Right now, predictably, Trump is pretending that he didn’t lose the election. Nonetheless I’d love to see him make a quiet exit instead of subject the world to the practical version of his personal reality show. Meanwhile. I’m sitting at my kitchen counter avoiding making storyboards for work with only three hours left on the work clock to get it all D-O-N-E before I’m neck deep in kid-land. Oh yeah. But. This post is all about a little accountability – my friend, Vincent Mitchell, is willing to start a little collaborative project with me and I’m going to kick it off this week. More in the next post.
28 February 2016
A few quick things:
- If you haven’t seen the short film, Shok, which is nominated for an Oscar and has won a whole bunch of other prizes – find a way to see it. It’s a movie made by a friend of a dear friend and it’s brilliant. I hope it wins tonight.
- It’s overcast in Geneva today which is normally mildly depressing but today the entire sky is white and so the colors appear deeply saturated (like the old Fuji Velvia film). A beautiful day for seeing the banal in a new light.
- I’m obsessed with a particular fashion style that the university students here wear; it’s an American-French mashup that’s effortlessly cool. It involves new balance trainers, rolled up pants, scarves the size of blankets, and coats which remind me of David Byrne in Stop Making Sense.
27 February 2016
It’s a Saturday today and over the course of my life that has meant different things. In college, because I was both lazy and relieved to be done with the weekly demands from my professors, I declared my Saturdays a recognition of the Sabbath and thus felt guilt-free while my hard working peers packed up and headed to the library. While waiting tables in the heart of hipster Brooklyn after graduate school, Saturday was the middle of my work week and I was glad to have an excuse to not be invited to attend this or that affair.
These days, Saturday is a often a day of deep fatigue. I am generally plagued by 4am stress awakenings from work problems I haven’t resolved, only able to send myself back to sleep by listening to television dialogue of things I’ve heard before. I then wake at 5am with the baby, who sometimes needs comfort to fall asleep again and sometimes doesn’t.
I’ve been working two jobs for almost a year and added in a big art commission last November. I’m not sure how much longer I can shoulder the burden of these things all at once – each is draining and it’s a lesson that just like friendships, work must be as rejuvenating as it is needy in order to not empty the reserves of your energy and spirit. And so here I am today, on this particular Saturday, wondering what I need to do to wake the fuck up.
I’ve got some answers, but it’s more complicated than straightforward as the things which would make me sing with energy involve a garden or a woodshop, both of which aren’t here in Geneva. And in fact, I don’t even know the word in French for soil or hammer, nonetheless fertilizer or tablesaw. In the meantime, I’m hoping that exercise and drawing will point the needle.
17 February 2016
Dear You,
It’s been awhile. I’m home in Geneva today when I should be in Berlin. When I say should, what I mean is that I had an airplane ticket for this morning, a bag packed last night, a hotel reserved, directions to said hotel, and euros swapped in for francs in my wallet and one best friend waiting for me.
One small hitch, our daughter is sick. She’s been sick with a head cold for about a week, but yesterday her fever spiked to scary high levels and she refused sleep unless I held her. Tonight was supposed to be my first night away from her but at 7:30 this morning, when her feverish body gripped my chest while her head rested in the nook of my arm after finally falling asleep, I decided she was too sick for me to travel.
So I’ve been meditating on the trade-ins that parenting brings: 24-hour adventures in new cities with old friends, getting to see (good) art, and feel the vibrancy of city life which I sometimes crave as desperately as living in the same time zone as my loved ones swapped out for hugs that can move me to tears. I don’t have an answer or any profound insight, just a realization of what one version of life does to another.
I’m growing up. There’s no option but to put her needs ahead of my own. I’m strategic about our family’s present and future in ways I never imagined. And I see the sensitive little wires of myself which overreact and react against logic amidst the calm, measured, armature of my day-to-day.
Day …
So. We, and by we, I mean I, had our daughter. It was an experience worth describing — a story which I will tell soon but not here. Both my parents came for the month and so did Jon’s – which should have been a cluster fuck and a nightmare, but it turned out to be amazing. Which brings me to the present: I’m currently laying in the dark, typing this post on my phone, while our daughter sleeps next to me, a fidgety, jerky, tumultuous sleep. I stay next to her for fear that she’ll wake up and cry – the kind of cry where her entire body goes stiff and red, while tiny tears streak her face as an angry reminder that she can’t use language yet to tell us what’s wrong. And I stay next to her because I can’t bear being apart from her unless it’s absolutely necessary. It’s surreal and boring and leaving my intellectual pursuits hollow but I am fulfilled and happy. And also somehow trying to enclose this new self of mine, mother, into the me I’ve always been. The “me” who enjoys a loud rebellion, heavy bass, flamboyant personalities, and a good old fashioned shit joke. But here’s the thing, without even thinking, I chose the word “enclose” – as if the goal is to subsume this new identity to my past self. A part of me is seeking home in my older self – the comfort of a quick exit, constant motion, and limited possessions. But I’m coming up empty – that woman has been beaten into the corners of my history, and now I’m faced with finding myself anew. Thankfully though, I can see an irreverent shimmer in the darkness.
