The single biggest theme in my creative work is memory. I am obsessed with how memory preserves, re-creates, fabricates and fictionalises events. How memory is the most unreliable narrator of all, yet how we desperately cling to our memories for truth. We are so deceived about the factual, and yet we continue operating as if everything we remember is truth, with a capital T.

The more I work on pieces about memory, the less faith I have in myself. I doubt myself at such a fundamental level, I can’t even take what’s real as what’s true. No wonder my hold on reality is so flimsy. I’m a fabrication of my own hallucinated remembrances.

The implications of this are huge. I feel shadowy, faint outlined. I’m perplexed by everyone and their responses. I want to shake the world like a snowglobe and scream out nothing is as you remember! nothing is the way it was! We don’t even know how things were.

The romanticisation of memory is nostalgia. Blows my mind how yesteryear is so wonderful, warm. I grew up in London, and the last time I visited, I pilgrimmed to the chip shop at the bottom of Tottenham Court Road. Seeking the memory of over-salted vinegar-y potatoes in my mouth. In Khartoum, my eyes burn until I see the Nile. In Regina, it’s the driving of the one-ways just south of downtown. Thought all these actions were old habits, but they’re not. Just my way of cementing memory – see, the chips still taste incredible. The Blue and White Niles still soothe me. Ergo, my memories must be real. But they’re not. They are not.

There’s a lot of repetition in my writing – and my speech. By saying the same thing over and over, I’m not advertising a damaged short-term memory. I’m just cementing things, making sure they’re fixed more factually in my mental. I understand why people repeat stories, why old folks tell you the same thing over and over again. Repetition turns falsehoods into truths. We need to do this to make sure that we’re not delusional. But some of us don’t understand this. I think that’s the easier way to be.

I’m not the only one obsessed with memory. Anyone who creates anything – painters, writers, musicians – are controlled by memory, whether they consciously recognise this or not. What’s dangerous is when you start operating as if every memory you have is false. I see my intimates now as constructs, and I really need to stop that. Operating from the notion that if they’re constructs, there’s nothing to stop me projecting my own desires and needs on to them.

And that’s not a place anyone wants to be in, my needs are intense untempered.

The major undertaking’s been mad intense. Imposter syndrome all up in it. But it’s exciting, and every single moment I’m grateful for the privilege and blessings I’ve received. It’s made a lot of things clearer about my path, and what I’m meant to do with my life. Even with all the drainage, even with all the intensity, stress, anxiety, things are getting clearer.

Aside: Following Goals, Mathematik feat. Bahamadia on the stereo. iTunes ability to soundtrack my life is eerie.

Anyway, aside from the lack of sleep, intellectual overstimulation and the seepage into re-evaluating my own abilities, the other parts of my life are taking an interesting turn.

Creative work. What I’ve been learning is shaping my creative work outside of the major undertaking. A project that I’ve been working on for a while is getting crazy positive feedback, and the part of my brain that relentlessly obsesses is all over it. I’ve put it out there to the Universe, we’ll see what comes back. I can’t wait for these things to manifest, can’t wait for a sense of closure on the literally tens of half-started brilliant ideas. Execution is the hardest part of that war, and my weaponry’s strapped on, let’s do this. Also, synchronicity again surrounds this one particular project.

Personal life. My time’s been scarce, and I’ve had to ration it out. I withdrew for a little while, and then got the best advice ever: let your people know where your head’s at. I’ve always been an incredibly intense person, one that most people can only handle in small doses. So I learned at an early age to tone it down, filter for the sake of others. I’m unlearning that now, letting my emotions shine out like Scott Summers’ gaze. Unfortunate side effect is that friends have been reluctantly cut out, being unable to deal with the dust storm nature of my emotions. I can’t blame them, but I’m also not in a place where I have the energy to put their needs before mine. I’m being selfish, and I’m finding out that those who truly support me are circling me, protecting me from the outside, letting me do that. And not even telling me off. I have so much gratitude for my circle, as small as it’s getting.

Also, my 30th birthday’s coming up, so cue constant retrospeculative analysis. Morals, values, beliefs, and what I will and will not tolerate. At one point in my life, I honestly didn’t believe I would ever make it this far. But I did, and because I hadn’t planned for it, I’m all like, so… what now? Reviewing my history, reading the narrative and making editorial comments for the next ten years. Also, I’m patiently waiting for the end of Saturn doing whatever the hell it needs to do so I can get on with the rest of my life. We’ve been performing a ritualistic dance, but thank God my missteps haven’t been dramatic, and I haven’t gone stumbling. Still can’t trust that I’ll be caught before I smash my face. Not that it matters, I’ll heal.

The immediate focus is learning how to balance. I hadn’t been going to the gym for a couple of months, and now that the weather’s colder, I can’t get my physical fix outside, so it’s back to the cardio machines. Problem is, time. In learning to manage my time better, I’m eliminating anything extraneous that takes too much of my energy. Simply put, if it’s too much work for me right now (aside from the major undertaking and creative projects), it’s going to have to go, no hard feelings.

