What I loved (recently)
*delete conversation from WhatsApp?*
Life really has been coming at me recently, I’m sorry to say! Over the past few weeks I’ve had relics from the past emerging from the fifth ring of Hell, trying to drag me back into the river styx with them (you’d think I’m being overly dramatic but alas, I am not). Professional life stress. Financial stress! Dark, horrible dreams plaguing me every night. On Friday, everything just crumpled and I awoke with a migraine so thick my eyes could barely open. After a morning of self-pity (you cannot allow too many hours to wallow in self-pity), I had a hot bath and felt immediately better.
As a true Piscesean, I can’t help but think of Esther Greenwood in The Bell Jar when she said, “There must be quite a few things a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them. Whenever I’m sad I’m going to die, or so nervous I can’t sleep, or in love with somebody I won’t be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: 'I’ll go take a hot bath’.”
Hot baths are my red line. The salve to my soul.
So, as much for myself as for you - dear beloved reader - in this post I will jot down a few recent moments of happiness. I do this to remind myself how far I’ve come, that life is always ~in process~ and that we battle on!
We had an especially lovely
Dublin on the 15th April, with a really chill group of people. It does feel like we have a great community growing at the moment, with regulars turning into friends and the longer evenings motivating people to talk more at the end of our sessions and not hurry off into the darkness.If you’re local to Dublin, you can find out upcoming dates here and if you’re interested in SBC as a concept, the main website has just had a lovely re-design. I couldn’t recommend it more if you, like me, crave introverted time but don’t necessarily want to be constantly alone either!
For my part, I am now around 2/3 of the way through Crime and Punishment. Honestly, I feel dread when I go to read it, but once I get stuck in, the dense prose is actually beautiful and very engrossing. I will say though it is heavy reading. The complexities and narrative changes combined with a fast paced storyline laced with inner narrative introspection make it a tome to be grappled with. I hope I will finish it before the end of 2025. That’s an adequate goal to set for myself, right?! Because sometimes I just need to pick up a shorter or fluffier read to get a break from St. Petersburg and murdered pawnbrokers.
Without doubt though, Dostoevsky is a Modernist writer. Writing in 1865, over fifty years before literary Modernism came into full bloom (which in my opinion, came after the end of the First World War); his oeuvre pre-empts Freudian theories of the mind. He engages in, with, and is, chaos not really seen again until The Waste Land - both in textual form with the fragmented narratives and in the descriptions of geographies and people, as well as character speech.
It’s extremely striking to me that my view of literary Modernism has been so enclosed - predominately revolving around the Ezra Pounds of the world, Joyce and Eliot. And here was Fyodor pulling out all the stops decades beforehand. It says something to me too about the loss to literature that has occurred as a result of the censorships in Russia throughout the twentieth century, and now. The elegance of Russian prose in Dostoevsky is quite something. From describing the slums of the city to the rustic rural environs - and that ineffable landscape of the human mind.
In terms of recent music that has brought happiness, any release from Bon Iver is a cause for celebration and SABLE fABLE is no different. I have been luxuriating in the singles already released from this album. “THINGS BEHIND THINGS…” was the soundtrack for my November ‘24, walking to reformer pilates (a discounted class pass!) on my work lunchtimes, looking at the frost-capped grass in Stephen’s Green with Bon Iver’s repetitive and comforting mantra in my ears.
Justin Vernon’s recent interview in The Guardian is also worth a read. A woman’s Notes App, like our hearts, are as deep as the ocean. So here are some quotes that resonated with me:
As well as the mentions of running away to a cabin (I can share my stories of this at another time), I’m very taken by Justin’s decision not to tour this album. And his commitment to the idea of walking away from things that do not serve you. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around this concept because I do have an endless reservoir of empathy for people. I do give chances, patience, time. In my therapy sessions at the moment, I’m discussing how much of this aspect of my personality is the “real me” and how much is it the mask of acquiescence. And am I willing to keep abandoning myself so that others are OK with me? Truly, this is the root of co-dependence that all of us recovering from that affliction wrangle with.
