Marguerite Duras, from The Easy Life

Text ID: I was no one, I had neither name nor face. Moving through August, I was: nothing.

marguerite duras is such a strange writer to me. she evades me by writing like i have never experienced it before. i think i like it but i’m not even sure. she writes women & desire in a way that is simultaneously so true and so far gone from anyone else that i have no standards to compare it to. she consumes me strangely

“I felt myself slowly falling asleep. My fatigue was mine, mine alone, I couldn't share it with anyone, I didn't want anyone near me. I had drawn it close to my body while swimming and now it enveloped me, as secure, as entangled, as sleep. It was not deceptive, my fatigue; it was like the sun above my head, full and round. I no longer wanted to move at all, and yet at the same time I wanted to leave and never see them again. Not because they had left me alone or because I was bored, but because I wanted proof that I was capable of doing it, I wanted the memory that I had been capable of doing it. It was because my body was so heavy with fatigue that my thoughts went off so freely, so light.

I thought about the sea, unknown to me.”

~ Marguerite Duras, The Easy Life (translated by Olivia Baes and Emma Ramadan)

What does it mean to know or not know something? Which lesson from that knowing can untangle what is happening to me, face-to-face with this void that rises before my eyes in ever more immense waves, in ever more devouring clarity?

Marguerite Duras, The Easy Life (tr. Emma Ramadan and Olivia Baes)

How to remain at the height of this month, linger for a moment in this August-before-September vertigo?

The Easy Life by Marguerite Duras, trans. Olivia Baes and Emma Ramadan

I was no one, I had neither name nor face. Moving through August, I was: nothing.

~ Marguerite Duras, The Easy Life

Oh no, Silence has left us! Rest In Peace Jean-Louis Trintignant! The Great Silence is one of my all time favorite films!

Seen in 2022:

Il Sorpasso (Dino Risi), 1962

local ladies man’s signature move totally useless against autistic monster enthusiast. more on Kabru’s fumble era at 6

Marguerite Duras, from The Easy Life

Text ID: I wish I could embrace the girl that I am and love her.

working in a library, i encounter a lot of people who are in the process of filling out important forms, sending important faxes, and copying important documents. and the more important these things are, the more stressful, meaning i end up assisting a lot of really stressed people with a lot of really stressful paperwork, and have thus developed the ultimate line to immediately validate and empathize with their situation

“they don’t make it easy, do they?”

i nearly always use this line at some point in the conversation & it works without fail, because there is ALWAYS a they and they are ALWAYS not making it easy. you don’t have to specify who “they” are. you don’t even need to have an approximate idea of their role in this process.

job application? disability paperwork? insurance documents? financial aid paperwork? in any situation, the person visibly relaxes & enthusiastically agrees, because someone understands their plight: they are out there & they are NOT making it easy

with that said there are characters that a fat maybe not canonically but they are spiritually. to me. they may not be drawn that way but i know whats true. ive seen it like a sort of prophet

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

I would like for the summer to be as perfect in me as it is outside, I would like to forget to be always waiting. But there is no summer of the soul. We watch the summer that passes before us while we remain in our own winter. We should abandon this season of impatience. Grow old in the sun of its desires. Since it’s useless to wait when we are always waiting for something well beyond what we could hope for. To be amused, joyful, smooth, and beautiful to look at.

Marguerite Duras, The Easy Life (tr. Emma Ramadan and Olivia Baes)

August bloomed after the trees, once they were all in flower, overnight.

The Easy Life by Marguerite Duras, trans. Olivia Baes and Emma Ramadan

gordon and chell. wall-e and eva. you understand

THAT IS THE SMARTEST GODDAMN IDEA