DAY 1, 15 MINUTES
What the fuck. I’m doing it. My editor who seems to believe in me more than I do asked me to so I’m doing it. I have to write for 15 minutes pil. Pil means exactly or on the dot. Good word. So the wind is blowing through the rose bushes and the tall trees across the road, but it is a beautiful day: blue sky and warmish. My editor who I’ll call Bob has a name that reminds me of white. He’s very white. Like Aristotle, and Plato before him. By the way, I’m wondering if not “going back” means like not correcting a letter or something. But I am correcting sometimes as I write because occasionally I make a typo. I’ve decided that it’s ok to do that. Back to white. I wonder if my editor with the whitish name is reading philosophers from other places with people of color, whatever that means. He’s having me read a little volume on Aristotle. I feel like I’m writing in a diary, which I despise. I’ve started journals and never finished them. Always abandoning them. I don’t like the feeling of pressure. This is a bit different, though it’s so hard. Cuz now I have to dedicate time to writing and I’m so distracted and undisciplined. Not like my sister. She’s disciplined. Always was. I loved her impish grin when she was little. Now it’s a different smile. Many smiles. Oh oh oh. This is so weird. Like I can’t stop? Like that Artist’s Way stuff? Nah. I think in the future, I’ll focus on a subject predicate topic matter form pattern movement such-and-such. Such circular language. Not sure I groove to it. Is it the way the author discusses Aristotle’s work? Or is it Aristotle’s language? Some languages are different in their expression, right? Like Japanese may not have exactly the same notions embedded in its vocabulary and syntax. Or it may even change drastically in other ways, depending on context. I don’t know. But I know that Ancient Greek and Latin are one strand of language. There are others. I would like to study linguistics actually. I got bored sometimes with the little book (I have to finish it). But it’s good to know this stuff for reference. And starting points for dialogue? White. Even back then. It’s really astounding that Aristotle accomplished so much so long ago. How fucked up we made his legacy! My mind is wandering. Is that what I’m supposed to do? Write continuously? That’s weird for me. I build my writing. Yeah, it comes out of me, but my mind and the words build the text . . . the communication. It’s 15 min . . .
Tomorrow I’ll get ready for this weird writing exercise so it comes out with power. As if I catch all the winds in my brain and I train them to come out together.
DAY 2, 20 MINUTES
A hand on my thigh. That’s what I think of first when I think of R. It was a hot day and we were sitting side by side in slingback canvas chairs, drinking espresso. He had arrived 20 minutes before in his work van to deliver an electric oven. A gift. We hauled it into the studio together and he asked for coffee. I was dressed in my biking clothes: mid-thigh bike shorts and a wife-beater. He said something about his wife having a health problem, but mostly we just chatted and laughed about village stuff and his new renovation job. And then he said, I want to make love. It was in French, of course. Je veux faire l’amour. Let’s go up to the loft. I laughed and pushed his hand away. He kept at it. The stuff you see and hear in bad TV movies when the guy is insisting. I played along. And there was a switch in my soul. First we went to the studio because he noticed the single bed in there, with a dusty blanket over it. And he sat down and pulled me down and kneeled over me and started it all. But he wanted to go up to the loft, where no one would see us. His body was frog-like, with huge thighs and a squat torso. He crushed me with his weight. Our sweat mingled with the heavy dust. I pretty much pretended. I must have seemed hungry and a little wild. But I wasn’t. We both rose quickly and dressed. He said, Don’t tell anyone. Ever. I said, You either. But I was lying. I hopped on my bike and took off, knowing something. Something about where I went when those things happened. It was as if I was pulled out of my body, but I was still there too. Ok, 20 minutes.
DAY 3, 25 MINUTES
I don’t like this. I don’t have a subject-predicate to work with. I’m too upset so this will turn into a free-write. I always hated that term. Why is it free? What’s free about it? Because I’m free to write whatever I want? I have that freedom. It doesn’t need to be given to me. Plus, it reminds me of all the English classes I took and taught; all the teacher meetings to talk about pedagogy; all those professional retreats in retreat centers where we talked too much and no one argued; the misty-brained free-writes themselves. I don’t have a subject-predicate because I had a fight earlier. K refused to stay an hour longer this evening, and I confronted her. We screamed at each other. I said she was a queen like my mother and that’s why they got along. They are both selfish women who consider their needs first. Always. I think she wanted to hit me. She cursed me in her language. I’m still reeling. I’m not going to continue for 25 minutes. I’m rebelling. Anyway, I have to make a vegetable galette. I’m going to my J’s house and our mutual friend will be there. I wanted to bring something. I always bring things. The mutual friend likes to touch, fondle, hug, caress. She’s the only French woman I know who does that. She’s fat and soft and sexy. My friend has broad shoulders and a wrinkled face from the sun and smoking. She moves like a man. But I’m tired from all the anger and I hate writing how I feel at the moment. Plus, now Bob will see this and it’s just stupid free-writing. Tomorrow I’ll get ready for this weird writing exercise so it comes out with power. With the power of my mind. As if I catch all the winds in my brain and I train them to come out together. One big animus of words. I’m so undisciplined. How is that bad? Who says? I ask that question often. Who determines things in our lives? Why do we obey? I sometimes want to be a wild animal. An opossum that spits. A mountain ram with big, curling horns. A leopard pouncing. I’m tired of rules and habits and lies. It’s not 25 yet but I’ve gotta go.
