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Feb. 22nd, 2004 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zana16There is a certain moment of disconnection and peace that is almost impossible to describe. Usually it only occurs in the middle of a crowded dancefloor surrounded by perfect strangers, when the music is so loud your body is trobbing along with it and you know you won't be able to hear much for several days, and the strobe lights are going so fast you want to close your eyes to shut out the visual stimulation, but you morbidly keep them open to see whether you can take just that much more; like choking down one more piece of pie on Thanksgiving. There is a fullness and overstimulation that starts the seed of panic in your stomach, and you're afraid you're going to lose your mind right there on the dancefloor, but you're already flailing and screaming and grinding against impersonal flesh, so you're not sure if insanity will change anything. It's too much; you want to get away, but you also want to stay forever. It's then that your mind stops trying to sort out this overflow of information, and there in the middle of a battlefield of energy and violation, you find an oasis of peace. It's hard to describe; you're there, and then you're not. You are an impartial observer, and you continue to analyze the situation, but the throbbing of the music is dulled--maybe your brain stops taking it in because it's too much--and you are there, almost hovering, immobile but full of a tension that is wonderful. In your own little bubble, you are alive and alone and communing with something bigger than you, and you get the distinct impression that it has a sense of humor and is grooving along with you.
It's a hard feeling to describe mostly because it takes several drinks and no small amount of drugs to get there. The endorphin rush alone can get you there sometimes, but you're left feeling desolate and alone, cut off from all the seething bodies, when you come down from it. With the drugs, you come down slowly and with a smile on your face.
I don't miss the drugs much; it's that moment, though, that I miss. Just the high, I can do without that; chemical happiness is something I can let go of. It's the fulfilledness of the moment, though, that's so hard to leave behind. You don't get it from the drugs alone; it's the combination of that and the dancing and the music and the totally anonymous crowd, the fear and excitement of total strangers surrounding and fencing you in. It's a moment when you feel connected to the universe, in a way I've only felt in the very infrequent times I've seen manifestations of God. I long for that feeling; I think of it and I know that while it means addiction for me, it also means fulfilledness and love and everything I yearn for when the world is drab and ordinary.
I was trying to explain to Kyle why I gave it all up, refused to ever drink myself helpless again and walked away from white-powder stains and sweat-drenched bodies under strobelights and the perfection of music throbbing through me while being fucked against white-tiled walls in some nameless European underground club. He was fucked-up while I tried to explain, so he just kind of giggled and hit on me ineffectually, and I felt like I was trying to convince myself more than I was trying to convince him.
A little too much of me is in that scene, so I don't think I'd be able to write the narrator without invariably confusing her with myself. There are areas of my psyche I prefer not to explore, which is probably why I had to give up the rave scene so completely, so I'm really not sure I'm up to going that deeply into myself for long enough to extract a character; writing Graduation was so incredible and painful that I'm wary of going to that place in my mind for just any old character. Writing Holly, I got a person I didn't expect, and had to deal with stuff inside of myself I didn't expect to have to deal with ever. It's a bit like having children; you love them, and you wouldn't trade them for anything, but they're so exhausting you wouldn't jump at the chance to have another one right off.
It's a hard feeling to describe mostly because it takes several drinks and no small amount of drugs to get there. The endorphin rush alone can get you there sometimes, but you're left feeling desolate and alone, cut off from all the seething bodies, when you come down from it. With the drugs, you come down slowly and with a smile on your face.
I don't miss the drugs much; it's that moment, though, that I miss. Just the high, I can do without that; chemical happiness is something I can let go of. It's the fulfilledness of the moment, though, that's so hard to leave behind. You don't get it from the drugs alone; it's the combination of that and the dancing and the music and the totally anonymous crowd, the fear and excitement of total strangers surrounding and fencing you in. It's a moment when you feel connected to the universe, in a way I've only felt in the very infrequent times I've seen manifestations of God. I long for that feeling; I think of it and I know that while it means addiction for me, it also means fulfilledness and love and everything I yearn for when the world is drab and ordinary.
I was trying to explain to Kyle why I gave it all up, refused to ever drink myself helpless again and walked away from white-powder stains and sweat-drenched bodies under strobelights and the perfection of music throbbing through me while being fucked against white-tiled walls in some nameless European underground club. He was fucked-up while I tried to explain, so he just kind of giggled and hit on me ineffectually, and I felt like I was trying to convince myself more than I was trying to convince him.
A little too much of me is in that scene, so I don't think I'd be able to write the narrator without invariably confusing her with myself. There are areas of my psyche I prefer not to explore, which is probably why I had to give up the rave scene so completely, so I'm really not sure I'm up to going that deeply into myself for long enough to extract a character; writing Graduation was so incredible and painful that I'm wary of going to that place in my mind for just any old character. Writing Holly, I got a person I didn't expect, and had to deal with stuff inside of myself I didn't expect to have to deal with ever. It's a bit like having children; you love them, and you wouldn't trade them for anything, but they're so exhausting you wouldn't jump at the chance to have another one right off.