April Dour
End of the Month Round Up
I spent the day of the pink moon moving things from room to room. From one space to another. The large pile of laundry that had accumulated in the corner moved into the washing machine. The dishes in and out of the sink. Books from one shelf to another. In between times of movement I read. For the last few days of March I was finally feeling a bit more stable, concrete. I went to the mountains, wandered, sat alone with nothing but the birds and trees. I walked towards the bell tower as it rang, feeling the reverb grow stronger as I got closer, there was a peace in my heart that must have been what converts feel, correlation and causation being confused.
Music makes it way through the house, doors open, the wind pushing the notes outside. I chop garlic often, the satisfying crush under the knife. My fingers are sticky with it. I forget about Easter until I see the shiny chocolate eggs I bought my parents in the egg basket, their numbers dwindling fast. They were expensive, knowing I should have gone for a cheaper brand, but they are delcious so I swallow the cost. Money is always on my mind, the lack of it, the lack of mobility. I should like to move, in a dream world into my own flat near to the shops but also hiking paths, to magically have enough money to do so and sustain myself and a dog.
I fear making a list of my desires, of wants and needs, because then I would actually make a plan to reach them, and instead I am more comfortable in this in between, where there is neither failure or success, no risk no reward. I am going to make another cup of coffee and finish my current book. I am going to try to consider my desires after lunch.
Later in the day, as if to avoid making the list, I skipped lunch. The wind began throwing the doors closed, so I shut them all. The music stopped, I sat in silence and finished the book I was reading, made another cup of coffee. Looked at the blank canvas leaning against the wall, considered beginning the sketch, then defferred to writing this instead. It had been a bright morning but now it is an overcast afternoon. I’m in a bad mood, perhaps because I skipped lunch. I’m to make dinner later and already know I don’t want to, I want someone to prepare meals for me. I want to feel loved without asking, but one must always ask. So I say nothing, I skip lunch, I do another load of laundry, put away more dishes.
Sometimes, I’m half tempted to throw my laptop across the room, let it shatter against the wall. Same with my vases, my books, everything I own, shattered against the wall, with only the broken pieces remaining. Perhaps it is because the things I own are the last few things I can destroy, it’s hard to implode a life with so little going on, so I am tempted to grab the axe out of the shed and hit my desk with it, a perfect smooth swing that cleaves it in two. Perhaps, I wonder, that I want to feel pain, the pain of burning all my books and records, things I love, to wallow in regret. Perhaps it is because that would be an easy thing to do, the easiest route to a strong emotion. Feeling anything positive is unpredictable, whilst pain is so simple and ready. And I wonder if that is because I am so comfortable with it.
I consider this at the same time I consider what to make for dinner, my mind bouncing between the two as I envision what’s in the pantry. Then I remember there’s bacon and I can make a carbonara, a little glean of softness for a day that has not been bad in its events but in mood. It’s an odd balance I’ve been experiencing this year, border-line suicidal with the pragmaticness of everyday life. I’m not worried because I know I have no desire to die, it comes from a profound frustration with circumstances. Like when you stand on the edge of a cliff and your mind goes “Jump!” You don’t actually want to jump, it’s the brain pointing out something obvious. It is not a desire for death but for renewl, shedding of assumptions and expectations. I’m also just immensely pissed off a lot of the time, with one thing or another, and I wish I could find a bit of calmness in all these feelings.
The second half of April was far more positive and easy going, despite all the anixety worming its way around my body. The flowers have been blooming, keeping my mind preoccupied with their ever changing petals, the way the poppies have filled a nearby field, thinking how the artist has always been obsessed with them.
I’m trying to get out of this rut, this frustration and stress that seems to have woven itself through my muscles and crystalised. I’m not sure if I have figured it out yet. Still shedding winter.
Thank you for reading,
Enya x
Audition by Katie Kitamura - “One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. An exhilarating, destabilising novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love. Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young – young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately.”
