journal — ten
On writing to put things in order
Hello, reader.
This letter takes roughly five hours to write & edit & record each week. I’m saving any spare pennies & pounds I earn from it to buy books, study literature, and enter short story competitions. If you like what I do, please support me: subscribe (for free / a few quid), forward this letter to a friend who might like it, comment at the end, buy me a coffee, a book, or PayPal me as a one-off. We could also work together.
Thank you — Daniel.
Hello,
Here are ten things I’d like to remember from this week.
one
I’ve been in Sousse, Tunisia for a week.
Mostly, nothing happened, as hoped: I finished The Trees by Percival Everett (dark comedy, blistering history, surreal vengeance), struggled through two-thirds of How to be a Stoic by Epictetus & Seneca (the final third is Marcus Aurelius — it’s all too heavy a read for already-heavy weather), tested the opening five pages of my airport purchase with Bewilderment by Richard Powers (already excellent), and dozed / slept through the first few episodes of a new Rick & Morty season. I also ate lots of stale food, drank lots of watery cocktails, swam, burned, won & lost board / water polo games, and petted lots of cats who treated the resort as a strut-for-food site.
Three endings surfaced during my stay. One was small, one was a repeat, and the third was the final stretch of an already-stretched ending. All proved sore to swallow.
The process of writing this letter put it all in an order — not the ‘correct’ order as such, but one which made sense. It fit, like some complicated plot that was smashed to pieces, then came together.
two
The cat in the photo above, who I didn’t name (she wasn’t mine to name), would weakly chirp as she limped towards my deckchair: 6am each morning. (That’s from poor sleep due to the heat, rather than being a Brit in dire need of a deckchair.) These little vocal blasts, usually saved by cats for humans, suggested an echo memory of past owners — most of Tunisia’s strays were once pets, something I learned while searching for how much it would cost to transfer one back to the UK (£2k).
She’d nuzzle my legs for a while, we’d disappear for breakfast, then return with a small supply of meat, slithers of cheese, and cups of fresh water (rather than the salty stuff from the pool nearby she’d sip at) throughout the day. Another older gent would also pour small mounds of treats on the floor for her. She was well-fed, at least while we were there.
On the penultimate day, I felt inspired to write something small about her, which I’ll try to work into something shareable over the coming few weeks.
On our final morning, breakfast was rushed in favour of running a final meal to her before darting to our coach. I cried a bit. It felt unfair, that she should be so lonely. But, perhaps her life is good, from her perspective.
An end, a brief connection.
three
My sister called to tell me that my kind, cheeky, Isle of Wight nan had finally been moved into palliative care, after years of living with Alzheimer’s.
I still sit with my decision to hold onto the memories I have, rather than overwhelm myself by seeing her. It’s selfish, for better or worse. I asked for the note at the bottom of this letter to be added to a small, golden tree in the corner of her room.
An end to a once strong, now flickering connection. It led to a dream.
four
I have one, maybe two weeks to live. I’m telling people around me that I’m scared, they don’t seem nearly as bothered, and I start to panic — so many things to do, impossible, the fear hits, that specific moment of dying approaches, I’ll be the only, lonely one to experience it. I stagger outside. I was in the kitchen of a bulky brick home, surrounded by trees & countryside. Now I’m stood in the sun on a small road next to the house, lined by short stone walls. A man, partly dressed in yellow (I forget which part) approaches and says I should join his furry-shoe club — something new to try, to distract myself with. I then spot a group of people at the end of the road, the people I’d been telling about my impending death moments earlier — I think my Nan is there. My phone starts buzzing with notifications — the people in that group are putting time in for us to spend doing things together. We can’t waste the time I have left, I think. There’s so little left.
My breathing becomes very shallow, fast. I wake up in panic. I cry but it takes me a few minutes to realise what’s happening or why I‘m feeling overwhelmed.
five
In 2012, Butera was diagnosed with Stage IV uterine cancer. She was told that she had six months to live. Devastated, she decided one evening to write her own obituary. Dillie [the domesticated doe], who rarely came into her office, nosed the door open and laid her head on Butera’s lap as she was writing. “I looked at her and thought, Here is a creature who shouldn’t have even lived, and if she had died no one would have even known she had existed,” Butera said. “I realized that I wasn’t afraid of dying. I was afraid that I would die and it wouldn’t matter.” She decided to write a book about Dillie. (“I wasn’t sure I could do it in six months,” Butera said. “I can hardly clean a closet in six months.”) But she completed the book (and then another), along with many rounds of chemotherapy. Her cancer is now in remission.
From this New Yorker article.
six
From Epictetus’ contributions to How to be a Stoic.
seven
I’m determined to finish an interview with David Foster Wallace I started recently — the point that fits here is that he mentions the root of addict to be the Latin addicere, or: to worship.
Do we worship, obsess over, depend on the wrong things when we struggle? Should we strive to see ourselves commit ourselves to something important, that we care about, rather than squander it all?
eight
People should know, understand that not all Thursdays are the same.
From The Trees by Percival Everett.
nine
What caught me in that dream, enough to note & share it, was the feeling that it was a real reaction. I had no moment to consider how people, how I, would generally react to a thing: it was a real reaction to the news of my coming death, my redemption on waking, and my sadness for my nan.
ten
Reflect on what every project entails in both its initial and subsequent stages before taking it up. Otherwise you will likely tackle it enthusiastically at first … but when things get difficult you’ll wind up quitting the project in disgrace. … You have to submit … hand yourself over … If you don’t pause to think, though, you’ll end up doing what children do, playing at wrestler one minute, then gladiator, then actor, then musician … nothing with all your heart.
From the twenty-ninth chapter of Epictetus’ contributions to How to be a Stoic.
As well as updating the tasks on my to do page, I took inspiration from this New Yorker article where the author, with select artists, listened to ‘their entire studio discographies — I take one album per week and play it once every day, straight through. This method requires both an obsessive streak and a certain degree of patience’.
I’ll keep working on the list this week. It’s been a long day, so not as much time spent here, but it’s nearly three months of Sundays where I’ve published. Nothing fancy or spectacular, but it’s been done.
Thank you for reading.
Please support my writing: subscribe (for free / a few quid), forward this letter to a friend who might like it, comment at the end, buy me a coffee, a book, or PayPal me as a one-off. We could also work together.
Have a lovely day — Daniel.
