Parmi la foule. Episode 21.

 I feel sorry for time most of the time. This book of Olivia Laing, ‘Funny Weather, Art in an Emergency’ is a good read, she crawles into the minds of artists who provides material with which to think: new registers, new spaces. At the moment I read her essay on agnes Martin. I took the inside of the hat out, now the hat fits and I made a new work of art: the inside out of the hat.

That is what I thought today, it doesn’t matter where you are, which day it is, who you are, what the weather is like, how quick time goes, how slow you are walking. How much money you have in your bank account, how old you are, how tired or energetic, how famous or completely unknown, or both simultaneously you are with you, not too nasty to others is what I thought today thank you. I really like reading about Agnes Martin, I almost feel comfortable. Beauty is unattached, it’s inspiration. I can’t wait to be old or somewhat older, when I might have found out how to let things go.

What I like best is to gather lots of clothes and fabrics, to wear them, to give them to others. They are like my first housing, to become who I am, constantly and different. On the other hand I do not want too much personal belongings.

When I am home next week I am going to buy all the books on Agnes Martin.

We are sleeping in a room in the French Ardennes, it’s actually a one room very tiny house with a bed, nightstand, buro, a fan, a flatscreen television, a microwave, a cooker, people size mirror, a refrigerator, a toilet, a bathroom with shower and a sink. The towels smell like chicken wings.

And like perfume mixed with cigarette smoke. It was a great experience. We drove home along the river Maas.

Parmi la foule. Episode 20.

 I took the wrong way this morning. Instead of going left, I thought I needed to take another curve in the road and then go left. But the road to the left never came. I thought the dog was stopping all the time because of the downpour but when I checked the map I found out that dogs know where to go most of the time, home actually.

I have some depressed moments, hours, every day. I wonder why, I have and do everything I want. I got this idea while driving the car today, after we saw a wolf crossing the road right in front of us. I am always fascinated by homeless people who have several layers of clothing on them. I would like that too. I can start with some smaller items and put each time somewhat larger clothes on top of them. I can make a selfie-film of it. I keep thinking about the person who lost her daughter, and the friend of this person, and if I can call these people friends. Not I think, because I sreally should have written an email to ask about their wellbeings. I want to do this the coming week. When I bought a checkered shirt on a secondhand market I got a hat against the rain for free. A beautiful army green hat, but a little bit too small for me. When I looked inside the hat I noticed that a former owner had made it smaller by sewing an extra piece of linen. Tonight I will take it out. I am going to need a lot of nice hats. 

Today we walked some extra three kilometres because a bridge was broken. And all the other bridges were private.

Parmi la foule. Episode 19.

 I actually think it is very nice for me to be an amateur in life, in art, in actually everything. When one is an amateur, one just do the ‘thing’ when one is in for it. Today we went for an hour drive through the mountains for a ‘vide-grenier’ in a very nice village, we found a blender for our daughter, two Levi’s and one vintage corduroy trousers, and a pair of Crocs for one euro. When I was rummaging through some trousers a lady told me they were men’s. I said that for me it didn’t matter because of my gender neutrality. She answered that people here are more nice then not nice. So that’s great. We went for half an hour to another mountain, a one way village, Leotoing, with a beautiful half-ruined castle. The vide-grenier was very small but nice, I even had a small conversation in French about the great atmosphere. They even had a jazz playlist on an amplifier. I bought a vintage shirt and a pair of Crocs, both for two euros. I am not sure if this all that interesting. At last we went for another medieval village of which the abbey had some abstract glass windows. The parking place was loaded, for the first time of all the times we noticed some American tourists in France. In Normandy there will probably be more. I bought a The North Face windstopper for our son from an Australian lady who was astonished by the mental wellness consultancy in the Dutch company of our daughter. I care less and less about the opinion of others. I try to behave as a decent person, be nice to other people. But when someone is miscalculating my opinions, my thoughts ( which is extremely impossible), I get a little tacky. Like our landlord, he thinks we shouldn’t have children, and they should not fly. And every morning around eight we were asleep, he says, but I was running and A. was showering. We should try to get away from the Netherlands, into nature, stay or become vegetarian. We are not trying hard enough to save the planet. I am not coming back here, he thinks he knows best too much.

Parmi la foule. Episode 18.

 I am thinking of writing about my life as an amateur again. There is so much inspiration. I am my greatest artwork. That’s what I have been thinking while hiking in the middle of France with 34 degrees Celcius. Maybe I should write an entire novel around a cassière. A very friendly one. A very precise cassière with a faint smile. And maybe some tattoos, although I thought I was not so fond of tattoos. But since my own daughter has two little one I am somewhat milder. I need to check my mosses tonight. There was a downpour on the way from Clermont Ferrant to. Brioude, Above the road appeared a text: vehicules arretes / code orange. The water was wheel deep, as if we drove through a news item. Our son flew back home in time. We miss him, and the birds too.

This morning I saw a very old man throwing things on a huge piece of land. He was wearing a skyblue pair of trousers and a canaryyellow t-shirt. An hour later I bought a dirty, buttonless, faded, synthetic and minimalistic French schooljacket. I think he came by foot. And than he worked all this land, I imagine. Afterwards he needed to walk back home, or maybe his daughter, who is working as a cassière at one of those giant supermarkets at the edge of the nearby city. Who has been chosing his clothes? I would love to that, probably I would love to wear these items myself.

