and see a new pointless A.I. chatbot/feature makes me want to roll my eyes to the back of my head.
I do also agree with your point on how nature has been destroyed to build cities. As someone who wants to reside in a metropolitan area when I am older (New York hopefully), there is a sense of guilt when I enjoy the city skyline or the bustling streets and tall buildings of San Francisco. I tend to think about what part of nature was bulldozed over for this view.
I really enjoyed this week's blog, thanks!
Hey Lemon! First, I wanted to let you know that as I was reading your blog I read it in your voice. Even though I haven’t talked to you that many times, I think your style of writing is unique to you and makes me interpret through your voice. If that sounded creepy, I promise I’m a really un-creepy person. Genuinely, this blog was beautiful and I loved reading it. The drawing you included at the bottom is equally beautiful. I had no idea you were so good at art; I would love to see more of your pieces.
ReplyDeleteThe imagery you used throughout your blog made me envision a dystopian society. Are we becoming more like the places I used to read about in novels? Is the Hunger Games completely fiction?
I relate with the line “‘I don’t know where I get the courage to keep on living in the midst of these ruins.’” Sometimes learning about such disheartening events, although I am in such a privileged position, feels devastating. I enjoy how you rationalized being able to withstand tragedy: by loving till the end.