Was it the last of the snow gathered behind fences in fields and in hollows in the ground that I saw from the train on my way back to the North? This has been a long cold snap, and no end in sight. I had promised a Spanish friend a fortnight ago that the worst of winter had passed – but it’s so cold!, she said in the pub tonight. But that’s March, R.M. had reminded me: in like a lion, out like a lamb. But I don’t remember a March that was this cold.
I’m very busy, with no time to write here. Piles of books to read, a lot to write; chapter 2 coming on well; chapter 3 to follow. The new book’s on … I won’t say yet. I hope to be back writing here in early April, and perhaps with new topics and fresh themes; until then, there’ll be little here. Unless there is another genre – a writing here whilst writing elsewhere. Guilty writing: what energy is expended here will not be repaid there, in the world. Why, then, is it necessary? Why is that other writing never enough?
On the train, on the way up, I thought again of the many memories I have put to rest here by writing of them, whether directly or obliquely. But they are not memories now, not any more, but rather spaces where memory once was; that I’ve forgotten is enough – that I’ve been given forgetting, that is enough: I do not know what it was I forgot, but I forget, and that was my desire in writing and it was what I was given by way of writing. But still I thought to myself, on the train, today, today, what is to happen today? And told myself when I had time I should find books on the apocalypse and write on that. Today – what happened today? Today – was it the last day? Write as if it’s the last day. As if every day were the last day.
When did the idea come to me to write what I pleased here, for a full year? I didn’t manage it; for six months, I think, there was writing, and after that? I had to cross, with writing into the other world, and remain there. No time for this – no time for the other writing, in which writing barely comes to itself. No time to mark the advent of writing in writing. What does it matter? But when I fail to discover that advent, it is also as though I miss an appointment with myself – or is it the other way around? Isn’t that there is appointment to be missed, so I can discover again the errancy of writing?
You will know my dream: a writing without topic, without substance – with neither theme of argument. Writing that issues from itself, only. Writing that is given from itself, with nothing to detain it. My secret: I am writing a book on music. The long promised book – on music, there in the other world. It comes together; the book assembles itself. Every morning, early, I write a little – then a break, and then, the next morning, I will have another idea, and so on. I told myself I would not write here. Only there, the other writing – only there, in the world.
John Fahey. Cold night. Home after a few days away. Meeting my friends in the pub. What’s to happen this week? Tomorrow – to taste the jamon P. has brought back from Spain. Then our paper on Wednesday afternoon – and then? And then? The last day: as though I were never able to make a plan that would carry me forward for more than a few hours. As though it were impossible to plan what I would be doing next week, or the week after that. What is to happen? Everything. When will it end? Today – it will finish today.
Yes, I am guilty – my paper is open in another window; I should work on that. Finish it. But then it’s as if everything had already finished. Posthumous life – why did I confuse this posthumous writing, once upon a time, with writing to a particular person? Why was it for her that I thought I was waiting, as if she could step towards me from the other side other side of the mirror? In truth, there was no one – no one to write for, no one to whom I could address letters. Who was it I was trying to reach? Myself – was it to bridge the distance, to join this world (is it a world?), with the other one, the real one (but is it real?)?
Today – but it is already too late, nearly midnight, and the day is nearly finished. Today – but can it begin, the other day, when we are joined, when mirror and world swim into one another?
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