Hello, me again. Who do I think I am? Writing another email to you for the third time in a fortnight?
We’ve recovered from the black dust, but there will be more. I spent a day cleaning everything I own. I tipped out my trolley of cosmetics, creams, medicines and old crusty nail varnishes. Rinsed them under the cold tap and put them back. It felt cathartic really, but I still feel like everything I touch is rough with dust. My carpet is particularly fucked. Black spots, stains, it will need a clean when this is over. There’s something oddly comforting about a living room full of bedroom stuff, my wardrobe being in the kitchen. It reminds me of when we got double glazing in our flat when I was a kid. My mum laid out the kitchen drawers in the lounge and we made sandwiches on the coffee table. The discombobulation of things is fun, though we’d all prefer to have the house back to normal, I like getting dressed in the kitchen.
It’s Sunday, the last day of my week off work. I’ve been resting. Yesterday I watched Naruto Shippuden from 10am-11.30pm and ate all my meals in bed. I’m watching it again because the last time was in the first lockdown, and I don’t remember it at all. The time before that I watched it in Stace’s computer room at her parent’s house, on a really uncomfortable chair whilst her old cat did the worst smelling shits in the litter tray. We ate crisps and leftover takeaways all weekend. Naruto was a long-running anime and manga in the early 2000s that we loved. I still love. I’m sure she does too. Watching it alone now doesn’t ache half as much but it deals with a lot of death, grief so there’s always moments of my eyes prickling. But I don’t cry very much any more.
The last time I did actually cry, with tears on my cheeks and everything was earlier in the week. Cassie and I went to Manchester Art Gallery, which feels small from the outside but sprawls in that way that the old meets the new. There we sat and watched Stories of Women, Work and Uncertain Futures. A 20 minute film of different women speaking on working class stories of retirement, marriage, disappointment, poverty and uncertainty. Maybe because we were in a dark, large room - maybe because by the end we were the only two people in there, but I cried for these women, the futures that they had aspired to but lost because of patriarchy, the state, the inherent sexism of marriage and disempowerment. They reminded me of women I know. I cried for their hardships, in solidarity with surviving and shame. All these women are over 50, this forgotten generation of women were the world is no longer built for them. The fear of getting older is not death, it’s the ravages of capitalism.
After the gallery, we went thrift shopping and I bought a pair of trousers that were so gender affirming, I’m sad they’re now in the wash because I got food all over them in the cinema on Friday. Me and Kerry were at the Cube for QueerVision festival. We went to see Chasing Amy, followed by a documentary called Chasing Chasing Amy by trans filmmaker Sav Rodgers. The documentary opens with Sav doing a TEDtalk on how Chasing Amy was a life raft for him in his lonely teen years. He talked about how he watched it again and again, savouring the queer characters he didn’t know in real life. I related to that, having spent my teen years shut away in my bedroom, watching teen films from the video shop because I was alone and traumatised. (Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion was my favourite - the music, colours, the radical platonic partnership which I craved but didn’t know it at the time). Chasing Amy is a problematic LGBT film because it’s written and directed by a cis white dude (Kevin Smith) but it’s characters are flawed, ignorant, intelligent and desperate to be loved, and that is what I love about art and connection. I want imperfection and complicated stories that don’t have all the answers.
Speaking of, I was really pleased to receive my copy of BlueBird Anthology in the post yesterday. It features one of my poems Women who kill! I wrote it because of the way violent people are portrayed in True Crime, their backstories are always about poverty and abuse, and so many imply that this is the reason why they become serial killers. But in reality, lots of people are traumatised from abuse, violence is not part of their nature but a symptom of the things they have suffered. And not all survivors of abuse turn to murder (shock)!
The anthology is absolutely beautiful, and explores themes of ecology, violence, queerness, technology and otherness. Recommend grabbing a copy. https://bluebirdanthology.com/