Troubled

We’re at the Mill on the Exe, the sun is shining warmly on our faces. We’re in a beer garden right on the river, close to the weir. The South West! W exclaims. He feels fortunate to live here. the South West is the graveyard of ambition, a colleague warned him upon his arrival from the East. But W. is not ambitious, despite his recent elevation. He reads for three hours a day, he says, and he’s content with that. In reality, he knows it’s not enough. Three hours! Rising at dawn each day!

W. remembers my years of getting up at dawn to read. What happened to you?, says W. Why don’t you do any work? I tell him I’m too busy to work, and too busy for anything. You have to be good to yourself, I tell W., especially if you’re troubled. Are you troubled, then?, says W., laughing. Oh yes, I’m definitely troubled. What are you troubled about?, asks W., still laughing. Everything troubles me. Besides, you don’t have to be troubled by anything in particular. Being troubled finds its objects, I tell W., which it seeks only to make sense of itself, even though, ultimately, there’s no making sense of itself.

W. says he’s troubled too – who isn’t? – , but that we’re not really troubled. I’m more troubled than him, though, I tell W. He says he’s always thought of me as joyful. Drunk in the sun, we offer encomiums to one another. I never make him feel anything other than joyful, says W. I tell him he is able to momentarily make me forget my troubles and that this is his great gift.