For so long I’ve thought of walking away as an inherently selfish act. I believed that when you make a connection, you stay the distance. You put the work in. But Justin Vernon here frames walking away as an act of tempered self love. You can still be in community and walk away. The love that was there remains there. It’s OK to move on.
Anyways, the new album is a gorgeous gorgeous piece of music. I heartily recommend.
“April”, the second film from Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili is another addition to the growing library of films dealing with abortion access and procurement. In Georgia, abortion is legal on request up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, but there are some additional restrictions such as the expense and a five-day waiting period (for context, the Republic of Ireland has a three-day waiting period) between the initial consultation and provision. “April” looks at the situation a medical professional is thrust into following allegations of negligence and investigation.
What is remarkable about this film is that Kulumbegashvili includes recordings of actual instances of, for example, stillborn childbirth. These were made available to her due to the long-established trust she had with the clinic where filming took place, as well as relationships built with patients. I think this is an astonishing feat of feminist filmmaking and the principles of co-creation working to shatter patriarchal gazes and restrictive, cruel, and inhumane laws.
While this film doesn’t make me “happy” - I believe it is so important that films of this nature, and female filmmakers are given their flowers.
Finally, last week I was so happy to meet in real life one of my OG Twitter friends. Back when Twitter was actually a place of learning for curious minds - and for memes of course. After years of an online friendship to meet and listen to the brilliant Zoé Samudzi was a true gift. We had some cocktails and pizza and had a good few laughs - it’s actually hilarious to think we can remember Twitter handles of people from almost a decade ago! Liam1914 we miss you!!
Zoé was in Dublin speaking at Project Arts about her work on genocide and on the short film by Heiko-Thandeka Ncube, entitled “The early rains which wash away the chaff before the spring rains.” The title relates to the Shona word Gukurahundi, a cynical euphemism that refers to a series of massacres that were executed by the Zimbabwean military in the 1980s.1
It was so interesting and deeply moving to have the opportunity to dive into the work of Ncube who passed away at just 32 in 2023. In an interview with Monopol, Ncube said the following:
One often encounters the accusation that nobody will understand their own art because a white mass audience is automatically assumed to be the recipient. There is no idea that that maybe that isn’t our primary target group, or that that audience is willing to learn, too.2
I think those words are very important for us white people to take into consideration - when we think of our gaze and how that gaze directs the art world. Ncube’s work which features the imagery of symbols, use of disconcerting sounds, tribe practices and brutalities ask us to think about traumatic legacies and the psychological impact of racial oppressions. As a white woman who has profited from these oppressions; sitting, listening and learning is a privilege.
Zoé generously took time in her talk to consider links between Ireland and Zimbabwe, and expanded (for me) on what genocide actually means - for peoples, for cultures, for languages. It shows the depth of Zoé’s genius as well as her empathy and patience that she drew on connections to help white Irish understand what Ncube is driving at.
To sit in an audience of majority non-white Irish and listen to their questions to Zoé was also very impactful. I learned a lot and sit in gratitude to have been in that space.
Thought provoking and challenging events and films are the reason I made the decision to move to Dublin. It has taken me time to settle in here, making friends with a spectrum of people and trying to figure out who I am - what I can contribute. I’m hopeful that I’m making progress here, despite setbacks.
I am trying hard to firmly commit to the present. As a person, I have a habit of always looking forward - what’s next? Where can I travel to? What does the future hold? It takes restraint for me to focus on the here and now but there is real joy and meaning in doing so.
Being real - what does today hold for me in the present? A trip to a flea-market with a lovely friend and an evening watching the GAA. If Tyrone lose this local derby, I will be so furious it will be best to avoid me. Huffing in the present moment will occur!!
Thanks for reading :)
For more information on this film you can visit: https://shorturl.at/0pckR