On an Andre Williams tip.

[Play Languid Libretto (I Can't Love You Better Than This) by Carl Hancock Rux (1999) on repeat for the atmosphere this piece was written in, under red light]

it’s hard for me to ask for what i need.

wait…

rewind back, just a little bit further.

it’s hard for me to figure out what i need > it’s hard for me to ask for what i need.

forget/remember is a confusing, disorienting cycle that results in avoidance+denial. the hurt is a residual. i don’t trust my memory anymore.

daily conversations with self, debates arguments but these rounds concession each and every time. self deserves that at least.

channeling earth, stone. digging moats, piling rocks. protecting against transgression.

so barbed wire re-installed. therefore, blood: temporary admission price. it’s a cheap price to pay, i’ve decided.

digging in my heels so far into the earth, my legs morph into roots. trying to build home while only functional above ground. resisting the urge to go completely under. it’s not what i need this time.

i just need space, time, and a little bit of faith. i need patience, protection, and love. i’ve never been this selfish before, never said, please, this is what i need.

(to the external: spelled out, i need sanctuary).

and i’m willing to risk a lot for this safety. it’s the only straw left to clutch at.

when i finally feel safe, surrounded by barbed wire, immovable, i’ll start to breathe, relax. figure out next steps.

try to come to terms with/accept my own mortality, fragility.

i can heal myself, boundaries erected to allow the space for that to happen. and i resolutely refuse to move until it does.

time and patience will sift for me while i isolate hibernate contemplate.

and self? this is all i’ve got.

“there are
no sad songs at all
faxes and email,
black coffee and cigarettes
don’t get me high

…

there are no sad songs
at all
just urban women living in the bush
helping me dream”

- Rux

Working on a couple of writing projects, I’ve had to examine my own writing process. I hadn’t done this in any kind of meaningful way since my failed experiment over two years ago when I tried to not write. From the apparently superficial, like where and how I prefer to write, to what I’m trying to accomplish both internally and publicly with my writing.

How I write too, has been looked at, analysed. This post’s title comes from Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons. Sometimes, I look for a piece of writing that I really admire for its beauty and technical skill with language, and copy it word for word on my laptop. It’s the writing equivalent of taking a machine apart to see how it was put together. Sometimes the machine is beautifully refined, like a well-made mechanical watch, sometimes it’s crude, and I feel like I’m smashing it apart rather than carefully dissecting. Most of the time, I find inspiration and help with getting over writer’s block when I do copy other authors’ works. Other times, I’m discouraged by my inability to play with language at the level of skill reflected in the source. With my own writing, I’m ultimately looking for the ghost in the machine, the source of the angst within my narratives, my own personal myth.

Investigating lofty abstract concepts like truth, death, knowledge and the meaning of life as explored/reflected in my writing. Representations of truth, ways of knowing, the significance of death and the why-bother? of everything.

I’m also trying to find ways with dealing with the emotional cost of writing. A current project has me looking at suicide magnets (physical spaces that draw people to commit suicide) and thin places (supposedly, sites where the membrane between Earth and Heaven – or this dimension and others – is thin). A lot of darkness in the writing, which of course happens only at night, leaving me drained and with my dreams. The surreal hyperviolent dreams have come back again.

Another project examines rejection. Once again, heavy, intense and a complete downer. I need to find an outlet, but for now, I’m finding reprieve working on children’s stories that are lighter and have happy endings. I’m definitely feeling a pull to get back to Self – thanks to a long period of instability, Darkness and uncertainty, I’ve become removed, cut-off. Now, I’m isolating in a different way, withdrawing from my social sphere so I can concentrate on my self and my work. On the complete other endpoint of the pendulum’s swing.

The major undertaking has been exhausting too, the cause of way too many late nights playing catch-up, trying to meet deadlines and anxiety-induced insomnia. The stress from trying to survive and thrive is seeping into other areas of my life, throwing me completely off balance. The physical has been affected negatively too, the stress manifesting in aches and pains. It’s been a while since my body has been pain-free.

In great news, I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing and there has been movement at crazy speeds. Stay tuned, I’ll let you know when I reach my destination.

Hands are crucial elements of the life of the city and the city has provided an opportunity for those hands to grow in influence… Though we write about the history of writing as a crucial element of human life, we forget that it takes the hand and unsung objects like the pen and pencil to bring it into being.

- Cities: Reimagining the Urban (Amin & Thrift, 2002)

"The mucous sheaths of the tendons on the front of the wrist and digits." Henry Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body, 1918.

