Hello everyone. I’ve done a lot of not writing for a while. You may or may not have noticed.
Not writing turns out to be as public a thing as writing. People come up to me and say, ‘You haven’t written for a while.’ Which feels precisely as excruciating as people saying, ‘I read your latest blog.’ Squirm.
It’s not so much that I worry about what other people think, as that I get overcome with pure, raw embarrassment at being seen at all. How do people manage to walk through the world saying things aloud into life about themselves? Vulnerable, difficult, appreciative things. And not turn to dust in the breeze?
I haven’t yet watched (but am trying to find time to) a new documentary about a nanny who spent her life photographing the streets unbeknownst to all her acquaintances. She hid thousands of spectacular photographs which were only uncovered after her death. I love this woman instinctively. It makes complete sense to me, to want to walk through existence capturing and creating and remain invisible. A superpower.
While I’ve been not writing I’ve been: working (quite a good way of staying invisible), domesticing and also taking occasional moments to try writing different types of things, which is rarely easy or satisfying or productive. And then more recently I have been actively not-writing and just being. It turns out that taking the pressure off is another kind of creative gesture – lending its own silent poetry to a day.
What’s funny about actively not-writing is that writing sneaks back to nag at you. Little voices while you’re cleaning the bath. The strangest phrases that speak themselves on walks aloud. Looking through your lips into broad daylight. Dream themselves until you wake up holding the skin they’ve just slipped out of.
For me it’s the same with not making art. I pretend not to need to make art, but then I’ll go out for a walk and suddenly my imagination is obsessing over lines and colours and layers and light and asking for a space to make a mess in. Which is my way of saying that I might be doing that one of these days, instead of not-writing. I might start to stop not making a mess.
I’ve thought about writing a lot of different things for you all here. There are many wonderful people I’d like to interview so you can discover the beautiful things they do. There are always cultural discoveries to share. There’s too much. I’ve started trying to say things over the past few weeks and let them fall.
Forgive me.
If you’ve got this far, I owe you something. So here is a peace offering. A list of things I’ve loved but not been able to gift wrap properly. Forgive me.
These are a small bouquet of reasons I’m still sitting up late at night thinking into the keyboard, leaving a little of my dust in your inbox. Brave others who, thank goodness, dared to be seen…
1. The poetry of Yehuda Amichai.
2. The invisible nanny photographer.
3. White Mane by Albert Lamorisse.
4. The Shark’s Parlour by James Dickey.
6. Magic that gets the washing up done on a Sunday morning:
7. Minds that make you laugh out loud like Heartburn by Nora Ephron.
8. Miista shoes advertising always.
9. Finding plastic-free shampoo and conditioner bars and laundry sheets that actually work.
10. Other peoples’ artist date ideas. I dare you.
Lovely and inspiring❤Thank u for all that you share with world.
What beautiful post, Agnes. I loved your line "It turns out that taking the pressure off is another kind of creative gesture – lending its own silent poetry to a day." I can feel the "silent poetry" you conjour in my body in these words. Would love to have coffee sometime. Do let me know if you are ever in Bristol. Or maybe I can find an excuse to drive Nesta and Evie over to see Ada some time.