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Day 20/ The Isolation Journals: By Gravity

Look back on the past few weeks and consider what has felt momentous for you. What have you let go of, surrendered, only to learn from? Has anything felt fated, or fallen into place? Write from the depths of that knowing. Of trusting the signs. Explain what you’ve witnessed in yourself. What tiny revolution have you faced?

I have been putting this one off; have probably opened the email and re-read the prompt at least thrice in the past 5 days and each time I have thought it an unfortunate obligation if I wrote in a time where I felt nothing much sank, made indents in me; where there was nothing much to feel, much of importance to learn, much less anything that "felt fated".

Only that the rain fell like snow, and met with my feelings as if two lovers reuniting on a highway road after years. Although not exactly either, the rain has always seemed like a companion, a force that coincides and corresponds, but each time I meet it with fresh recognition, -dare I say- delight. The few videos I watched on psychics and their exchange with the dead planted the idea that rain might just be an instrument for communication, and that someone was on the other side, or upper side, sending me a sign, some comfort. I wonder who it is, I wonder if it is all of them. 

Only this, I had the idea to write- just rain. But since clearing my mind beyond the concepts of convergent evolution, non-synonymous substitutions; master/slave morality, thinking, consciousness and conscience; since last night I have let transient weighty thoughts filter through and linger more poignantly. I recall the slices of reflection that I have had over the past couple of days, the ones that wiggle through for just a second then disintegrate:

Nietzsche's evil is the life of delusion. Arendt's is the lack in thinking, in a more nuanced, specific sense of the term. Nietzsche both promotes and exemplifies the process of recognising and disassembling the Tetris wall man has around himself. Arendt says that there might be a wall but in the process of analysing it, even when you'd thought you'd disassemble it, you'd find that you'll put pieces back, take a few out, put a few of those back. "the business of thinking is like the veil of Penelope: it undoes every morning what it had finished the night before." The Truman Show was a reflective lens, a show within a show within my supposed reality that could just be a show. The question posed was: what do I know? But this is not a question unfamiliar, I have been asking this question so much, more a self-derogatory challenge rather than a philosophical and societal consideration. Maybe nobody knows at all -- what made you believe that you had to know? Your wildest supposedly most stupid ideas could be for all the world, the right, the wrong that leads to the right, the idea worth more ideas... I think that was my answer.

The world spins around the web and you stay relevant and there is the illusion of knowing, of being connected, of good friendship and tight relations. But to be relevant for yourself, such a win that'd be for yourself.



So some things I have surrendered or at least loosened grip on.

Day 19/ The Isolation Journals: Fan Goes Off

Write about a time when you (or your character) experienced something that may be a common human event (for example: scratching an itch, sneezing, petting an animal, etc.), with concrete language that brings the experience to life. Try using all of the senses in order to avoid cliché.

I feel it all bubble up, catch in my throat and strain my breathing. It's buzzing, buzzing, my mind; something chases after me but I don't know which direction it is coming from. A flick drawn from inside reaches me down to puncture the button of the fan -off-/'pock!'. It's blades slowzdzdzdzd and come to a stop --- 

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

The silence flows in, draws a line from ear to ear, starts to reach into the corners of my skull. At first I am alarmed, but then quickly calmed. I am looking out my window to cast my sights on the landscape, far and wide and green: Gimel, Switzerland. Le Petit Bochet. I miss its silence; miss its steadiness, like how a feather slowly glides midair before it naturally comes to rest. I was the feather in suspension then, there. 

Day 18/ The Isolation Journals: Book Orchard

Make a short list of texts from your past, even better if you can select particular passages or moments that meant something to you. Without necessarily revisiting the book (you can do that later), start writing about your relationship to it, in narrative terms. When did you read it? What was your life at the time? Write a scene of your reading it, replete with all the ways it made you feel. Then, consider why you needed it at that particular time. Follow it from there—feeling free to depart from the text.

I don't remember much; the stories drift away. Typically I am only left with a feeling, a magnetic force towards the binded pages that demand, every time, spring cleaning or for selling, that I will keep this particular book. That it once made me cry, that it planted a seed in my mind, and I don't know where in the orchard to locate this plant but I know that it is there, feeding my soil for more.


my less-than-representative list (attributed to poor memory)
- The 'Rainbow Magic' series (about fairies and their powers - love em.)
- A few of Jean Ure's books, but particularly 'Ice Lolly'
- 'I am David' by Anne Holme
- 'Prisoner of Tehran' by Marina Nemat
- The Harry Potter Series
- 'White Oleander' by Janet Fitch
- Haruki Murakami's novels <3
- 'Lord of the Flies' by William Golding
texts of my nearer-past omitted

Day 17/ The Isolation Journals: The Handbook of the Lady

Pick out a poetic form and give it a try.

the sestina
1 2 3 4 5 6
6 1 5 2 4 3
3 6 4 1 2 5
5 3 2 6 1 4
4 5 1 3 6 2
2 4 6 5 3 1
(6 2) (1 4) (5 3)


My floor fan buzzes, my mind kind of blanks
Ann Patchett who is this lady
Maybe one day I'll be enough well read
There are so many things to achieve
To be; scientist, artist, someone you can't forget
I like to watch the waves-- they seem okay with waves alone.

