October 2023 pt2

I came across Phil Elverums (Microphones / Mount Eerie) website in which he has a similar set up, he calls it a newsletter and I found even the most mundane posts to be calming and interesting. Every morning I would wake up and read a new one, he would also share a voice note of a new song or write a poem, most of the time unrelated to whatever ideas came to him on the day that he was writing. His music first reached me through his album ‘The Glow pt2’, like many fans of his this was my first introduction his music. I was on a plane, I was feeling that familiar sensation of my insides being squeezed then scattered like a burst grape and my core feeling so small and far away, over there on the horizon, I could hardly find it. I listened to this album with such concentrated focus, my sanity felt like it depended on it, I didn’t know what I was about to listen to but I knew I had to give my mind a break from the onslaught of thoughts I’d been having the days prior. So I listened and let myself be taken, taken by the plane, this big bird we (they) made, putting a dangerous amount of trust into a random album that I chose to listen to because of the cover. I had recently bought some noise cancelling headphones, thank god, and there I was; immersed. I didn’t formulate any opinion initially, I meditated on it so much that the voice of judgement didn’t poke its grubby little head in like it normally does when I consume new media. Well, I landed with my grandma in Spain. I watched her as she walked down the stairs, mostly able but leaning to the side holding her carry on luggage with a little less confidence than she would have ten years ago. I often look at my grandmothers face and I see her life there, I see enormous strength in her despite her personality perhaps not always reflecting the typical idea that many hold of strength or resilience. She is tired and as she grows older her pretence fades and she acts how she feels, which is tired, most of the time but there is something still behind her eyes, still as in quiet. Like a large black pond, uninterrupted by movement, silent. Maybe it’s her religion.

This reminds me of thoughts on tiredness, on fatigue, sleepiness, low energy whatever you want to call it. Maybe in the same way that old people are tired and can’t be bothered to put on a show, I see that lack of energy occasionally clean people of pretences. The clearest example of this that I’ve experienced is through walking each day, I guess its a healthier exhaustion than the mental exhaustion of relentless thoughts, the sound of cars, of people talking, shouting, laughing, the hum of the city. I have seen people become themselves again after a week of walking, the physical toll it takes leaves no more room for the narratives we tell ourselves, it sheds us and here in the world we land, now. These two or three week long walks have been the happiest I've felt in this world.

To go back to my grandmother, I have spent (in the last two days) some time with her, my great great aunty who is 97 now and a friend of mine who is 87. I’m no angel and despite my nan living a five minute drive from me in southeast London, I don’t visit her often. I know I will come to regret this, some invisible force of chaos launches my young body into as many different situations as it can(t) handle. I’m either touring or I’m in a state of atrophy in my bedroom (for at least a week after touring) which I then reluctantly climb out of and decide to (yet again) get my shit together and force myself into a routine of some kind. This is normally comprised of taking vitamins in the morning, hormone balancing tea and if I’m feeling particularly strong I’ll start swimming a few times a week. I’m planning on starting to swim again tomorrow after a two month hiatus. The long chasms of time in-between healthy regularity always remind me of a larger extended version of what ones mind goes through when meditating, going and coming back, distracted and focused, floating away and coming home. A little like the sensation of ‘return’ that I get from putting my body through the physical exertion of hiking. Anyway, spending time with some old folks is a lovely, important thing to do, for them and for us. There is some clarity and wisdom in their eyes, even if they don’t know it. They have weathered storms I couldn't imagine and experienced enormous love for people who’s names I’ll never know. I find myself thinking on all of the faces and hearts that (in the words of Mr Rogers) loved them into being, not so much the main characters in their lives (husband, wife, children etc) but their friends when they were teenagers or a neighbour or a pet or a person they smiled at on the street, these nameless faces which they may have also forgotten, lost, kind of.

Following this intense encounter with ‘The Glow pt2’, I have since gone on to do what I usually do when I find a musician that I love; exclusively listen only to them and to everything they have ever made (art and writing too) for 4-5 months. I often, perhaps unhealthily, rest a large portion of my peace of mind in their work and circle back to it whenever I feel down. Writing this now makes me think I would be an easy pick for a cult… To spin it positively, and I believe more accurately, the music I loves saves me and has saved me over and over again, it brings meaning, vibrancy and illuminates what at times feels like a dark and lonely path ahead. This is the truth of it, so I delve and I enjoy this wholeheartedly.

Wisdom comes in many forms, not always the Gandalf-like figure of an elder that we may hope for but most of the time in the form of a normal person who managed to stick around for a while. I’ll leave you with words from my friend as I left his house he said;

‘I thought to myself the other day, I don’t know the colour of my own boys eyes, aint that funny’

Reading- Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Listening- Mount Eerie- Song Islands Vol.2

Aimee Mann- Save me

Joanna Sternberg- I’ve got me

Dear Nora- Mountain Rock

Podcast- Duncan Trussell family hour

Visual- Cecil Collins

Watching- Science of Sleep

Eating- fruit and fibre, two coffees, greek salad, hummus, boiled egg, tomato soup, Leibniz biscuit, carbonara, slice of banana bread my housemate made.

Things I don’t like -

David Beckhams recent doc