#30

I am generally an optimistic person and can find something to be grateful for in most (non-extreme) experiences. It feels weird therefore to admit that this past week was bad. Not just some of it, but a lot of it. There were of course glimmers of joy, and some good time spent with loved ones, but for the most part I felt completely out of control. I was easily provoked, and then angry with myself for letting it happen, and later consumed by the awareness that my priorities are entirely out of order. Jean Valentine’s poem “Sanctuary” describes this unease with such poignance, particularly these last few lines:

I’ve been slowly reading Miranda July’s novel All Fours (2024), and these lines stood out:

I guess any calling, no matter what it is, is a kind of unresolvable ache,” I said, giving in to knowing more than him. “It’s a problem that you can’t fix, but there is some relief in knowing you will commit your whole life to trying. Every second that you have is somehow for it.” You could also apparently lose your calling and wind up wandering around with a guy who worked at Hertz.

I met a friend this evening who is a part of a student union organisation, and fiercely involved in the political sphere of the institute. The calling to fight for justice is so potent in her, I was struck with awe. I’m thinking of Amrita Pritam today (it is her birthday) and how she lived and breathed writing, and of James Baldwin and a thousand others who inspire me. I miss that intensity and confidence – for a while I think I had it. The only thing to do now is to brace myself and work in spite of the fear and anxiety. The reason for declaring it thus in this newsletter is the hope that accountability and action will follow.

Someone recently remarked in class that anxious people can often be selfish. It made sense. In moments of great restlessness, other people and their circumstances and their own sensibilities tend to fade into the backdrop, in one’s attempt to hold things together. An exercise I like to do to ground myself a little bit is colour-spotting. It’s super simple – pick a colour, go on a walk, and point out everything you see in that colour. It really makes you see familiar routes and sights anew. Another exercise I like to do is paying attention to people’s outfits. I like thinking about how everything in our wardrobes was at some point individually chosen and purchased (or gifted by loved ones) and how much it reflects about our personal styles and tendencies (and general trends of course.) I walk through something called an “infinity corridor” almost daily, and the latter exercise has been wonderfully rewarding. It also reminds me of the artist Wendy MacNaughton, whose work and teaching I followed intensely during the Covid-19 lockdown years, who says, “Drawing is looking, and looking is loving.”

Finally, I share with you Klimt’s painting On Lake Attersee. Much has been said about its innovative framing, with the horizon and surrounding landscape pushed at the top, leaving within the painting only a “frame full of lake water.” The first time I saw this painting, I came across a saturated version of it and I was immediately enchanted. The turquoise spots blended into the water more readily, and the blue on top was an unreal ultramarine. Looking at the original was slightly disappointing then – the colours are more muted, and the spots stood out and scared me a little. The blurry top half was far more comfortable to look at than the lower half, with so much going on and the dabs of turquoise drawing closer and closer. But the more I look at it, the more I can love it. The horizon is deeply inviting, but it really is the slanting turquoise that gives the painting life and movement.

Gustav Klimt, On Lake Attersee (1900)