enda lettere #15

the pandemic condition: a nonwalk

gentle reader, you just opened a new edition of enda lettere, a wannabe-regularly published newsletter about words and woods.

“And soon, mechanically, dispirited after a dreary day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shiver ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory—this new sensation having had the effect, which love has, of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was me. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I sensed that it was connected with the taste of the tea and the cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not, indeed, be of the same nature. Where did it come from? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it?”

(Marcel Proust: In Search of Lost Time)

if we stepped to the window, you and I, gentle reader, and opened it, we would be presented the same scene every single day: a monkey puzzle tree, tall and shivering in the biting, stale grey wind, wildly eclectic houses across the street, the ornate water tower resembling a decadent butter cream creation—a listed monument with some ups and downs in its colorful history, a young man sitting on its steps, vaping, lush, slightly purple-tinged smoke rising like a cloud from his unwieldy tank vaporizer; the old couple walking their dogs (a timid greyhound and a grubby terrier), their shuffling steps a telltale sign of old infirmities; the boys and girls returning home from school, climbing on the mound in front of the building. if we looked straight down, we would see the ground floor neighbor opening his window to feed the pigeons. an ever hungry squirrel would make its way to the hedge and disappear. we would hear the bus stopping at the church and the seagulls at a distance, or the melodious hum and whistles of the starlings. and looking outside would make us realize with a start: we are not part of this world, being confined to my monk’s cell.

i got very lucky with this almost-but-not-entirely-accidental shot of a hungry pigeon.

now, why don’t we take a walk, you would probably ask—but for us to understand the silence and the circumstances, how I ended up in a dwelling fit for a monk, it is necessary to stay inside. for this monastic life has framed my reality for these past months as I am wintering in Sussex by the sea. simple life, that of any thirtysomething man in Murakami Haruki’s novels. simple breakfasts, simple dinners, simple snacks, records, books, podcasts, occasional client calls, walks, coffee and croissants to go, taking photos, long baths, sound sleep. simple days in suspended time. i know Mondays: those are for weekly kick-offs. i recognize Fridays: a hamper with local produce appears at my doorstep.

“At ten thirty I drove my car to the supermarket to buy groceries. I came back, put them away, and made a simple lunch, a tofu and tomato salad with a rice ball. After I ate, I had some strong green tea. Then I lay down on the sofa and listened to a Schubert string quartet. It was a beautiful piece. According to the liner notes on the jacket, when it was first performed there was quite a backlash among listeners, who felt it was “too radical.” I don’t know what part was radical, but something about it must have offended the old-fashioned people of that time.

As one side of the record ended I suddenly got very sleepy, so I pulled a blanket over me and slept for while on the sofa. A short but deep sleep, probably about twenty minutes. It felt like I had a few dreams, but when I woke up I couldn’t remember them. Those kinds of dreams—the kind where all sorts of unrelated fragments are mixed together. Each fragment has a certain gravitas, but by intertwining they canceled each other out.

I went to the fridge and drank some cold mineral water straight from the bottle and managed to chase away the dregs of sleep that remained like scraps of clouds in the corners of my body. I felt a renewed awareness of the reality that I was living, alone, in the mountains. I lived here by myself. Some sort of fate had brought me to this special place. I remembered the bell. In the weird stone chamber deep in the woods, who in the world had been ringing that bell? And where on earth was that person now?”

(Murakami Haruki: Killing Commendatore)

some sort of fate had brought me to this special place, for I felt compelled to carve out a path to this simplicity, but to attain it I had to experience the occultation of the senses by contracting covid-19 on the cusp of winter.

after about three days stricken by an out-of-body and out-of-mind malaise, the sudden and absolute loss of smell and taste signals the further contraction of my no-frills life. yoghurt tastes white, rainbow chard cooked in heavy cream tastes stiff and velvety, salted butterscotch porridge tastes soft and somewhat sugary, not sweet. coffee is black, slightly chemical water. weeks go by until my perfume finally turns into a faint echo of the pure, symphonic scent of cathedrals, but the olfactory concept of myrrh and frankincense are still beyond my grasp. my favourite scents. mirroring the loss of sensation, I begin to lose the words to describe smell and taste. I lose touch with my memories, too.

casual kitsch as seen at brighton beach in september 2020. those were the days.

a Marcel Proust of our times would have it easy—instead of writing an opus magnum of memories of lives long past, a novella would suffice: the author is given tea and petites madeleines on an unassuming, quiet afternoon. he raises to his lips a spoonful of the tea with some crumbs of the cake soaked in it, smells nothing, tastes nothing, feels nothing, thinks nothing. succumbed to his mild discomfort over the detachment from his senses and the world at large around him, he sits back and, instead of brooding over inevitable alienation shadowing our post-modern lives, scrolls through his instagram feed.

i scroll through my instagram feed and photos unpublished as well, and desperately cling to the hollow image of sitting under old oak trees and eating apricots in the summer of 2020. I imagine their taste like sunbeams, nourishment, fragrant freedom, bursting with joy, mid-afternoon sun over the hills. long gone are the carefree spring days when I masqueraded as a tiny plague doctor, vicious and invincible: six weeks after developing the first symptoms of Covid I still can’t determine if anything is burning, rancid, or spoiled. my thoughts are thinning out like my hair, matted and lifeless around my temples. in most work meetings (not that there were any other kind of meetings in lockdown) I present my findings about self-care, the need for meaningful anchors in everyday life, and yet, in my experience it seems like a long, losing battle to reach for those anchors. “we hope you can learn to live with your new situation,” my parents text me.

this isn’t a still from shovel knight: plague of shadows. masquerading as a tiny plague doctor is quite literal in my case.

once I do, after spending some freezing nights outside on the downs around year-end, I begin to reassess and re-shuffle. simple breakfasts, simple dinners, simple snacks, records, books, podcasts, client calls, walks, coffee and croissants to go, taking photos, long baths, sound sleep. this is truly therapeutic in the Hellenistic sense, I’d make Philo proud. there is silence in my monastic abode. and in this silence there is no hiding from words or fleeting emotions. and first it is startling to hear those words ringing in my head, and seeing those images with my mind’s eye. I had spent nearly half a year in the suspended time, and never uttered a meaningful word.

“But in the final accounting of our achievements, self-care and ostentatious displays of domesticity won’t count for much. We don’t remember how long a Renaissance painter could hold the plank position, or that a great novelist could also bake a perfect sourdough. It’s probably too late for me to make a Newtonian breakthrough. Perhaps we supporting actors will get some credit for obediently staying home and not making things worse.”

Pamela Druckerman may be right about the lockdown-induced unproductivity, uselessness even, this wide-awake slumber: removed, inward-gazing, motionless—a natural contrast to those clueless days we had spent outside, perceiving our realities as “normal”. but if I look more closely, I see a different possibility. maybe not a Newtonian breakthrough, but a step into the right direction.

“As I look more closely, I discover various possibilities, which congeal into a perfect clue as to how to proceed. That’s the moment I really enjoy. The moment when existence and nonexistence coalesce.”

(Murakami Haruki: Killing Commendatore)

let’s head out, gentle reader, let us roam freely in memories of long walks and travel for now; let us remember the heath, the ponds, the hills, and the waves until we all arrive into the new normal.

that being said, my plan is to bring this thing to you every 2 weeks this year. if you wish to pressure me a bit, or better yet, if you think, someone you know might need a bit of time out, like opening a window on a different world or taking a virtual walk through landscapes and literature, do share enda lettere with them—forward, tweet, post it.  

until next time, wishing you light steps,

n.