melissa west makes things ii.


So, this is the way the world (universe, multiverse) must work: everything is transient, constantly in transition, and therefore nothing is ever solid. Not even you or i. I read in the God Delusion (I must find the exact passage to cite it,) that one physicist theorizes we are not the beings we were in the past because our atoms and particles are not the same as they were even a moment ago (because they are constantly changing). I am not presenting this theory as complexly or accurately but I found it absolutely fascinating that me as a child, sitting on a chair or eating my mother’s supper was a completely different (physically) being than the girl (woman) who stands here today, writing this blog while she should be working (though there is nothing to do). So, the transience. now, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though one who fears change (as I do) can construe it as such.


I miss my grandmother. She passed last year. I just had a fleeting memory of eating hamburgers in their backyard during the summer months—having a barbeque. Her birthday was in the summer, I remember the cake. The warm summer air, the firecrackers in the distance. They grew tomatoes and cucumbers. The smell of the garden. My grandfather still grows things; he was in the local paper for having the best homegrown vegetables in all of Staten Island. My father told stories of farms scattered throughout the island when he was a child. They had chickens, even. A rooster crowed at dawn.


I want to make a dance. A duet to the song Moon River for sentimental reasons. This summer I will be spending a large portion of time at The Yard, a dance colony on Martha’s Vineyard. Having never danced away from NYC, this will be an experience I am dying to uncover. Of course, I am terrified: of living away from this city, of traveling alone, of not seeing my friends or family for two months, of missing things here.


My heart is melancholy, dear reader, for a number of reasons. I miss being a child, I miss people who have came and passed, I miss Staten Island in the summer and the docks and tranquility, I miss being special (to you), miss writing poetry, having bangs, miss having pretty clothes and miss dancing every day.

The other day I told Mary Ellen that I hate this city, I am frustrated and cannot wait to leave. The truth is, I don’t hate NYC. I love it, perhaps too much. I think I feel such love for NYC, I don’t want anyone else to have it. No one. No hipsters, tourists, people who move here and have it easy, no one. Just me. I am sure many native New Yorkers (particularly those with strong emotional and creative ties to this place) feel similarly at times, so that is why I am posting my feelings here. I suppose the same goes with dancing or making dances; I want to make them. No one else but me.


Now, I realize how selfish, irrational, and ridiculous these feelings may sound and I by no means feel them all the time. I am just going through a heightened sensitivity where I am realizing how possessive of things I can be. I do not mean it to be a bad thing and am working to figure out why I am like this. I think I can love something so dearly that it becomes so intensified (glorified, even) and have pains of separation. Perhaps these are things everyone (or most) feel at times.


I am feeling just so sad and creative and just want to use it. so, I’ll be making things. Stay tuned.


-m