March 22 + 

I waste much time gaping and wondering. During a walk or in a book or in the middle of an embrace, suddenly I awake to a stark amazement at everything. The bare fact of existence paralyses me⁠—holds my mind in mortmain. To be alive is so incredible that all I do is to lie still and merely breathe⁠—like an infant on its back in a cot. It is impossible to be interested in anything in particular while overhead the sun shines or underneath my feet grows a single blade of grass. “The things immediate to be done,” says Thoreau, “I could give them all up to hear this locust sing.” All my energies become immobilised, even my self-expression frustrated. I could not exactly master and describe how I feel during such moments. + 