Past the fields, at the end of the creek, she lives alone.
If you tried looking again you'd only find blanks
Blanks to the dotted lines, soon you will forget
Unless somehow you chance upon a solitary lady
With only sugar to acquire and cupcakes to achieve
And occasionally, only occasionally, who allows herself to read

Once upon a time and worlds unimaginable, only will she read
Only about misfits of three fingers and outcasts and those abandoned alone.
Not ready yet for Einstein or Picasso; Achieve, achieve
____, ____
She wishes for alphabets only, this lady
Stirs in her soup to happily forget

What was her name again? You forget
Did you not ask or had you not read
The handbook of the lady
Who wandered the forest alone
(Now you know!) Whose sentences littered blanks
Who only had cupcakes to achieve

How much she could achieve
You think, if only she tried and did not forget
If she spoke less in blanks
With less fantasy to read
A lady of her sort should not loiter, not to mention alone
How dangerous, how unbefitting a lady

No name, The lady
She watches the water flow over her feet, nothing to achieve
Worse is the chatter, better she is alone
How happy although she still tries to forget
Not so much regret but in peace! can't she read
Without voices in her head she tries to fire into blanks

Soon she exists alone and ceases to be the lady
No blanks, not even to 'achieve'
Soon you forget and she can finally read

Day 16/ The Isolation Journals: Post-Phone Call

Call someone you haven’t spoken to in some time. Ask what their days and weeks of isolation, or essential work have been like. What is a moment that has been significant for them in recent weeks? Try to understand why that moment in particular. What did it show them about themselves or their families or their coworkers? How did an emotion—a first gut response, like anger—evolve and reveal itself to be something else altogether, like fear?
 
Then, write a journal entry inspired by that conversation. Explore what stepping out of your own experience and into someone else’s brought up, maybe even clarified, for you. What was unexpected? Did it evoke a significant moment from your own life over these past weeks? How has your understanding of that moment changed? 


This afternoon I spontaneously asked my junior college theatre teacher if I could give her a call and so spent the next hour and six minutes speaking to her. It's been a few months, and we talked about some of the changes that have been ongoing because of the COVID circuit breaker. The classes have all gone online just like mine have, and they still have civics classes?! over Zoom. She told me about some funny instances when students would be brushing their teeth in front of the camera, or when her little one would Zoom-bomb the session. I was also concerned for my theatre studies and drama juniors and how their practical exam prep was going, given that now they don't have the physical time and space to rehearse and obtain critique. It must have been hard for Ms Lim, having to discuss with the higher ups about postponing exams and all that. And I told her that we're really lucky to have her, and I really meant it.

It was not so much my conversation with her (we also talked about my tattoos and I updated her about my TSD batchmates) but just a general realisation washing over me, the realisation that I have very much been sheltered from the effects of COVID, but also that I never know if (touch wood) we might be exposed to the virus and have our lives at risk. It's a scary thought to have- we never really know when something pivotal might happen and in this moment we can really only hold our breath while saying and doing all that we can to express our love and concern for each other... extraordinary times indeed.

Day 15/ The Isolation Journals: wow u dumb af

What’s the funniest thing that happened to you last year? Write a paragraph from the point of view of an inanimate object that bore witness to it. Could be your hat. Could be your wedding ring, a streetlamp or the plant in the corner of the bar. Use as much sensory/sensual language as possible to describe the memory from that object’s perspective.


Look- I know you are full of love. Trust me, you don't know how touched I was that you watered me every - okay every other day. I admit, at first I was confused but then I realised you genuinely thought I was real and needed water like any other plant. Yes, it was not your fault that you bought us all together in a nice emerald pot and let my brother, who was actually real, wilt and die. And yes, I could almost feel the pride emitting from you when you saw that hey! at least one of them is still alive! and looking pretty darn well indeed! So it was fine that my synthetic leaves got a nice wash every once in a while if watering me and being so convinced of my aliveness gave you that much joy and reassurance of your green fingers, pale as they are. So I know, I know you really love me...

But did you really have to?!

I can't believe you were so unbudging in your love and faith in me that it had to taking Snipping. My BEAUTIFUL GREEN TRESSES OFF MY HEAD and not only that but also PUTTING THEM IN YOUR MOUTH to test if I was real! Do you know what amputation feels like? I know no actual liquid runs through my system but just because you can't see something like blood does not mean there is no physical pain! I watched in horror when your friends leaned in close to me, felt me up all over - violating my body and denying me my dignity, asking you: "Elle, are you sure it is real?"
In that moment I just thought fine, it's okay if you see me as I am. I'll just get less frequent showers.
But no, it was that hard to believe, and you said no! I was real!
And then it was all out of a nightmare; I heard them rustle through your drawers and fish out a gigantic pair of scissors. Its slicing through the air I can still hear in my sleep, the light glistening off its two fatal blades. I tried to scream but it was no use - they took off two, three of my little leaves and as if that was not horrific and excruciating enough, each of you put one in your mouth!

What the heck?!? Are you children out of your minds?!!

I was barely conscious at that point. The pain that was shooting through my entire body was too much to handle, not to mention the mere thought of my body parts in your disgusting filthy orifices. But can you imagine, the indignity that came with seeing all you monsters burst into laughter?

"IT'S FAAAKKKEEEE"

Of course I'm fake you dumbshit you didn't have to eat me to find out!!!