A grey, wet afternoon. This week feels null and void. Perhaps it’s another transitional period, which means the uncertainty is understandable and acceptable. I don’t know if it really is a time for imminent change, or if I’m creating that notion in my imagination just to justify or excuse the general wretchedness. I feel dysfunctional, restless, irritable. Two days consecutively I’ve gone out with the intention of taking a train journey to a new place, or maybe to an old place. A different place, a chance to escape basically. Use the train to write. I didn’t manage it either time. I got so far, felt tired, almost unable to walk, headed back home feeling dejected. I considered several places but couldn’t do it. Visiting places, getting away, seeing the coast, it all means nothing to me at the moment. That part of me is numb. Both times I took the camera, notebook, and Patrick Keiller’s The View From The Train. Both times they stayed in my bag.
I think I’m mentally exhausted. I have little energy. I still have random flashback-like dream moments. I’m awake, but suddenly other images and thoughts take over my consciousness. I don’t know where they come from, somewhere inside my head, but I don’t understand why. I can’t control it. My eyesight is deteriorating too, I see floating black spots. That could become difficult in the future.
We had a work zoom thing this week, to mark one year of the unknown state. It was awful. I don’t know what would have made it worthwhile, but any work communication without actual factual information leaves me feeling bereft, empty, rejected, alone. I won’t take part in future. I’m not letting the job into my emotional space now.
So I return now to thoughts of another way of life, new pursuits, values, reward. There are houses for sale in Sicily for one euro with lots of strings attached, but tempting. So work, save, inherit, hustle. It’s time for a quick stop and reset. The films of the Thames are everywhere, never ending new phases. I don’t take the camera there now, it will only mean more footage queueing up to be worked on. Things have to be brought to an end, and that’s my problem, I never define end points, so continue to add, repeat, pile it up. I should think differently about how I make work, set limits, narrow the parameters. To clear my head I may just stop it all, empty the room, paint it white, stare into the light. A lamp broke yesterday. I’ve left the pieces there.
Writing will stop soon too. I noticed today that I’m at entry no 100, and it approximately coincides with the anniversary of things ending, so maybe this will be the last entry. The anniversary is subjective, because things happened on different days for different reasons, there were different forces, authorities, agendas. We were shellshocked then, and still are now. I don’t owe people an explanation anyway, I feel hopeless and exhausted by the experience. I can’t say much when each day is the same. It will be a relief to put the notebook away. Then there’ll be time to type up, which is a re-writing process, adding, refining, but with a view to finalising and reaching a finished point.
In order to open new chapters I suppose some have to close. I’ll have to finish the film/writing/print work, but for now I want to do simple things. Sit in fields, empty spaces, photograph, paint. I’ll write more one day, an entry 101, long after this is over. I feel as if an ending has occurred.
Andrew Stevenson 