On Thursday night I had significantly more trouble falling asleep than usual. By this I mean that I thrashed and writhed like a cursed lizard for about two hours, because no matter which pieces of my body or brain were touching the sheets nothing was comfortable, acceptable, bearable. I concluded that I had fleas, I concluded that perhaps I should just stop moving and wait because could there have been a roomful of premonitions waiting behind the darkness, I concluded that I shouldn’t have had half a cup of coffee in the afternoon, I concluded that I must give up, I concluded everything under the sun, and I concluded that my sleepless state was the responsibility of the full, gleaming moon.
We are in Ireland, and we are going to live here, perhaps for as long as we both want to breathe in and out—it is difficult to speak about futures now though, because this year everything means something else and time flies past unseen like all those birds that have since left for Africa. The country has a mandatory two-week quarantine, and so for the last fourteen days I have been able to see the sea every day but not touch it, not swim in its cold arms. This has been difficult, because I am always in love with the sea and as such I always want to be in the sea rather than out of it.
I would live the months of June through to September again, if I could, but tomorrow I will walk into the sea and then be happy for at least three days afterwards.
WORK-RELATED NEWS:
The quarantine has provided a peculiar variety of reflection, and an inability to leave the confines of the house and garden here provided a good shape in which to put some work. I have been struck by a feeling of great scattering though, which is ironic considering how in-one-place I have been.
Had a phone call about beauty soon after arriving to this island, about a book that isn’t a book yet but might be one day.
Prepared for and recorded an episode of The One You Feed with Eric Zimmer, which is a podcast about how, broadly, we can live better and more generously (in a message about this to a friend earlier I wrote ‘I hope I don’t sound like a turnip’ which sums up a lot of things).
Finished writing an essay for an environmental magazine that will be in their spring issue, but it still needs edits and illustrations and a layout and possibly a small mountain of time spent on hand-lettering (this essay needed a long time).
Worked on various explorations of the ideas discussed in 1. which will need to be summarised and put together into pleasing shapes for further conversations about beauty.
Lost almost two days to a migraine—frustration! cursing! practising the art of being completely immobile in a dark room!
Prepared printer files for the Tokyo exhibition, and consequently deciding and approving and going back and forth about various related matters because the exhibition opens on the 16th. Speaking of, I still need to send them my definition of translation and must do so immediately before I forget the sentence I formulated during the sleeplessness of Thursday night.
An assortment of small, uninteresting tasks like admiring passing clouds and noting down important-interesting things that people have said over the phone to me and remembering which books contained pressed flowers.
THIS WEEK I FELL IN LOVE WITH:
Images by Frankfurt-based Evelyn Dragan that speak of normality, and perhaps of what we thought we knew, and of Scotland.
‘… that’d be the first step towards me vanishing altogether, she said. Because as soon as you all hear me say anything about myself, I’ll stop meaning me. I’ll start meaning you.’
— Ali Smith, Spring (wherThe end.
