Excerpts from “The Diary of Luz Corazzini”

Monday:

This morning, while driving around inside my mind observing the scenery, I reflected on the ever changing landscape within me.  It seems as if every day, I’m someplace else.

Today my shapeshifting terrain has transformed me into a huge ocean that’s vast and empty just waiting to be explored.  So I put a boat in my brain  hoping to sail far away.

Surrounded by depth, I was afraid to dive into infinity.  James Joyce worried about the effects of having loved and lost because it leaves one listless and without the energy necessary to throw the self into the ocean of another’s soul. Didn’t Joyce know that love is learning to swim again?

Wednesday:

This morning I woke up and found myself inside a forest.  The density disoriented me and made me feel claustrophobic.  So I looked up towards the sky.  Crown shyness kept the tree tops from touching…a sensation I well know.

Umberto Eco was walking next to me explaining how the reader is a traveler exploring the forest of literature. He said that storytelling helps us escape our daily anxieties.  And to give our life a narrative is to give it meaning. Ahh, how lovely to master the art of fiction.

Like a tree’s branches, my dendrites  seek to grow outward and not inward. But I can only branch out if I’m well rooted.

Friday:

Today I’m surrounded by the void. In this desert, survival seems so difficult sometimes. And the stress distorts my perception. To encourage me to go on, my mind created a mirage. That’s how I met Fata Morgana.

Fata Morgana is the name given to a special kind of mirage. The name comes from the Arthurian sorceress Morgan le Fay who’d studied magic under Merlin.  Morgan had a crush on Lancelot who had a crush on Queen Guinevere who was married to King Arthur who died once Morgan took his sword away.

Like a mirage, sometimes love is an illusion.

Sunday:

Last night I had a dream—I was climbing a mountain which, according to my dream interpretation book, means that I probably am trying to overcome some obstacles.  Unfortunately, I woke up before arriving at the top which means I haven’t achieved my goal.

I’ve been climbing and climbing for so long.  And while climbing, I’ve often asked myself; once on top, where do you go, what do you do? On top you can try  to touch the sky, look down on others, or enjoy a new point of view.

Is the Hermetic concept of  “As Above, So Below” really so? That the microcosm and the macrocosm behave alike?  That what happens on one level of reality happens on all other levels as well?

So I tried looking up then tried looking down. But it just wasn’t the same.I can assure you that being on top is not the same as being below.

Related: James Joyce’s EXILES + Umberto Eco’s Six Walks in the Fictional Woods + dendrites + Fata Morgana + As Above, So Below + Hermes Trismegistus