Vinegar, that’s what complacency smells like. No longer the promise of chips.
I have read a few newsletters in recent weeks from writers and been struck by the certainty in some of the pieces that their past self was in the rear view mirror.1 They write as if the old version of them was worse-off than the enlightened present. I don’t know, I’d trust that person more than the me now. They got here. Or perhaps I’m reading too much into it all. We all bring ourselves to the page, etc.
I’m finishing up my current job and moving country in a few weeks, so the future is looming, as it tends to do. Lots of support and positivity in most quarters. I’m excited. If you’ve got contacts/friends who don’t mind meeting friends of friends in and abouts Amsterdam, do get in touch! My boyfriend and I are looking for a 1-bed or studio apartment or a room in an apartment, and sublets are as good as longer-lets at this stage.
Fun fact, lots of countries are having a housing crisis.2
But at the same time, I’ve been a bit taken aback by the intrusiveness of some people’s questions about my plans - just a particular handful. I think those individuals will only be satisfied if they are shown my bank account. And then someone asked me what sort of food I’d be having in the Netherlands. I loved that question. Laughed immediately. There has also been a bit of ‘sure, you’ve nothing holding you here’ from two or three people when I share my news. How is a person supposed to respond to those words? Personally, I say nothing.
I’m clearing out some of my stuff. Various items into the charity shop, others to the bin. Cocktail dresses to a sister, casual/work clothes to a friend. Books are boxed for storage. I keep meeting the past. Things I’ve done, things I planned, things I full on forgot about. Things I won’t get to. Or maybe I will. I’ve rooted out a draft of an old story that I’m now excited about. A nice ticking tab.
But then came the moths. We arrived home one evening to a room of moths. Kind of pretty, in its way. Garden at sundown in a certain light. Asked by my boyfriend how there was so many, I got to say, like a scientist in a sci-fi monster movie, as I threw myself on the bed, “They’ve hatched.”
My stash of wool, which had been lingering in some boxes and bags in a corner, had to go somewhere, I supposed, as I looked down into the bin outside, a bright dead Morbeg mess. When you write short stories, something like this is not just an unfortunate incident, it’s a metaphor.3 Not bad luck, but a culmination of decisions and indecisions. The past is being eaten. I am spraying what’s left of it with vinegar. There are wool shops in Amsterdam.
Sometimes deploying a cliché is fine. Clichés have strong foundations by their nature
Any leads would be appreciated!
Knitting is both a meaningful and meaningless hobby. I have a draft of a personal essay about knitting that might not turn into anything, I feel very distant from the the personal part of it right now, it’s been sitting untouched for about a year now.
I sought out some writing on knitting as that essay was percolating and this article ‘How Knitting Saved My Life. Twice.’ which was also in Ann Patchett’s These Precious Days - I picked it up in Elliot Bay Book Company in Seattle, I like to remember lovely book shops - was my favourite I came across.
You can access most papers via your library, by the way. Always worth checking their apps before you give your data away for a free trial etc.