Riposte (re-post)

Sigh. As soon as I'd written the previous post, and even more when I read the lovely comments, I was overwhelmed by how much I love blogging and bloggers and don't want to stop being part of this community.

I want to write. I want to take photographs. After a distinct dry, tired period when I couldn't focus, literally or metaphorically, I took a few the other day that looked like something - and it felt good.

And then, I want to write that I saw a film of low-key near-perfection, 35 Shots of Rum, directed by Claire Denis, about an African train driver and his student daughter in the shabby Paris suburbs - laconically exquisite, wise and beautiful, a bitter-sweet 'slice of life' in the most deceptively simple and complex way.

I want to write that for two or three weeks I chanced to revel in exceptionally fine reading matter. Molly Fox's Birthday by Diedre Madden (spot-on review by Litlove. I cannot put it better). Illuminations by Eva Hoffman, a much less perfectly satisfying novel - she's a veteran and terrific writer, but not usually of fiction - but exciting, important, tackling difficult, shocking themes of life today in a deeply personal way, and along the way the most stunning writing about playing and listening to music that I remember reading. And lastly, clearing out my office (yegods, it had not been cleared for a dozen years and took a solid week!), I disinterred my copy of Siri Hustvedt's Sorrows of an American and that night began reading it for the third time. Each time a greater pleasure than the one before, such a deep and subtle novel - one of a kind.

I want to write of how Marja-Leena's recent mention of it sent me hot-foot to the National Gallery to gaze at the Lake Keitele by Finnish painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela. When I got there, I'd forgotten the artist's name and thought I might have to search for a while, but the strong, clear, cold Northern light drew me from across the adjoining room. That this powerful work dates from 1905 disturbs many preconceptions.

I miss, oh I miss, having somewhere to ramble on about such stuff. I need it. But I must find a way to do this that doesn't collude with my spinning in unproductive circles. Although I crave words, better to avoid words, avoid thinking, if words and thoughts are always being sucked down the plughole of self-enclosure, self-pity. So I'm giving it some thought (ha) and hoping to find a direction soon.