Day 147
Since I last posted, the year has passed from 2014 to 2015. I heard from a good friend about her traditional Japanese new Year’s activities … which included an intensive 360 degree house cleaning, paying any bills before midnight on the 31st, making a wish and eating Soba noodles and grilled mochi to symbolize a long life. I did no such productive thing.
Jon worked all day on his last assignment of the semester and we then headed to dinner with two couples from our prenatal class to eat curry, stay sober, and watch a bit of “Jools Annual Hootenany” on the BBC. A little banal by comparison to other years, but three of us were nine months pregnant. I say were, because the other two women have now both given birth, amazingly enough, on the same day in the same hospital.
It’s a weird time for me, because at any point I could give birth and several family members and friends are checking in regularly only to hear that nothing is happening yet. So even though I have time on my hands, I’ve got sparse amounts of physical energy and even less intellectually. I feel I should write about what’s happening in Paris (and all over Europe) with “Je suis Charlie”, but quite frankly, I couldn’t have reacted to the news more cynically. I am frustrated about the messages that the European and American governments continue to encourage about Islam and furthermore, distrustful of the proclaimed association between free speech and those governments. So, instead, I sit here in the worlds ugliest nightgown, and watch this little baby inside of me contort and twist my belly as the days dwindle until we meet.
Day 133
On the pointlessness of art…
One of my oldest and best friends stopped making art several years ago, it wasn’t an abrupt stop, more like a transition over several years, from art to art-craft, to craft-art, to highly skilled tradesman. He is now happy and thriving in a career which actually pays and lets him make things — not theoretical things, not temporal statements, but actual objects. When he stopped making art, I felt a deep loss, like, “there goes another one”. You probably know this feeling in some way or another, when a friend or colleague moves into a life that you don’t connect to.
But the simple truth for me right now, is that when I hear of or see most contemporary artworks, artworks which are passionately supported in the world — I feel disgusted and dismayed. For example, and this is tricky because I like this woman a lot. But. An old friend seems to be garnering some success in the artworld, she even presented a TedX talk on her work, which deals with female sexuality. When I see her work, it smacks of self-indulgence and wastefulness, but mostly, and this is painful for me, it seems pointless.
I am surrounded by intellectuals and the ones I know spend years gaining relatively small insights and are devoted to understanding complexity in a way that changes the questions societies, governments, and individuals ask. I have always thought that an artist’s job is to translate our world and experiences into visual experiences; believing that art has a unique form which speaks to the very things that words cannot. However, when we stop doing that and pour our resources into “a message”, which is, and perhaps always be, en vogue, I find myself wondering, “Why did you, my compatriot, spend time and money cultivating that?” and even worse, “What is the fucking point?”
I hope this is a passing phase, one that comes from my own inability to have a steady income from my art or perhaps, comes with the territory of being an expectant parent. But it doesn’t feel like that right now. It feels like a deep pessimism, wrought from decades of a battle to which I have finally conceded. The smallest light still flickers in me. I went to MAMCO last weekend and saw Siah Armajani’s maquette’s — which were crudely fashioned out of cardboard, nursery school tempera, and bits of wood — but were exquisite. I’m going to tend to that light with vigilance and love and hope that eventually, I will look back on these words, and this moment, with the tenderness of age; a tenderness which forgives our earlier selves for their bad haircuts and worst thoughts.
Day 131
Today is the first truly cold day we’ve seen in Geneva; the view from the windows is a fatigued grey, interrupted only by dark branches blowing against their normal current. One of the downside’s of not having had work for the last few months, regardless of being pregnant, is that I don’t ever feel entitled to the daytime-lazies. There is nothing more luxurious for me, however, than curling up in a big soft bed, surrounded by pillows and the right blankets with Jon, in the middle of the day and settling in to watch a movie.
