Observables #5

on Rachel Cusk, attractive therapists and nowhere to wear my overpriced jumpsuit

I just finished Rachel Cusk’s excellent new book, Second Place, where the protagonist invites a moody artist to come live in her and her partner’s second place on their secluded property. Having seen herself in this artist’s paintings, she thinks spending time in his presence might lead to some grand moment of self-discovery. In fact, he’s curmudgeonly and self-absorbed and seems to have an active disdain for her. Typical Rachel Cusk, not much happens until a flurry of activity at the end. The book is more a meditation on womanhood, motherhood, misogyny, and the life and role of an artist - all things I think about all the time! There were so many sentences in this book that made me feel seen. Like this one: “[m]y individuality had tormented me my whole life with its demand to be recognized.” Thank you, Rachel Cusk.

And this essay which also discusses the process of creation in the midst of the pandemic. The author writes:

When we are able to see each other again in a future unlike the past and the present, I hope we can write essays about how we could not write away from each other, because we do not write on our own. . . I wrote these sentences after calling Juwon Jun. I wrote these sentences listening to Kim Nguyen laughing on the phone, I wrote these thinking about the editor Paul C. Fermin, I revised the second paragraph after texting William C. Anderson, I imagined and finished this essay chatting with my brother, after eating lunch after taking a walk. Everything I compose is an amalgamation of my interactions with the world. Which is to say this thing that I say I do on my own cannot be done alone. Everything I write, and do, is a reflection of the encounters I’ve had with the people.

Coming out of pandemic isolation, I am reminded of how hard it was to keep making art, to keep finding things to say, to keep living in my own head. Living and art making work better in community, in response to other fleshly beings!

I write after making vegan pancakes for Violet. We sit and eat them together. She tells me how delicious they are. She suggests amendments to my watercolour painting. She muses about how brilliant Daddy’s is. It’s too good to be true. How did he doooooo that? We think an opaque black circle might be a good addition to mine. Yesterday, she liked the abstract chaos of my picture. Today she is not so sure. She’s just really drawn to Daddy’s now. Mine is too crazy. So is my mind I want to tell her.

I write after the striking woman with her striking children in the coffee shop buys Simon and me our espressos because she wants to send good karma into the world.

I write after talking to my doctor about the skin tag on my back. No, it’s not cancer, it’s just the aging process, like bark on a tree. Oh.

I write after daring to hug my tween who might wriggle out from under my touch.

I subscribed to Crave for a month so I can watch all things HBO. It’s going to be my own private marathon. Last night the family watched Jumanji 2 and I snuck into my room to watch three episodes of In Treatment, which is essentially just sessions between a therapist and his various clients, except that the scenarios are fascinating and the therapist is more charismatic and appealing than yours or mine (I would wager). For those of you that have been watching In Treatment when it came out in 2008, I apologize. I can teach you nothing. 

This week all I can do is share something I learned somewhere else, because my own wardrobe has not shifted from the last few newsletters where I only don jean shorts and some capsule staples. So let us all consider getting back into watches. This woman seems to think it is everything.

Oh, this item from Toronto designer Horses holds a space in my wardrobe, and I am racking my brain for places to wear it.