Hello loves!! Sending you all belated equinox love. The balancing of the scales before a tipping towards darkness. I’ve been thinking about Eurydice, Persephone. Rhythms of descent.
I’ve also been forgetting, a lot. Not as in, I forgot where I put my keys. I’m referring to moments, conversations. There are big, blank spaces where thoughts should be.
I’m wondering if it can even be called forgetting if I’m not sure it was there in the first place. In conversation, input from another coalesces around the blank spot in my mind like water around a stone.
It’s like neglecting to press record. This memory loss—ongoing for a few months—has me feeling irritated, ashamed, and, at times, belligerent. I’m waterlogged. It’s not for a lack of caring. Chunks of conversations just go missing. I trace the grooves in my mind—run through the thoughts and stories like a toy train doing the same circuit over and over again.
I rely on the recollections of others to complete the shape of my world.
Those who know me well know my open face, my slack jawed nod, and nervous smile when I’m pretending to remember something. When I’m agreeing for the sake of the conversation.
You remember? I nod. … you don’t do you….
It’s difficult to describe when retrieving a memory feels like a deep sea excursion … the rattling of a crank to produce something mud encrusted from the depths … an artifact, which someone else has easily plucked up through seemingly clear waters.
I need more context. Anything? Anything?
Rattling around. I think of my grandmother and her dementia. Her innocence and volatility. Her thirst. She rummages the cabinets looking for a drink. The only thing stocked there is alcohol free wine.
Old habits create a drive in the shape of … shape of …
I’m reminded of how important collective recollection is. Re-membering together.
Who will be there when my mind starts to go? Who is here as my mind is going? Has it gone already? I read articles on the brain and trauma.
I touch my wide open face … my cheekbones… identify a new ache… a new kind of pain in my body. The future is vague, threatening. The past is muddy water.
I’ve also been feeling like my Portuguese has begun to interfere with how I use the English language. It happens in small, subtle ways—in an email, in conversations.
I didn’t account for this destabilization. I didn’t account for the co-mingling. What different languages would do to and with each other inside my brain. How they might pull each other apart. How syntax could replicate itself. Insert itself where it ostensibly does not belong. How I might begin to speak and write like a stranger to my first tongue. How easy it is to forget.
How I wish some things were easier to forget.
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3 Creative Updates:
My little neon book of poems, Hemorrhaging Want & Water, has been reviewed in the latest issue of Whale Road Journal! A big thank you the incredible Sarah Alcaide-Escue for reading my work so generously. I want to get “pleasure is a vital form of knowledge, and desire is what keeps us alive” tattooed on my body.
Attention artists and writers! I am excited to share that I am the Fall Tiny Resident for Tiny Spoon, and I will be offering a workshop titled “Rage and the Radial Narrative” on October 21st and 22nd. Join us for an enlivening weekend of creation. You can learn more and sign up here.
For those who are Lisbon local, there will be a launch reading for the anthology Fábricas de Novas Almas this Saturday, September 30th at 18:30 in the beautiful Biblioteca Palacio Galveias. Feeling grateful to have five poems in this beautiful collection alongside some incredible contributors!
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I’ll leave you with this incredible music video from Eartheater’s new album. This video, directed by Andrew Thomas Huang (who has made videos with FKA Twigs, Bjork, Kelela, and others), and according to his IG post, channels the vibes of early 90s erotic thrillers and features Eartheater’s voice breaking glass (no special FX!) captured at 1000+ frames per second. Breathtaking.
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Thank you so much for sharing a slice of your day with me and my words! It means the whole world to me. This monthly newsletter will always be a free offering. If you would like to support me further, you can subscribe to my paid tier or send a donation to my venmo (duffylala) or PayPal (duffylala [at] gmail ) <3 <3 <3 See you next month.