In Fact, I'm Pioneering New Emotions.

I've just started re-reading Jeanette Winterson's Written On The Body. Inside the cover, the exgirlfriend who gave me the book has written a note telling me she loves me. The novel begins with the sentence, "Why is the measure of love loss?", the refrain repeated throughout the book. It seems strange that she should've missed the irony there. She was so analytical, could pierce through to the heart of a novel or poem or text while I was still floundering at the edges. And yet, when I tell stories about my time with her now, I often leave her out. I tell people that I lived in Montreal, without mentioning that I was living with her for three quarters of that time. I tell people about riding around Cuba, always using the first person singular. I tell people that I had a friend who worked at Williamstown High. And I'm absolutely certain she does the same. It's not that I'm attempting to rewrite history or change the past. It's just that things that seemed significant then are insignificant now. Because the things that are happening now make everything else seem insignificant.

Fuck it's a brilliant book:

"Love demands expression. It will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no. It will break out in tongues of praise, the high note that smashes the glass and spills the liquid. It is no conservationist, love. It is a big game hunter and you are the game."

I may never race my bike again. That's ok. Because the things that are happening right now, the things I'm doing with the twenty hours a week I used to spend on my bike, the worlds opening up before me, make everything else seem insignificant. Or, as someone else might put it:

"This is kinda exciting. Even if you don't end up doing it, it's exciting just thinking about doing something different, knowing there's other possibilities. "