In Stephen King’s 1978 short story collection Night Shift, the image on the first edition’s cover corresponds to one of the stories called “I Am The Doorway.” In it, the protagonist is a former astronaut who is physically affected after being exposed to alien matter on a trip to Venus. The ex-astronaut is retired with a pension, and the effect of the alien matter manifests physically as eyes that develop on his hands (the doorway in the story). The eyes are connected to the astronaut’s brain, and the eyes’ sensory input into his head portrays our world as hideous, fearful and strange. The alien eyes take over control of the hands, and the astronaut commits murder on several occasions. He keeps his hands bandaged to prevent them from “seeing” and committing these dreadful crimes. To maintain his human self and to free himself of the evil that his hands have become, the ex-astronaut ends up burning his hands, ridding himself of the alien presence for years. I won’t tell you how the story ends, this is all that is significant to this post. I do have a copy that I am unwilling to lend out because it is from the original print run, but I’ll let anyone who wants to come over read it.

One of the earliest horror movies I ever remember watching was Oliver Stone’s 1981 The Hand. It showed on late night TV when I was a child; it must have been in the early 80s because the setting I remember it in was our flat in south London. Which means I couldn’t have been older than six. I don’t know who was responsible for my supervision (I’m guessing it was one of my uncles, they are solely to blame for my fondness for that genre), but epic fail for not preventing me from watching that one. Not that I minded. In The Hand, a man’s hand is severed in a driving accident, cleanly amputated by a lorry. The man, an artist, starts going insane, a madness driven by the loss of his drawing hand (come to think of it, that movie was probably also my first undisguised, up-front witnessing representation of artists and madness). In the film, the severed hand possesses a life of its own and begins committing murders driven by the unspoken vengeful desires of its former owner.

This idea of separation from the body, of body parts disassociating from their owners is frightening. In the first instance, the ex-astronaut deliberately burns his hands, rendering them useless to prevent them from committing murder, to stop himself from feeling this alien invasion. King’s story, I interpret into a fear of aging, and possibly paradoxically, a commentary on how messed-up and gruesomely alien our own world is. I think that we all get messed-up over how horrible human nature really can be, and the belief in the goodness of humanity can only be the desires of the naïf. In the latter example, the artist loses his hand unwillingly in a freak accident, releasing the hand to undertake what we perceive to be the least human of actions (what is murder of another human being if not an affront to humanity?). The Hand is an adaptation/re-interpretation of the 1946 film The Beast With Five Fingers, which I haven’t watched, but apparently the only significant change is that in the earlier movie, the protagonist is a pianist.

(Freaky coincidence for those who believe in omens, symbols and connections: the screenplay was adapted from a book called The Lizard’s Tail by Marc Brandell.)

I’m writing about these stories because they represent significant moments in my own pop culture history. I’m also writing about them for personal reasons. This year, I’ve been obsessed with the agency of body parts in the city (while still connected to living people), and I’ve gone through a hallucinatory phase where I unwillingly saw strangers as amputees.

Maybe this post should have been called “Hands Gone Wild.” Maybe I should have looked at the possession of other body parts. But what this post really is though, is phantom pain.

This city’s getting shaky again, changing. It’s becoming unfamiliar and I’m re-drawing the mental maps once more. too many relationships within it, I’ve never had to negotiate so many different ways of being in one place at the same time. Each day brings something new, knowledge layers one over the other. The actual concrete space getting lost underneath all these pushpinned notes.

New landmarks too. It’s exciting, the way the city’s changing, but with all these new points of reference I’m getting disoriented. It’s important to note that I have never, in my entire life, spent so much time in one place. It makes me wonder how others manage to deal with living in one place their entire lives. Are cities ever able to become constant? I doubt I’ll ever find that out.

Now that I know what’s going on, my body’s telling me to leave. I can’t right now, I’ve begun something I have every intention of finishing and that will take me years. Bring me neatly up to a decade. And time has this way of messing up any plans I try to make, so I’m not making any preparations to go. When it’s time to bounce, it’s time. But that’s not any time soon.

As the city’s changing, it’s becoming more blurry, disintegrating. I almost feel like I have to dodge the concrete blocks falling down from this disintegrating landscape. I’m trying to block it, not pay attention, I have to focus on other things, on new endeavours, on existing in different planes at the same time. Harder than hard. Part of me is watching this though, observing the complete annihilation of what I thought I knew, trying to record it for posterity. Time for a critical reading of this city and what I do within it. My home’s my haven and I’m withdrawing into it, window-watching and trying not to interfere with the city’s re-invention. Learning to let the city be.

Re-discovering stimulating conversation and being reminded of why I have the people in my life that I do. Conversations with friends this week have me learning about gender and race politics, notions of privacy, quantum physics, creative process, ownership and rights, and of course music. I’ve been learning more about the people around me, in awe of the sheer brilliance of those in my circle.

i’m writing postcard stories for you and you and maybe you. i’m back writing vignettes, my apologies to those i hurt with the last series. sunflower, believe me, that poem wasn’t about you. in other news, i’ve outgrown the guardian. more honestly, it was always unnecessary, the universe’s way of letting me know by giving me what i asked for. need to disentangle before it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy an enmeshment. but the as-yet-undiscovered power of a particular totem hasn’t faded and once again, i have to wait for the big reveal. take two of these and call me in the morning.

***

Title reference: Hot Night, Meshell Ndegeocello, 2002.