Vladimir Nabokov writing, using one of his favourite methods: on index cards in the car while his wife Vera drove. Photograph by Carl Mydans. [o]
DAY 4, 25 MINUTES, REDUX
(I’m doing the 25 minutes over again because I didn’t keep track of the time yesterday and I was distracted and annoyed. I’m sure it wasn’t 25 minutes so this time it will be.) I want you to die today. Or tomorrow. Or even in a couple of weeks. It’s too late for us as mother and daughter. You have dementia. And you don’t want to even try. Over the last 5 years, I have said I hate you out loud many times, but not to your face. Today, I said Fuck you about 5 times, to your face. I don’t hate you. But I don’t love you, either. And I certainly don’t like you. And I don’t like myself when I’m with you. You are a selfish woman. And I am generous. You are inconsiderate. And I am caring. We have completely different values. And you were never the mother I craved. I served you to earn your love, but you just kept on asking and not loving, not giving. And here I am taking care of you and hating it. I hate your deformed body and your lack of shame. I hate your unseeing eyes, and the mushy sounds you make when someone kisses you. You are so fake. When most of the people who kiss you leave, you don’t care about them. Anyway, I’m stuck here. And you could die soon and then I’ll be free. It’s so fucking weird that I want someone to die. It may be very fucked up. I don’t know.
I just realized that I forgot to notice what time it was when I started this. How irritating. My arms hurt a bit from typing without stopping, but I won’t stop for another, say 12 minutes and it’s now 3:41 pm, so I’ll stop at ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 3:53 pm. So I don’t want to write about my mother anymore. And I wish I hadn’t started it that way, but I’m so mad at her, it just came out. Plus, I have to spend the weekend and Monday here. I can make it. I always do. But now I have to figure out how to fire K and also hire 2 other people. Too much paperwork. See? Now this is a stupid free-write and I don’t know how to change that without stopping and thinking but if I’m writing all the time . . . typing really, how can I think of anything? I can’t. I need to not be typing and think first and then write. So I’m still wondering if this is the right thing for me. O, now I can write about Bob. Hmmmm. He’s in a hospital bed somewhere in Toronto, with a new hip or piece of a hip? And he’s high on morphine, like my mother. Morphine sounds scary, a poison. And I don’t like the idea of not feeling pain when you’re supposed to feel pain. I guess surgery makes pain intolerable because it’s so unnatural to cut open our bodies and poke around and move stuff and sew stuff. I love looking at cadavers where they explain what you’re seeing. I see those videos almost every day. Just clips, but they are fascinating glimpses into us, as animals, as complex animals. You can understand how the muscles work, and the tendons and cartilage and organs. Amazing. I would love to see a real dissection of a human. So cool. I would have liked to see that exhibit with the Asian bodies in various forms of dissection. So now I can’t think because I’m not . . . my son is calling so I have to pick it up because we had a date to talk (with his fiancée) to start planning their wedding to be held here. We didn’t have an exact time, so I didn’t cheat. I’ll do 30 minutes tomorrow. Ugh.
