Waking up or going to sleep?
any minute now
About time I sent you this letter.
Hello darling, how have you been?
I’d like to tell myself that I’ve been on a mental hibernation these past few months and that I am now ready to wake up. Guided in spirit by the painted turtles.
Animals, birds and trees have a better sense of when to slow down or when to burrow deep, don’t they? Some of them have seasonal clocks and some are triggered by external factors. But unfortunately for us humans, there is no pause button. And I wish we did. I wish we could take a few months off every year just idling. Moving slowly, reducing our body temperatures, consuming, taking long naps and gazing into nothing in particular when we wake up. It might hugely help with our mental and physical well being.
Few years ago when I had the opportunity to meet and interview Tamil writer S Ramakrishnan, he spoke to me about how he likes to plan his work according to the seasons. He told me how he never wrote during the day in summers and generally preferred to work in the evenings instead. On rainy days, he loved the early mornings to get some writing done.
This got me thinking about how, as children, we were trained to take a break during the summer. Travel, play, have no routines… And suddenly when we became adults, seasons ceased to exist. We work even on rainy days. Holidays and the annual 2-weeks out-of-office are all that we get. Thankfully, a change in the capitalistic work culture is now coming (spearheaded by the gen z’s, I hear).
But if you want to live like an artist, where hibernation and torpors aren’t frowned upon, how do you navigate the conundrum of financial stability? I’ve been trying to do just that, put an end to my financial woes, while everything else has gone for a toss. I don’t think you can ever have things in order before embarking on things you ought to be doing (?!)
A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.
E. B. White (to Paris Review)
OUCH!
I haven’t done anything important these past few months and like these poets, I too await something significant to happen. Any minute now.
Transformation I haven’t written a single poem in months. I’ve lived humbly, reading the paper, pondering the riddle of power and the reasons for obedience. I’ve watched sunsets (crimson, anxious), I’ve heard the birds grow quiet and night’s muteness. I’ve seen sunflowers dangling their heads at dusk, as if a careless hangman had gone strolling through the gardens. September’s sweet dust gathered on the windowsill and lizards hid in the bends of walls. I’ve taken long walks, craving one thing only: lightning, transformation, you. by Adam Zagajewski translated by Clare Cavanagh
Drinking while driving
It's August and I have not
Read a book in six months
except something called The Retreat from Moscow
by Caulaincourt
Nevertheless, I am happy
Riding in a car with my brother
and drinking from a pint of Old Crow.
We do not have any place in mind to go,
we are just driving.
If I closed my eyes for a minute
I would be lost, yet
I could gladly lie down and sleep forever
beside this road
My brother nudges me.
Any minute now, something will happen.
by Raymond CarverI love how both of them start with things they’ve not done -
“I haven’t written a single poem in months”
“I have not read a book in six months”
And end in hope of something big about to happen. My state of mind exactly.
I’ll keep this letter short for want of something significant to write about. I hope you think a little more about giving your mind and body the rest or sleep it needs.
I’ll write sooner :)
Promise.