Before I write, every time I write here, I feel like a beginner. How to begin? When will it begin, that writing that will unfold like necessity? You are a beginner, I tell myself, and you will have to learn again how to begin.
When I feel this way, I look out at the yard. Ah, said W., who visited last weekend, the blogging table, and that’s your yard. W. looked through the window. It is disgusting, he agreed. And what’s wrong with your plants? They’re all ill, I said. They look disgusting, said W.
The yard: don’t you see it’s like a reduction?, I said to W. It’s disgusting, he said. R.M., who was also there, disagreed. She said on the phone yesterday she was sorry to miss me repotting plants and planting new ones. I’d been to B & Q, I told her, for my new kitchen and my new bathroom.
A new kitchen! A new bathroom! It’s the damp, I told her. It’s destroyed everything. R.M. likes to watch me repot plants in the sun, just as she likes to watch me busying myself around my flat. And R.M. likes the yard, though she urges me to call it a garden. There’s no soil, tell her. So it’s a yard.
W. agrees that Bela Tarr would use a 20 minute tracking shot on the yard. It’s really disgusting. He sees it. One afternoon, W. and R.M. and I went out to the coast, and walked in the sun from Whitley Bay to North Shields. We admired the derelict buildings. I was still thinking of Sebald. He’d take pictures, I said, but R.M didn’t want to get her camera out. Can you see yourself living here?, I said to R.M. She laughed.
Whitley Bay! W. and I were thirsty. Eventually, we came to the Park Hotel. An old man in a tuxedo served us. I ordered food, and we went out to sit in the sun with a beer. How splendid the meal the man brought out on a tray! What quantities of chips! And a pot of mayonnaise! I was blissfully happy. A Bassett hound sound sat near us, with melancholy eyes. We were in high spirits. Beer! Chips! Mayonnaise! And the sea, all around us. How marvellous!
What happened after that? The Metro home. Did we go out for dinner? Last weekend passed in a haze. W., as in Oxford, was tender. He and R.M. ganged up on me in El Coto. W. ordered a bottle of Cava and then we drank spirits. I got W. the wonderfully prepared black pudding. I am thinking lovingly of it now. What will become of us all?, I said to W. as we walked home.
The next morning, W. rose early to iron his shirt. He put on his suit. Time for his flight. R.M. and I walked him to the Metro, and then we crossed the Tyne Bridge and through the Sage and down to the Baltic. Snacks in the sun. We crossed the river and then went to the Ouseburn Valley for late lunch. Veggie burgers and beer! And then up to the Cumberland for more beer! And then R.M., too, had to go home.
Life! At some time over the weekend, I played the last tracks from Musings of Creekdipper, just as W. had once played me Cat Power and demanded I be quiet. We listened to Victoria Williams. How fragile it all is!, I thought. Our puny bodies! What will become of us? How long do we have?
Lars Iyer's Blog 