As his doubts increased, Tengo began deliberately to put some distance between himself and the world of mathematics, and instead the forest of story began to exert a stronger pull on his heart. Of course, reading novels was just another form of escape. As soon as he closed their pages he had to come back to the real world. But at some point Tengo noticed that returning to reality from the world of a novel was not as devastating a blow as returning from the world of mathematics. Why should that have been? After much deep thought, he reached a conclusion. No matter how clear the relationship of things might become in the forest of story, there was never a clear-cut solution. That was how it differed from math. The role of the story was, in the broadest terms, to transpose a single problem into another form. Depending on the nature and direction of the problem, a solution could be suggested in the narrative. Tengo would return to the real world with that suggestion in hand. It was like a piece of paper bearing the indecipherable text of a magic spell. At times it lacked a coherence and served no immediate practical purpose. But it would contain a possibility. Someday he might be able to decipher the spell. That possibility would gently warm his heart from within.

from 1Q84, Murakami Haruki

THE BODY OF THIS LIFE

I lie along the body of this life,
all night stilling my breath to listen to breath,
feeling its weight heavy against my weight.
Awake, in early light, I look at it
and set my eyes to search its hollows out,
its curves and surfaces, sojourning there
as walkers quarter whose aimless walks are a kind
of office in which they read the proper of the day,
slowing at pools of light under the trees,
impelled to certain roads, bemused at flowers,
as little knowing what a place should mean
or what they meant to find as I with you,
still sleeping, mute to me, or, waking now,
awake to some desire not my desire
and helpless to answer mine which puzzles itself
pondering what day that it were proper to
were here, that it should see in sets of bone,
in skin, in streaks of hair, some different sight
as if it were there and it not there,
nor know, at all, what sight it is it sees.

My mind was in one of its Chicago states. How should I describe this phenomenon? In a Chicago state I infinitely lack something, my heart swells, I feel a tearing eagerness. The sentient part of the soul wants to express itself, there are some of the symptoms of an overdose of caffeine. At the same time I have a sense of being the instrument of external powers. They are using me either as an example of human error or as the mere shadow of desirable things to come.

-Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift

“…I found myself thinking about my bedroom: how significant it was during my childhood, and how it reflected what I had and who I was. It occurred to me that a way to address some of the complex situations and social issues affecting children would be to look at the bedrooms of children in all kinds of different circumstances.”

“To begin with, I called the project ‘Bedrooms,’ but I soon realized that my own experience of having a ‘bedroom’ simply doesn’t apply to so many kids. Millions of families around the world sleep together in one room, and millions of children sleep in a space of convenience, rather than a place they can in any sense call their room. I came to appreciate just how privileged I am to have had a personal kingdom to sleep in and grow.”

– James Mollison, Where Children Sleep