Left Paf - the convent turned artist residency - this morning after six weeks. Adriano’s baby (Penelope, a Scorpio) didn’t wake up at the crack of dawn the way she usually does so neither did he, which left me ride-less and in a lurch. I recruited an early-rising stranger to drive me to the station, dog in tow. I believe his name is Robin. Thank you, Robin.
As we sped down the hill in a wine-colored Peugot 305, a white blanket of fog lay below and brilliant sunshine lit up a blue sky above us. The fog disguised Saint-Erme-Outre-et-Ramecourt for a second. This little town in a region affectionately and occasionally called the “armpit” of France was in temporary drag as alpine Chamonix, or another quaint town one might ski into. The department of Aisne is mostly rural, working class, and was one of two departments where the majority supported Marine Lepen in 2017. It was bombed out during both world wars, but especially the first, during which the region lost approximately 100 000 hundred thousand people (there are about 560 000 living there today). Brie is made to the south, and Champagne is to the west, but Aisne does’t have regional cooking to boast about. The post office just shuttered. Agriculture is industrial, think sugar beets and the like. Wild boars overpopulate the area and are hunted. Dominique, the 80 year old guarde de chasse of the area, showed me a picture where 200 felled beasts lie side by side. I saw prostration on a land no stranger to blood.
When Hester and I walk in the forest there are two main things we must be careful of. One is the hunters, because they might accidentally shoot you. You’re supposed to mitigate this risk by wearing bright colors and staying on the path. The other is the boars, or sangliers. These shy and secretive pigs are usually invisible. They turn vicious if you catch them at the wrong time, like if their piglets are around. If they charge you, you’re toast. I’ve seen dozens of deer in those woods, but had never spotted the elusive sanglier until a few weeks ago. Hester and I were setting off on the morning walk, and in the first the cow pasture we pass on the way to the woods stood this huge-headed beast. The cows were a little ways off, completely unbothered. Hester and I did not break pace and I don’t think she even saw the boar.
As my second train pulled out of Paris, I was interrupted in the middle of leaving a work-related voice message. Paris often looks otherworldly, but usually the other world is an older more fantastical one. A mysterious tower that looked like it was from Tatooine, replete with turrets of electrical function and dark glass panopticon windows, emerged from the fog. This fog was wispier but equally opaque. It had dimension; as I sped past, different parts of the tower came into view. How ominous! Apocalyptic! I have never seen this tower before!
My train points northeast and the fog is still here but it’s hazier, more vague, one with the low grey November sky. The train will stop in Strasbourg and then Karlsruhe, which is one of the hardest city names to pronounce in German in my opinion. It means “Karl’s peace” I think, or Karl’s rest, Karl’s calm. In Karlsruhe I dismount, and then board what will be my fourth and final train of the day.
Last night, Kate of Manchester, who will soon move to Glasgow, pulled some Tarot cards for me. I asked about what I was ready to learn next. It all made sense except when I got the 8 of Cups as a support card for the Wheel of Fortune. The 8 of Cups is a water-based card of endings, in which a lone figure turns away from the 8 golden cups in the foreground, and heads into a rocky marsh. 8Cups in a deck I used to use depicts a figure walking into the fog. The Wheel of Fortune is best described as a moment when the tectonic plates of your life are in motion, and you don’t know where the bottle will be pointed when it stops spinning. In a way, the two cards say the same thing: you can’t be sure and you can’t plan right now. Kate said that I was learning a new modality of agency. Rather than an agency that plans and knows, what of an agency less about control, proactivity, individuality, or linearity? If you are walking through a dense thick fog and are totally lost, are you no longer an agent?
There is, literally, a lot of darkness at Paf. Before bed I usually made a round to turn off lights. I would walk into the empty dining room and, not being smart about it, switch off each light I came to, then need to make my way out through the pitch-dark room. When I would take Hester on her night walk, we usually walked to the church down the road. The street lights turn off at 10, so the walk entails plunging into darkness on a silent road in a silent town. The lightbulbs were blown on the hallway where I was staying, and it took me six weeks before getting around to replacing them (and even then it wasn’t I who did it but custodian Éric, at my behest).
Eventually, your eyes adjust. The more you do it the more you notice variations of night light, like the moon, the brightness of the stars when the moon is low. Sometimes clouds look bright at night. When I walk in the dark I take small steps. I’m slow because I am trying not to be loud by bumping into something. I am curious with my whole body and all my senses. I am doing the opposite of performing. I am keenly aware. Walking in the dark reminds you that familiar places can carry unexpected obstacles. In the dark, my body is busy getting comfortable whether I want it to or not. It’s practicing the belief that there isn’t anything to be afraid of.
