A wee autumnal chat

General Update #3: AKA can we have some daylight again, please?

Just a couple hours ago I got out of the house because I was in a funk and I thought that a short walk would improve my mood. What actually happened is that I retraced the places where, in the past, I used to walk while listening to music (about five years ago, I explored the neighbourhood armed with specific playlists, and so a particular corner of the local park will now remind me of "Be My Mistake" by The 1975, while a certain avenue might conjure the sounds of "Lookalike" by Conan Gray), and I realised how these transitions from one place to the next are now devoid of the magic I used to infuse them with. I tell myself that these are transitional days (after all, autumn is a transitional season in and of itself), but a part of me doesn’t really buy it. We see and recognise change clearly only once it's complete, once whatever we’re dealing with is done changing once and for all. Everything that comes before that is just… confusion, I guess.

I've been working a lot, and when I'm not working, I'm thinking about the fact that I should be working, so resting has become almost impossible. I took a few days off from my office job to focus on freelance work, a decision that puzzled many of my acquaintances. This is not the first time I do something like this: in May or June (gosh, I don’t even remember) I spent a whole week in Italy with the sole purpose of catching up on my translation, and that's pretty much what I'm doing now, although from the darkness of my own home.

Predictably, autumn brought a gust of darkness and sleepiness. 2023 has been a terrible year not because bad things happened (on the contrary), but because I haven't been able to learn how to manage my energy levels. How do you stay awake when it's five in the afternoon but it feels like 10 PM? How do you wake up refreshed? How do you nourish yourself so that you actually feel energised? Beats me. In this haze of tiredness and sluggishness, I do things slowly, still trying to figure out what I can do (not much) and finding some slivers of joy here and there (not many).

Of course, I’m not really reading a lot these days. I found myself gravitating towards smaller, linear narratives after finding out that my brain isn’t good for bigger, sprawling stories; I now purposefully look for shorter, punchier books; it’s going good so far, even if I’m reading at a snail’s pace. Of the things I’ve read recently: Quesadillas by Juan Pablo Villalobos is the novel that almost made me scratch my own project entirely, a book that is wonky and fun and so, so insightful. DallerGut Dream Department Store, by Miye Lee, is a quaint and relaxing read about a department store that sells dreams to humans. It answers the question that Billie Eilish poses in the title of her debut album: When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? Shopping, apparently. I didn’t love the book, but I had a nice time reading it. I found it lacked the depth I usually look for in novels, but still provided the right amount of entertainment for me to finish it. Candy for my brain. Right now I’m this close to finishing Beholder by Ryan La Sala, a YA horror about art dealers, haunted wallpaper and a kid who can rewind whatever he sees in mirrors. Good stuff, fun stuff.

Anyway, you should know that I've written several versions of this post; some where I went into detail about the events of the past months, others where I tried not to apologise for not writing, creating, sharing, doing. There's a peculiar dissonance when you call yourself a creator and, by necessity, you're going through a period where creating something is truly difficult, if not outright impossible. I’m trying to recover a sense of stability, but it’s hard. The days feel shorter and I’m losing track of time (I was in Amsterdam just last month and it feels like four whole months have passed, wtf). I dream of a life that I can safely call my own, of learning how to operate a fireplace or how to build a chair, of having the time to do said things, of creative projects that are born from the spur of the moment instead of incubated for months because life’s just sooo busy right now.

So. May this autumn be gone as quickly as it came. May I delight myself with fairy lights, cup of teas, tarot readings. May I find the time and energy to create and share my creations once again. May Christmas arrive, and with it warmth and love and rest. May we see another truly bright day again.

Yours,
Marco