My mother once told me—before my sister died or after? I can’t remember—that she believed in ghosts. She believed in ghosts she said because when a person dies the energy that animated their body has to go somewhere, and it can’t disperse like the ashes do when you throw them to the wind, it can’t break up and redistribute itself among the blades of grass, the yellow flecks of acacia wattle sneaking hayfever into eyes and noses, no: it goes bigger, it goes into the earth, the rocks, the rivers.
I feel like my mother must have clung to this, in the days that came after. That all the atoms of my sister’s energy left her body and stayed together, in one unit, the unit of energy that was my sister and is now a current or a breeze, a bough shushing outside the bedroom window late at night, a radiant beam thrown across the bedclothes in a stripe, illuminating knees and fingertips. When the earth moves—when small parts of its grand old narrative make themselves known to us—when the wind lifts the hem of her skirt my mother closes her eyes and leans into its caress, thinking, this is her touch, this is a message she is sending me, and because of this belief my mother lives in a world that is dedicated to her, that is written for her as it happens, a world that belongs to her grief and exists to hold it.
When you’re a writer and a sore little piece of yourself breaks off and crystallises you name it and you write a world for it and it becomes a story. This is how Jeannie comes to be. She falls, fully formed but miniature like a figurine, from the part of my consciousness where I hide all of my wounds so that I don’t have to inspect them.
“
I really think that for us, who all grew up listening primarily to recorded music, we tend to forget that until about 120 years ago ephemeral experience was the only one people had. I remember reading about a huge fan of Beethoven who lived to the age of 86 [in the era before recordings], and the great triumph of his life was that he’d managed to hear the Fifth Symphony six times. That’s pretty amazing. They would have been spread over many years, so there would have been no way of reliably comparing those performances.
“
Reblogging myself because… what was that? Five minutes?
O_O
………my friend has made me curious
help me roger
Update: after I reblogged this someone messaged me offering me tickets to the sold out Hausu screening with a Q&A and autograph session with the director
These never work for me, but here’s to trying.
I don’t believe in these things
But last time I reblogged one ten/fifteen minutes later I got a call offering me a job
But I reblogged it because I was waiting on hearing back from the job. So there you go.
Roger is cute.
Eh Roger is cute I might as well
That fish is so happy it makes me happy.
Reblogging myself because I reblogged this yesterday and got promoted today!
oh what the hell…lol.
this is important
ROGER WORKS
Roger please work your magic I need it now more than ever.
