Week 8.1 - Leon Johnson

I realize that this has nothing to do with any journal prompts, or maybe it will. At this point though, I would just like to track my thoughts so that I can articulate them clearly later.

I feel like I've been hit with something so profound that I can barely wrap my mind around it. I felt like Leon was simply talking to me in that huge room of people. How else could he have gotten so far inside my head that he was on the other side?

Grief. I was just talking about this today. I was just thinking about this.


And the idea of grief being the absence of something. The split second before a decision is made where time seems to stretch into it's own separate entity. The feeling in the bottom of your stomach before you run head first into a wall of your own making.

The woman in the video speaking about her dreams said that she "made so many elegant decisions."
And what is an elegant decision?
Could it be simply waking up in the morning?
Could it be deciding to face the day.
Could seeing the world around you as the lights turn on and the sun rises be an elegant decision in it's own right?
Could every single thing that you do every single day be an elegant decision?

I was on the edge of my seat in that room, feeling like weeping.

And the people in the room! After everything was over, I stood up, clutching my package of amazing items that I was given when I walked in, while everyone around me went, "Ah, that was strange. So what are you doing this weekend?" around me.
What a concentration of apathy.
It's the whole dragging a horse to water thing. You can't make people get it. You can't even really make people see what is being said.

I don't even know if what he was saying was what I am seeing. I feel like I understand everything and nothing. I feel endlessly inspired and completely intimidated by his thought process (and because I see him as a kindred spirit this evening, my own.)

My dad called this "a cosmic situation." I called him immediately to articulate what I was thinking. How on earth can I describe out loud what feels like someone describing myself to me? (And what a narcissistic thing to say. This feels more about a human condition, which is NOT directly only connected to me, myself, and I.) I told him I was just talking about grief today, in connection to my uncle, and he said, "What a cosmic situation. He was exactly what you needed exactly when you needed it."



What a cosmic situation.
What an elegant decision.
Yes.