This morning I managed to sit in the lotus position with a straight back by grabbing my feet. 

Parmi la foule. Episode 17.

 I learned from a documentary on television that cows have great feelings and real sense of community. When one of the group is separated, the rest is wondering where she might be. This morning I ran past a pasture with just one calf. It tried to get away from the fence as fast as it could. One of the front legs was twice as thick and the calf had difficulty to stand on it. I felt sorry for it, and for the group. It looked like a male one.

I am reading Breasts and eggs, written by Meiko Kawakami. It seems to be autobiographical. On page 88 she writes: ‘Writing makes me happy. But it goes beyond that. Writing is my life’s work. I am absolutely positive that this is what I am here to do. Even if it turns out that I don’t have the ability, and no one out there wants to read a single word of it, there’s nothing I can do about this feeling. I can’t make it go away. (…) I know that in reality, it makes no difference whether I write novels, and it makes no difference if anyone cares. With all the countless books already out there, the world won’t notice if I fail to publish even one book with my name on it. That’s no tragedy. I know that. I get that.’

Even copying texts of writers I admire gives me a strong sense of belonging, the kind of sense normal ( I do not mean to be offensive) people experience by just waking up, showering and having breakfast.

This afternoon we went for a hike in the hills. When returned by our car we saw A4 signs on trees and signs towards waterfalls in the Yonne. It happened to be a fabulous garden with philosophical messages, little librairies, seats and smaller ecogardens with mosses. On our way out we met the creator, reading one of the donated books. A life’s work.

Parmi la foule. Episode 16.

 Her brains are in great shape. She is obsessed with water, but she is not allowed to drink that much, peeing on the floor. She is accepting to wear diapers in hope to get to drink some more. Other neighbors think she is in great shape so it is probably fine that we take four weeks off. 

We heard the oriole sing and in a little bit we will drive half an hour to our favorite French thrift shop Emmaus. To give in to my clothing addiction. Balancing on my line of not-travesty, not-too-womanly, not-too-manly. Finding some correct items brings me a temporary amount of self. Which is the heart of every addiction. In the closed department of the elderly home I entered a woman with a t-shirt saying ‘almost weekend’. A black swan flew on eyesight, we nevertheless went the wrong way. We need to walk to see things. We see all the birds of prey while sitting behind the house, but we need to walk in order to see them. 

In the morning I run. Very slow. To set my mind in order. To come to a point I don’t need to write. To write in order to experience some excistence. Last night my son built up a nightbutterfly-set with a white sheet and a very bright lamp. Such beautiful creatures passed by. Where are we here for? What does it all mean? Just be like a nightowl, with functional beauty, fly and do what you need to do. You really need to be one, a whole, for that. While running I got the idea to work on just one drawing for three weeks. It will never happen. I went to a second hand shop and saw an elderly lady reroll entangled wool. A giant cardbox full. She thought I should buy a yellow hat against the sun. I bought a vintage French petrol colored overall.

Parmi la foule. Episode 15.

 I really  like repetition. In the early afternoon I needed to bring the dog to the hairdressers. Just outside I ran into a neighbor I didn’t speak with for a long time. She told me about her sons, both heavily depressed. I told her about the other neighbor, with her  rapid evolving dementia. I told her about myself. I got late for the hairdressers, blamed the traffic. I hope they will cut him nice. Not like a poodle.

After a week of distress accumulating in throwing chairs and water down the stairs to intruders our neighbor voluntarily went with an ambulance to a nursing home. She didn’t wanted to go of course. We were relieved. The next day A and I went to visit her. We needed to walk through a closed department for psychiatric people. Not all of them seemed to be that old. E, our neighbor, told us she didn’t like it there, with these screaming people, dirty old furniture, nurses that didn’t react on her calling them and the worst thing of it all, the diaper.

We will bring her a radio tomorrow evening. And strawberries.

I used to visit a bookstore at least once a week. Now it has been months since. I red an interview with Patti Smith in which she was asked about one of her favorite writers. One of them I didn’t know: César Aria. Aria’s way of working is partly inspired by his opposition to the reasoning that in order to be of good quality, a book should meet specific criteria. According to Aria, the function of art is to create ceaselessly without the artist having to worry about theoretical problems other than those relating to the transubstantiation of the author’s experiences. The movement is important, the creative process, the ‘finished’ book will develop further in the reader. That’s why Aria said never to rewrite a text or book, the good and the bad books are with the author and the reader living beings.

I like that idea. I never read or rewrite anything I have ever written. It’s like using your own and the same bathwater for weeks.

E. is pointing everyone else as supercrazy, actually screaming it out loud, eating one pound of strawberries in half an hour. 

 

Parmi la foule. Episode 14.

 van verre

see my white summit, ( ik ben de wereld gelijk ) to a white wobbly dance, filled with glances say say say say sag mir sag mir sag mir dieser wörter one by one to a most possible island

blikt

van verre mijn heim

mijn heem

to a most possible island geef jij een ik

wo, sag mir

waar kan ik ( een ik ) gaan

en jij ( een jij ) van verre zeg zie,

zeg zie, een danskijk

mijn wankele top, omheinde land

komen ze? Zeg het me ( je )

één voor één