Nihilism and Not Nihilism -5minutefreewrite (x3)

For https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/the-weekend-freewrite-10-19-2019-part-3-the-dramatic-twist

Hanna stood in the impossible night of the forest, her eyes fixed on that one spark of light…
It grew and grew and grew until it was clear that Hanna was simply the Hanna of Hanna-Barbera, and this was the blank page coming next, ending her existence.

Nothing. Blank. Nothing. Empty.

And empty. Empty. Sheer empty. Empty. Devoid of all, plainly empty. Nothing. Empty. What? Empty. Consider the tuber.

Deep underground. It is not conscious, but it lives. Does it have more personality than a corpse? Would it be better to be a potato or dead? Would it matter? Would we smile if our parents became potatoes instead of dead?

I think if they became trees instead of dead, I prefer that. But I romanticize trees. So many do. You know The Giving Tree? Oh, spirituality. What of it? Should we choose it? We can choose to believe things that are not true. If I planted my father’s ashes beneath an apple tree, could I tell my child that his grandfather was giving him these apples? Would that help us? Would that help us?

I don’t know. I think I won’t, because I don’t truly believe it, but is it a nice lie to tell ourselves? Or does it not help? Would that help? Would that help?

I’d like something to help, because it feels awful to realize my father is entirely gone. Oh, I know he lives on in my memories. But memories aren’t alive. They really aren’t. I have a fabulous imagination, but it’s all me. It can’t give me truth. I can talk fancy about art as truth, but I know. I know that my dad has … had. Had truths that I cannot replicate simply by remembering him or living like him. He needs to be here, and he’s not.

Think that your seeds will germinate and that the plans will grow
That would be nice, wouldn’t it? But I get so tired. I plant the seeds, but tending them is harder than tending a garden. The weeds aren’t just virulent, they’re indistinguishable from what I’ve planted until it’s too late. And the soil must not be right. Or something. I don’t know enough, and I never will. Or perhaps it is all literally impossible. Destiny, it sometimes seems, is real, and I am destined to never succeed. I cannot. I cannot. I cannot.

Can you spend more time bemoaning your circumstances? Can you try to make them better? I cannot? I cannot? I cannot?

What we each want is a quandry.

Oh, Fah. Fah and shenanigans. And cucumber melon moisturizer. I don’t remember the scent at the moment, but I noted it. Beth E. wore it. I think that’s what. And then I realized it was really quite popular. What a funny scent to become so popular. It seemed there was a time when every encounter was an encounter with CuCuMBer Melon.

this is pure joy
I felt, as a child, bathed in cucumber melon scents. I wonder… should I seek them out? Is it cheating to bring myself joy through the smell of cucumbers and melons in lotion?

Oh, strange things and stranger. Strange. Strange. Odd and unexpected. Nothing good comes of the unexpected. We should live in predictable circumstances. No. Some of those are terrible, too.

And yet? I know we can not know the suffering of others as we know our own, and yet… Oh, bargaining. It doesn’t matter. As I wish for things to be otherwise, I recognize that I may as well simply wish that my dad was alive and never suffered any heart attack or health problem whatsoever, for all the good it does to bargain my wishes down. If only he had had a non-fatal heart attack, and we could be here, encouraging him to finally slow down, take it easy, take care of himself.

No warning. It’s just so damn hard. No warning. No preparation. First he is doing everything, more at 76 than I’m doing at less than half that. And then…

Poof. Everything he was doing he is no longer doing. What was this prompt? Something about joy?

How dare we consider joy for any moment! There can be joy in illness, but there is no joy in death.