DAY 5, 25 MINUTES
It’s 2:30 pm on Monday, May 8. So I get to stop writing at . . . ummmmm . . . 2:55 pm. It has become a chore to continue this exercise. Some days I don’t feel like writing and since I’m not a professional writer, author, essayist, memoirist, etc., I shouldn’t have to write. May 8 is Armistice Day here in France. But I honestly don’t know what armistice means or what the holiday commemorates. I’m sure I’ve looked it up in years past, but I forget things like that: holidays, dates of wars, presidents and heads of state. It’s embarrassing. Even in high school, I couldn’t remember stuff. With age and weed, I suppose it’s gotten worse. Armistice. Arms. Lay down your arms. Why are instruments that cause pain and/or death called arms? We punch. How did humans learn how to punch the way guys do in movies and bar brawls? Did we first hurl our bodies against each other? Throw big rocks? Shove? Scratch? Bite? If you step back a bit, a punch seems lame. I don’t imagine punching. I imagine grabbing and pushing and shoving and tripping. A punch seems like using a weapon. That rapid jab has such short contact with the body. You can’t feel the life in that body, the heartbeat, the hot breath, the damp skin, the hard muscles resisting. Wham! And then the fist comes right back, afraid of the next moment. That, to me, is not fighting. Arms (weapons) aren’t for fighting. Arms (weapons) are for killing. And now, in Texas, people are mourning people killed in a mall by a man with an arm (weapon). A common event: mourning people killed in a mall, in a church, in an office, in a street fair, in a market, in a theater. Millions killed in wars. The human way. Shouldn’t we feel shame for the killings instead of feeling shame for our bodies, our mistakes, our anger? I am tired of the human way. I’m envious of Maliq, my cat. I’m also worried about him. His fur is raggedy, and he has fleas and ticks, and he’s skinny. But when he needs to go to his vet appointment, I can’t find him. I never know where he’s going to be. Now I still have three minutes. See? This is stupid. What does three minutes do? It’s time I’d rather be looking out the window, pulling weeds, sautéing leeks, brushing my teeth. I’m spent after I have a thought or two. Writing this way, not stopping, makes me jumpy. Ahhhh, finally: 2:55 pm.
"If I had gotten pregnant at 17, I would have had an abortion. But I can’t kill a baby ant trying to get into my laptop."
MINUS 5 EQUALS 20
One day, a long time ago, I went hunting with G. We were in a prairie in the Yonne region of France, accompanied by G’s father’s hunting dog. All three of us saw the hare at the same time, and G took aim and fired his shotgun. Bob, the dog, ran to the hare, and we both ran right behind him. G was jubilant. He stuffed the hare into his rucksack, and we continued to walk through the sugar beet fields and the little woodlets. Finally, right before noon, we returned to G’s parents’ house. Once the hare was placed on the ground in the barn, we had lunch: black radishes on buttered bread, merguez and salad and cheese. I was sleepy, but followed G into the barn. He tied the hare’s front paws together with wire and hung him from a rafter. He grabbed his knife and made a long cut from the hare’s sternum to right between its hind legs. I watched, fascinated. And then he said merde. He told me to look. And there it was, revealed by the gash. An amniotic sac containing hare embryos. Not so small either. G said, I feel so horrible. I said nothing. I thought of that time because I think a lot about killing. And war. And all those people struggling through war. And I think about abortion. And how weird it is. Like, I’m for a woman’s right to choose abortion if she so wishes, but it’s still weird. If I had gotten pregnant at 17 (incredible that it didn’t happen!), I would have had an abortion. But I can’t kill a baby ant trying to get into my laptop. What would he do there? Where would he go? Imagine being that small and skittering through the inner components of a laptop. When would the ant die? So now I’m done but I have 5 more minutes to write. That’s what I don’t like about this exercise. I’m glad tomorrow is the last day. It’s also weird that I will share all these stupid writings. It’s anathema to the process. Because, one, although I try very hard and quite successfully to ignore it, the it is an audience, a reader. Two, since I’m sharing this with my sister. She’s arriving in a few hours. I’m so glad of that. I want to explode my anger out … the anger I feel towards K. She’s sitting by Colette, looking at her phone, listening to a reality show that’s all screaming stupid people, making money. What the fuck. I want to tell her: you’re fired! You’re fired. You’re fired. And she would finally feel the blow. But that’s too much like Trump. Ewwwwwww. Ahhhh. It’s time to stop!
DAY 5, 15 MINUTES (THE FINAL DAY)
Yeah, now I know why this is bogus. It’s because either you have an audience or you don’t. So if this is a diary (cum discipline), then I shouldn’t show it to anyone. Since I knew I was showing it to someone, I had an audience, as much as I was even shockingly honest. And the time thing doesn’t work for me. Too rigid. Life is too rigid. I’m fascinated by the weather today. Mottled sky, period rains, sometimes chilly, sometimes humidly warm. All is green and lush and sexy. But people aren’t sexy. They are in shells. I had a sexy time teaching mothers and their very young children how to cook together and eat together, with the bounty of the earth around them. I was a catalyst for change, simply by presenting humans with an opportunity to engage with each other in the most elemental of human functions. At one point, at lunch (which the children and their mothers had made under my direction and tons of support), I pointed out that it was as if we were hermetically sealed off from the outside world. The structure has no windows, except for on an upper level. We were under the ugly lights of a prep kitchen and then in the semi dark around a long table (mistake on the organizer’s part) with no access to natural light. Nevertheless, everyone was happy and eating and proud and connected and celebratory and inspired. ≈ç
MARIANNE ROSSANT is a Franco-American educator, cookbook author, private chef, and formerly the founder and principal of a charter school. She lives in Livingston, New York.
Read more in these pages by Marianne.
Add new comment