I had just heard someone’s not so enthusastic review of this book when it popped up on vinted for 1euro and I pounced on the opportunity because the reviewer was someone whose taste I question and after reading the book I was right to. I had not read any other Kitamura books before this one and now I want to read all her other novels because she is a fantastic writer. It was a difficult book to put down, endlessly curious about where it was going and enjoyed all the speculation. I finished it in two sittings and sent my copy with my mother to give to my sister to read. The kind of book that I will recommend at any opportunity.
Flesh by David Szalay - “Fifteen-year-old István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. New to the town and shy, he becomes isolated, with his neighbour – a married woman – as his only companion. When a clandestine relationship begins between them, his life spirals out of control. As the years pass, István moves from the army to the circles of London’s elite. His competing impulses for love, intimacy, status and wealth win him unimaginable riches, until they threaten to undo him completely.”
I sort of 50/50 on this book. I liked it in many ways, but it felt a little….undercooked? István is both the luckiest and unluckiest man, the highs and lows extreme, and without the language or knowledge of how he’s taken advantage of early in life, fails to fully connect with others, instead floats by, his decisions influenced by off-hand comments. I did see some people say this book filled them with anxiety or that they couldn’t get through it, which I didn’t get at all. I finished the book in two sittings, for the first time in years staying up late telling myself “just another chapter.” I wasn’t sure of the tonal change midway through and found the secondhalf less impressive than the first, a bit dull if I’m honest but then the ending made me want to lay outside in the grass staring at the sky, sad.
A Room Above A Shop by Anthony Shapland - “When two quiet men form a tentative connection neither knows where it might lead. M has inherited his family's ironmongery business and B is younger by eleven years and can see no future in the place where he has grown up, but when M offers him a job and lodgings, he accepts. As the two men work side by side in the shop, they also begin a life together in their one shared room above - the kind of life they never imagined possible and that risks everything if their public performance were to slip.”
I read this in a single afternoon and was left with something stuck in my throat at the end that I carried for the rest of the day, unsure if the little sob would make its way out.
The Weak Spot by Lucie Elven - “On a remote mountaintop somewhere in Europe, accessible only by an ancient funicular, a small pharmacy sits on a square. As if attending confession, townspeople carry their ailments and worries through its doors, in search of healing, reassurance, and a witness to their bodies and their lives. One day, a young woman arrives in the town to apprentice under its charismatic pharmacist, August Malone. She slowly begins to lose herself in her work, lulled by stories and secrets shared by customers and colleagues. But despite her best efforts to avoid thinking and feeling altogether, as her new boss rises to the position of mayor, she begins to realize that something sinister is going on around her.”
I reffered to this book as a “retail nightmare” playing on how one has to shape themselves for customers and living in a small town means one cannot break out of the mask. It’s very dreamlike too but not visiually, more like a fog, which comes into play during the story. Something darkly menacing but never clear, the uncertainty palpable.
At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop - “Alfa and Mademba are two of the many Senegalese soldiers fighting in the Great War. Together they climb dutifully out of their trenches to attack France's German enemies whenever the whistle blows, until Mademba is wounded, and dies in a shell hole with his belly torn open. Without his more-than-brother, Alfa is alone and lost amidst the savagery of the conflict. He devotes himself to the war, to violence and death, but soon begins to frighten even his own comrades in arms. How far will Alfa go to make amends to his dead friend?”
There is a rythm to this book that is so engaging and alluring, a repeitiveness that never tires, only gains momentum. Read on a quiet morning, feeling like I had just read a long poem.
The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth by Adrian Duncan - “During winter season in a secluded Alpine city, John Molloy, an Irish restorative sculptor, meets Bernadette, an enigmatic Italian sociologist. As John falls in love, a distressing moment from his youth rises into view, the disastrous fallout of which has reverberated unchecked through his life. Years later, a letter from home arrives, asking him to pray for the speedy death of an ailing friend. Over a day-long odyssey through the ancient streets and churches of Bologna, John is forced to confront his present, his past and the bedrock of his psyche.”
This was the April pick for my bookclub and I quite enjoyed it, though it’s not much of a week-to-week discussion type book, as it’s quite fragmented and pulls all the pieces together at the end. I love books about artists, how their practice influences the studio and life, how those things often overlap.
