IN THE COLD DARK LAND OF THE ANCESTORS

My dears.

I am guilty of paranoia, of skipping class: for if the Gash, which I love so tenderly, is a class I am enrolled in, well I took some time off and became very lonely. I’ve been at the tops of the trees as they twirl in this cold English air; I’ve been on the wings of Desplat, and Paul McCartney. Maybe it’s amazing – but I definitely feel nervous waiting for my verdict, as the authorities leaf through my so called accomplishments in order to grant me re-entry to America where my love awaits. See, I’ve always thought that, as the Beatles say ‘In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make,’ and by that reasoning, I’ve got a lot of my love spread like salty sweet Marmite (or is it Vegemite?) all over the world.

As much as I’m wholly nomadic these days, and as much as I love moving, for me the hardest thing is to leave. Leaving is my most excruciating activity. Coming home is the glory.

So, I’m waiting, waiting, waiting, watching, just waiting, and enjoying waiting, really – it’s not a bad feeling at all. Even though it tested my patience to be here after rushing around New York, I am coming down. I am at ease. Watching the trees, the sky burn.

There is nothing to do but fill the well again. Make hay while the sun (doesn’t) shine. I had nothing left to give when I arrived, yet after a good few days of disorientation and clutching, aching unease, I found the only people I could talk to who weren’t busy as hell back in New York (Jon), or busy as hell in Perth (my mother), or busy as hell supporting and performing Macbeth in Vienna (my extended family whose house I have landed in, specifically the third floor attic with the Harry Potter window) – the only people who had time for me were living on contentedly inside books. They are the only people who want to talk to you, to everyone, all the time.

Aside from Jon’s lovely mom, Joanne, who I am so happy to have started talking with (not only because it gives me another excuse to rave about Jon, ha, but because my own mother is so far away and my mind often discombobulates trying to sort out the varying time zones that I travel in), I had very few people to converse with. For the week after I arrived here, I have never been so lonely. So much so that even when I’d be out at a wi-fi station somewhere, probably looking unexpectedly glum, people would turn their music systems on in the establishments I’d be sitting in, and who starts crooning but Elvis: And I could swear he was saying to me: “(You’re) looking so lonely baby, looking so lonely, I could die.”

Thankfully, I have since discovered, much to my relief and relaxated mind, that: “The second form of immunisation against loneliness involved not moving out of society, not searching for God, but turning inwards, with the aim of reinforcing one’s powers of resistance, by introspection, by understanding oneself, by emphasising one’s uniqueness, even though at first that might increase the loneliness.” (Theodore Zeldin, An Intimate History of Humanity, Minerva, 1995, p 63)

By emphasising one’s uniqueness, ay? This confirms my suspicion that loneliness, alienation, and true self-expression as a unique creature/being, are inextricably linked. I have further read, and discovered all on my own, that another form of immunisation, or self-medication, is eccentricity. During the time I was quiet and alone, I naturally gravitated to old episodes of Seinfeld, and interviews with Conan O’Brien, who I adore to pieces. That’s right – interview’s with Conan, not the other way around. The moment I laid eyes on that like-souled lank, I was completely enamoured. Awe-struck. It may sound strange if you’ve only ever dipped the tip of your finger in the pond that he swims upon; but for me, his brilliance never ceases to inspire and comfort the lonely soul. (On Inside the Actors Studio with James Lipton, James @3:35  “What turns you on?” Conan: “Enthusiasm. If people are enthusiastic, you can conquer the world…and I hate people that are too cool for school.”) Though he may be a silly man, he is a great man. I told my brother that I intend to bake him muffins at some point. I look forward to that day (enthusiastically.)

“When people tell the story of their life, the way they begin reveals at once how free they consider themselves to be and how much of the world they feel at home in. Until recently, who one’s father was mattered more than anything else. The ideal human was like an oak tree, with roots set firmly in a birthplace. Living on the same piece of land as one’s ancestors won respect and gave prestige, however personally odious one was, so that aristocrats, having more roots than anybody else, claimed that the present as well as the past belonged to them. But there is no longer any need to imitate aristocrats. There is another way of finding one’s place in the general history of humanity.

“What are the roots of one’s pleasures and emotions? These are quite different sorts of roots, extending further back than the genealogy of one’s own family, and one can only find them by searching across continents through all the centuries. The link with the days when humans were explorers setting out from the forests of Africa and Asia is a reminder that they have been on the move as often as they have settled down. Today, more and more people have a Chinese eye, which looks at nature as having its own life, most beautiful when irregular and untamed; the first person to have had that vision, and to be called an artist, was Ko Shou, the sister of the Emperor Shun, 2,000 years before Christ. More and more have an Arab and Persian heart, for it was from the Middle East that romantic love emerged. Europeans have chosen to forget not only that their language originates in India, but that it was there that the most modern view of sexual pleasures was conceived. More and more Westerners are discovering common emotions through African music and dance. As constant travel and escape from urban smog became indispensable to their sense of freedom, their imaginations register echoes in the fantasies of the Mongolian and Scythian nomads who once mocked the dwellers of cramped cities. One may feel isolated in one’s own town, but one has forebears all over the world.” (again from An Intimate History of Humanity, by Theodore Zeldin, published by Minerva, 1995)