Day 130
It was Christmas this week, my first Christmas with Jon but away from his Catholic family. Growing up Jewish in the South, Christmas was always a lonely day. My friends were occupied, in order of priority, with gifts and family. During middle school, I went over to my best friend’s house in the afternoon; she had five brothers and sisters and we would retreat to her bedroom to gossip or watch movies in the basement filled with miniature Santa Claus’, cotton snow, and holiday detritus covering most nearby surfaces. As an adult, I spent Christmas with boyfriends and their families, relishing the inclusion into what had previously been forbidden fruit — family, games, gifts, and sometimes even church. Most importantly however, I enjoyed the luxury of not being lonely.
Jon is neither a sentimental nor a ceremonial guy. Holidays, anniversaries, even birthdays, are planned for without pomp and circumstance and mean little, if anything to him. So we spent Christmas day as we would any other, with a slight break in Jon’s work load and allowed ourselves to sleep in. With only three weeks left till I’m due, I was left thinking about how unlikely it is that our child will be intimately acquainted with the experiences of a cultural outsider. It’s a strange and disconcerting thing to know that this person, who I share everything with, will soon be formed in ways and experiences that I cannot relate to. Some of these potentials excite me; I can’t wait to get to know her again and again as she grows and thinks and responds in unique ways, but there are some potentials, like her not understanding what it feels like to be a Jew on Christmas, that carve out a new shape in me.
Day 121
A few things have happened since I last posted. L’Escalade, a big celebration here in Geneva has come and gone. It is a holiday in recognition of the defeat of the Savoys in 1602 who were trying to invade Geneva, with socks on their horse’s shoes and tiny ladders they fitted together on site to scale the walls. They were defeated by a boiling pot of vegetable soup, thrown over the city walls by Mere Royaume and successfully scalding the attackers, giving the locals enough time to gather and fight back. It is recognized today by people wandering all over the Old Town in historical costumes, selling mulled wine, and more importantly, chocolate marmite pots filled with marzipan vegetables in what seems like every other store. Tradition requires that the youngest and oldest person in the room break these chocolate pots together (yup, like a wishbone) while shouting something to the effect of, “And thus our enemies shall perish!”
My take on the whole affair was that the marzipan was beyond delicious and the costumes were surprisingly matte and lush at the same time. I’m pretty sure I need a Swiss guide next year to walk me through the festivities.
In other news, I finished my French class at iFage, and it was stupendous. I passed my final exam with flying colors (phew) and am now eligible to move on to the next level. I’ll start back in March. My professor was absolutely brilliant and lovely and explained that she didn’t speak a lick of any other language, until the last fifteen minutes of the last class, when it became clear she is fluent in at least English. Being Swiss, she probably speaks at least five other languages as well. I was feeling good about my French having cancelled appointments, understood a baby carrier demo, and successfully navigated several interactions. Until today. A man came to our apartment to fix something with the sink and I couldn’t understand a word that he said. It was humbling and frustrating.
Our last, of five, prenatal classes was on Tuesday, and I am sad to be done with it. My sister-in-law had recommended it to me, and she couldn’t have been more right. Getting to meet weekly with a midwife and seven other pregnant women plus partners, all of whom are due right around the same time, was priceless. I am slowly making friends with some of the other people in the class, all of whom are great. There is a couple who are Greek and Spanish, they’re both engineers (having met at CERN) and have a keen interest in art, so there’s a lot of natural overlap in our interests. But beyond that, they are both incredibly kind without being soft, and I felt at home when I hung with them. When I was younger, I used to be blind to the signs of easy friendship with new people, always trying hard to be friends with everyone, including the cool kids, but these days, it’s like there’s a flashing neon sign, not to be ignored, pointing out who to hang with. What a fucking relief.
And finally, one of Jon’s friends from Georgia is in Europe to present a paper at a conference in Paris. He was able to present a separate paper here in Geneva, so we had a few days with an old familiar face. The joke in Geneva is that you can’t have visitors come twice because after the first trip, there’s nothing left to see — and it turns out that the same is true in reverse as a host. So I took him to CERN (my second and very different visit), we visited the Old Town, walked through the carnival in Plainpalais, and shopped for groceries in an attempt to not empty our bank accounts for a shitty meal.
Oh yeah, and the Carnival. I thought it was bad enough that the majority of murals on the temporary facades involve fetishized depictions of manga-esque porn stars on children’s teacup rides, but then Jon noticed the “Mexico” funhouse. Someone decided having a farting Mexican, with a penis-like tongue, sitting on top of a donkey, being fed beans by a big-breasted woman whose tits are exposed, was not just a good idea, but publicly acceptable. I don’t think I’ll ever understand this place.
judithhoffman 