A Lot to Say, and Never in the Right Way
Unsettled minds
The Sunday Letter #7
I have this recurring nightmare where I’m in danger and trying to call for help, but I just can’t get the words out. In fact, most of my recurring nightmares revolve around being unable to speak or call for help in some way; the fear is in the loss of ability to communicate. Psychoanalysts can read into this what they will. But what really scares me, as I’ve written here before, is the forgetting.
Recently, I was in the car and driving to an appointment across town, when I was struck with a feeling that I hadn’t locked my front door. We live in an old house, and in the winter, the front door has been known to open into the wind if it’s not properly locked. I became incapacitated with the fear that my dog would run out, be struck by a car in the intersection in front of my house, and my life would be over. Obsessive compulsive thoughts, such as these, can make it hard to trust my own memories, especially when mixed with attention-deficit tendencies. I might obsessively ruminate over whether I locked the door, or turned off the oven, usually to realize that everything is fine and I did in fact remember to do these things. But sometimes, the attention-deficit takes over, and I do in fact forget, and those mistakes turn into intrusive, recurring thoughts or nightmares of their own. Sometimes I think my obsessive thoughts are a remedy my brain has cooked up in defence of my attention-deficit; but really, what I’ve learned is that anything valuable can be lost. My forgetfulness has become a lighthearted household joke, but in my darker moments it can feel like a cruel reminder that I’m not always in control of whether my memories are accurate or not.
As I drove to my appointment, knuckles white against the steering wheel, I repeated to myself that I had probably locked the door, and if I hadn’t, someone would probably be home soon that could check. I was immediately hit with an idea for a story about a woman in a similar position, whose intrusive thoughts leave her feeling outside of her own body. But I was still driving, so I called out to Siri, begging her to take a voice note, only to receive the same response, over and over: “I’m sorry, I can’t do that.” “I’m sorry, I can’t do that.” “I’m sorry, I can’t do that.”
PLEASE, SIRI, I begged. What if I forget this story, this woman in my head? I tried once more: “SIRI. RECORD A VOICE NOTE.” But Siri could only respond, “I’m sorry, you don’t have something called Porn Voice Note.”
When I reached my appointment, I frantically typed out the idea, and when I was sure I hadn’t forgotten it, I looked up how to get Siri to take a voice note, to no avail. Next time, I’ll just call myself and leave a voicemail. But that fear, of having something important to say and losing it to the recesses of my own brain, has stayed with me.
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A few years ago, in the midst of a lonely sojourn in a new city for grad school, I got a tattoo on my upper arm of a woman reading a book. I’d come across the image online, and was drawn to this woman, sitting naked and alone on a rock, with just her book. She was her own island, she had everything she needed. The drawing itself required modifications when outlined and shrunk down by the tattoo artist: namely, the woman had to lose her mouth in order to fit. I felt for this woman, whose body I would modify to imprint her on my own. But something else about her haunted me too: she reminded me of the women in my father’s paintings.
My father, who died a few months before I got that tattoo, was an abstract painter. Talented at conveying colourful cityscapes, landscapes, nudes, and still-lifes, his strong suit was not in realistic portraiture. He was very skilled at painting women’s bodies, but faces were not in his toolkit. Often, he would crop the head off, or use only short, thin lines in place of eyes and mouths. The focal point, always, was the body, not the face. Psychoanalysts, again, can read into my fascination with these paintings what they will.
But one of his most poignant subjects was an angelic, vaguely amorphous woman’s face—his own mother, drawn from memory, in a cloudy and distant way reflecting his experience as her son in 1950’s Latin America. She’d been an orphan; he, her at-times unwanted son, a reminder of the sickness she felt when she had him. I wonder, sometimes, whether he felt frustration, at trying to capture her in a way he couldn’t in his youth, and coming up short in her features. But then I see the paintings, and they hold everything true in them, even without words or mouths.
A few years before he died, I ran into one of my favourite professors. As we were chatting, he asked whether I was related to an artist with the same last name. Yes, I laughed, that’s my dad. He couldn’t believe it. He pulled up his phone to show me a photo of a painting he’d had for decades. It was my father’s. In it, a young man stands behind a woman, and both are mouthless. The painting, he told me through teary eyes, reminded him of his own mother, and he looked at it every day. He couldn’t believe that he had been teaching the artist’s daughter without realizing it.
That same professor provided me references to get into grad school, and he helped me get my first big job out of university. I’m indebted to him in many ways. He passed away in 2020, a few months after my father, at a time when public memorials or funerals were being cancelled due to the pandemic. But his loss had me thinking about Heather Love’s article, “Truth and Consequences,” in which she laments the loss of her mentor, the gender theory pioneer Eve Sedgwick:
The longing, absurdly hopeful mode of the amorous student—looking for love in all the wrong places. Those places are even more wrong now that my teachers are gone, and I can’t indulge my early habits of waiting around cafés and doorways and empty lecture halls hoping for chance encounters—my pedagogical crushes have finally migrated inside the text. If I remain unwilling, unreconciled in my heart to a world this empty, still, I’ve learned my lesson. I’m the teacher now.
This was a long and looping tangent, but in writing it, I’ve come to realize that the remedy for forgetfulness is knowing that the important things will always come out in the end. Our words will be heard, our mouths will eventually open, if only in dreams. Even when our teachers are gone, the lessons live on.
This week’s recommendations
It’s been a hectic week, so no new movies to report on. I’m slowly making my way through the My Brilliant Friend adaptation on HBO, now that I’ve finished the first book. I’m also extremely excited to check out Ali Wong and Steven Yeun’s new Netflix show Beef, about a road rage incident that consumes the lives of those involved. In terms of exciting upcoming film releases from women named Greta: Barbie from Greta Gerwig, and Past Lives starring Greta Lee, can both take my money right now. If Greta Thunberg wanted to round it out with one more rom-com this year, my ass would be in that seat.
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Last week, I finished Big Swiss, which I thought was sharp but somewhat forgettable. Conversely, I am in the midst of reading Rachel Aviv’s haunting Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us, which follows the lives of different individuals who must contend with their diagnostic labels. One story follows a man whose depression nearly unravelled the entire psychoanalytic field; another story follows a woman, deified as a saint in India, whose revelations are linked to schizophrenia by Western-educated outsiders. A propulsive, yet empathetic, read.
This week’s Annie Ernaux update comes from Lauren Elkin in Lux, on the Nobel-laureate’s working class roots: “From the very beginning, she wrote in her journal, her goal as a writer was to “venger [sa] race”: to avenge her people.”
Reading: “So many books! I’m almost done with The Dead are Gods by Eirinie Carson, on grief and female friendships. I’ve entered the world of drunken swashbucklers with McGlue by Ottessa Moshfegh. And I’m devouring pieces from the Cyberfeminism Index by Mindy Seu, feeling like Angelina Jolie in the movie Hackers.”
Watching: “Swarm is one of the best series I’ve ever seen. It’s unhinged, terrifying and so damn funny. And the South London movie Rye Lane is the romcom of the year, ya’ll.”
Listening: “The album Some Nights I Dream of Doors by Obongjayar is on repeat. The lyrics to the song Wrong For It will make you cry and fill you up.”
Life, etc: “I’m into Momofuku instant noodles, turmeric lattes, and the Just Dance video game. I’m also asking new friends to see art (don’t be shy!) and writing poems in the grass.”
So happy to be apart of this issue! Sharing bits and bobs that make living so lovely 🥰