Well, well, well. Welcome. We find ourselves at a crossroads. Frankly, I’ve decided to redirect the scheme of my musings, life, and inner world to the thing that you are, in many ways, reading right this second. WordPress.
Before I get into that, I’d like to take this opportunity to reflect on and briefly chronicle the arc of Inthescheme as it has existed and as it might exist here.
At its inception, “inthescheme” was a simple enough idea. A mere 17-year-old simpleton, rapt with all those promises of being freshly fully sentient with a driver’s license, I decided to create a second Instagram account.
It is perhaps relevant to note that this period of my life (circa 2020-2022) was very much characterized by a kind of incessant poetic wonder. I vividly recall feeling completely overcome by the sight of the deep blue sky after sunset and before dark. I was downright dramatic, but it was okay—I thought— because I knew I was insufferable. In fact, I was proud. For this, I blame the pandemic and some specific seminal albums that I will not name now.
This persuasion is easily discernable in the shallow trenches of the Instagram account: “Inthescheme” was an all too timely outlet for melodrama and it indubitably compounded my original condition. (Today, I’m not so sure one’s teenaged musings ought to be institutionalized like this, but what is done is done.)
As I embarked on senior year of high school, “Inthescheme” quickly became a shimmering container for routine shenanigans and zeal. For this, I am most grateful, and I am unconflicted. The archives are nothing if not an absurd catalog of the daily tragedies and fanfare of life on the boundary of childhood and independence.
Time passes. Listen. Time passes. An owl flies home to a chapel in an oak. And the dawn inches up.
Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood.
Alas, almost three years later and I still love pontificating. I don’t know what to tell you. That trait might be locked in for the whole shebang. I can write with confidence, however, that my senses have hardened to poetries of the quotidian. Thank fucken god. It was exhausting. Exhibits A, B, and C:
January 23, 2022: Indefinitely drooling over backlit branches.
November 14, 2021: Imagine if some entity obsessed over our demise in a manner that resembled our behavior towards November leaves…
September 9, 2021: When I was younger, I would gaze out the car window, my view aided by a pink booster seat. I fantasized about a camera that captured exactly what we saw. I even attempted to draw this perspective once, unfazed by the blank page on my lap. / I immediately resigned. Really, the endeavor was ill-fated— the rattling nature of a car and, the real kicker, my childish artistic skill, or rather a lack of it. / I am reminded of this daydream, and then patches of past visions, at times like these. A whirlpool. The moon. Over and over.
Folks, theoretical knowledge of the kinds of sentences I was writing at this time did not prepare me to read this archival material. Please, imagine me today, agog; I am most struck by the fact that I know that it was all so damn authentic.
In her Netflix special Get on Your Knees, Jacqueline Novak succinctly explicates the dire straits of reverie: “I grew tired of being in a constant state of enchantment…Every night seeing the moon as if for the first goddamn time. I just wanted to grow accustomed to the moon, you know? I wanted to take moonlight for granted, like other girls.”
In many ways, it’s an ode to change. To the covenant that one does not remain 17 or 18. To retrospective wisdom: the facts that you’ll be glad to have changed in the way you dreaded you would and that you know that your teenaged self would be horrified at her future satisfaction.
Anyhow, once I started deprogramming (aging) (taking the moonlight for granted, like the other girls), what once seemed like a tool designed to be my soapbox slowly began to look like a box into which I must warp and contort to fit. A temporary, fine-enough Tupperware container for photos. The whole operation no longer felt (or feels) so instinctual.
The notion that Cinderella was in danger of outgrowing her slipper in conjunction with an ever-expanding network of grievances with the particular social network leads one, naturally, to WordPress. See the following reasons:
- I do not wish for the sentiments in whatever form they might manifest to (a) conform to such a platform (e.g., square photographs) or (b) require participation in or exist within that attention economy.
- I am not ready to forsake the sentiments altogether. If you’ve read thus far, you’ll have noticed that taking the moonlight for granted has not compromised my pen’s loyalty to dramatic language and framing. Indeed, my rather quaint and adorable hankering for documentation and expounding—the essence of Inthescheme—persists.
So here we are. At a crossroads.
Of course, a crossroads is not in and of itself a moment of import; ‘tis only the continuation down a certain path that induces meaning. And fellas, if there’s one thing about me, I’m all about inducing meaning.
If it goes well in the scheme of WordPress, I’ll see you a step or two further down this certain path. xx. LL.
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