Mea culpa

Or the incessant feeling I am to blame

When I’m sick, I feel guilty and ask for forgiveness.

For every sneeze, every cough, even the sole raspiness of my voice: I am sorry. I feel like an inconvenience— a piercing tag on the side of a t-shirt, a piece of gum stuck on the sole of a shoe. I am unsure who I become a nuisance to, but there I am, heavy and clumsy. A migraine or a runny nose and I transfrom into a burden. But my mother makes me chicken broth and strokes my head, my boyfriend reassures me with the sweetness of his grinded coffee, my friends whisper let her sleep. So, who on Earth do I actually bother? Who am I pleading to for absolution?

You would agree that there is no fault of mine in catching a cold— but did you wear a sweater that day? You should’ve just stayed home, no need to confront the weather like that, wearing the pink dress during such a breezy night. You wouldn’t blame me for getting a forty-one fever with no other symptoms— yet it could be psychosomatic, you did sleep all Thursday missing therapy so there you go, that’s what you get for not attending your mental state, a scorching forehead… And that’s how the thought process goes: my sick self arguing with my super ego, my therapist would say. It’s a trial and my ailing body gives out its opening statement to an irrational judge who believes guilty until found otherwise.

Guilt tends to derail any train of thought I conjure up. I wish Guilt would attack only when I have a sore throat; life would be simpler and I’d just be blamed throughout wintertime, maybe with a free-pass for Christmas. But no, the judge remains still sitting in her high podium, looking down on me like there’s blood on my hands and treats me like a common criminal. If I eat at a restaurant and dislike the meal I chose, you just lost twenty five dollars and that’s on you. When I go out for the night and my social battery runs out, you should’ve just stayed home, you don’t even like parties, do you? Oh but when I decide to stay in, what are you doing here? Losing time? Getting lonesome? Get out there, make some memories worth telling!

It is a fight I never seem to win. The coin’s other side is ever-present, haunting me like a shadow I somehow cast upon myself. Guilt hides under the smallest of chances and the heaviest of decisions. From my mother’s tiredness, my father’s distance, or my brother’s fear of abandonment, to how much money I should spend on gas or reading a page instead of twenty. It is a strange form of narcissism along with a delusion I am being persecuted by the mirror; a belief I am both Father and sinner. I desperetely look for the whip in search for repentance: I am sorry, forgive me, I am to blame. But the Guilt doesn’t go away and I believe it is because Regret stands just behind her, luring in the darkest corner of the room.

My guilt is a woman drenched in red. She stares at me worried, ‘bout to scream someone’s name, maybe mine, maybe her own but I do not know, she never howls. There is this terror seeping through her lashes, under her nails like dirt, like blood. I want to ask her is it blood? Who’s it from? But when I crouch at her side, she sneers and grins because she’s got me. How silly you are. And it’s just paint. But I never stop wondering.

When you’re used to regret, you learn to map the field, outline every possibility, foresee every mishap. And in spite of all that worry, something goes wrong and you cannot forgive yourself for going down that road. Guilt and Regret shake hands like the old business partners they are, and leave you with the whip on your hand. You start apologising but they’re gone now because the person that needs your forgiveness is you.

This week, I have a terrible cough. My mother calls to ask how I feel constantly, my boyfriend turns on the coffee maker, my friends lull me to sleep. I hold the whip and my back is tired. But I try to breathe: you’re forgiven. I am learning that the hard way.

I have been stuck on the same two books for the whole summer. Due to travelling, socialising, and just a general feeling of wanting-to-do-nothing, I have barely made any progress in my readings (ah, there’s Guilt!).

I am halfway through Biography of X by Catherine Lacey, and my time with it has been delightful. There are so many profound introspections and sentences that simply leave me speechless. Lacey carves an interesting model of a woman with too many facets (which if you read this newsletter’s introduction, you might see how I find the appeal), the way relationships branch out and crash and shape us without us even knowing. I know it will be a 2023 favorite and I cannot wait to write my review on it— and maybe publish it here?

My other read is La vuelta al día en ochenta mundos by my darling dearest Julio Cortázar. It is a strange wonderful little pocket book that feels like a journal of his. I actually didn’t realize I am reading the second volume without having the first one, but with Julio, order doesn’t really matter.

If you’d like to know a little bit more about him and my utter devotion to one of Latin America’s greatest, you can read an essay I wrote for his birthday last year here!

“I can’t imagine how desperate a person has to be to approach a stranger to say that— I’m a writer too.”

— Catherine Lacey from Biography of X

“Joan of Arc, without tomb and without portrait, you who knew that the grave of heroes is the heart of the living.”

— found in Pinterest (if you know the source, do let me know!)

“I need to kill someone inside me.”

— Clarice Lispector from The Departure

Incantation (2022)

I have been in a horror streak lately, perhaps because my boyfriend insists and I know I can kick him at night in case I see a shadow on the corner of the room’s roof. Yet, Kevin Ko’s film didn’t induce as much horror as I would’ve wanted. A woman who broke an ancient taboo and faced the curse’s consequences must now save her child from living the same horrors she experienced. Filmed like a self-tape, Incantation had every possibility to scare the crap out of you, but I felt very disconnected from the story and, though there are some good jump scares, I didn’t have any nightmares which is my faithful horror rating system. Still, I find it interesting how my reflection on guilt for the week connects so well with the film’s theme, as the protagonist struggles with the responsibility not only of her actions, but of her daughter’s recent encounter with the same curse.

Hereditary (2018)

You know it and you either hate it or love it. Ari Aster’s breakthrough is, in my opinion, wrongly catalogued yet deserving of the hype. Not so much horror but something between psychological thriller and drama more than anything, yet I did enjoy it quite a lot. Toni Collette deserves every award from the “I am your mother” monologue, and the miniatures? Entrancingly beautiful. I did, however, felt the ending drove me too far away from the emotional connection I was building with Annie and Peter, with their grief and guilt (see? It’s everywhere).

God’s Crooked Lines (2022)

I have a lot to say about this one, so perhaps I will just leave it at WATCH IT NOW!

Alice Gould is a private investigator in 70s Spain, where she infiltrates a psychiatric hospital pretending to be mentally ill in order to solve a murder that happened on the premises. The book, Los renglones torcidos de Dios by Torcuato Luca de Tena, has been on my reading list for some time but I couldn’t resist watching the Netflix film. It will mess with your head. I believe I will do a proper review of this movie for the upcoming week’s newsletter, due to the connecting threads with what I plan to write about next.

Thank you for reading!

You have no idea what it means to me that you take the time to read These Crumpled Thoughts of mine.

If you’d like to discuss about anything in this newsletter, be that feelings of guilt, thoughts on this week’s movies, or share whatever is on your mind, click the button below! I would love to read what you have to say!