Reading Day 5
Objects, according to Virginia WoolfEJR #essay, #wandering, #materialism, #memory
An object, a purpose, an excuse for walking halfway across town to pick something up. Today I ran some errands, I got up at 8, read something, cleaned the house, took the dog out for a walk, went to the pet store, was tempted by reading something again, went to do groceries, cooked dinner, and sat down. But I wouldn’t have done any of them, if I actually had to be somewhere else. A headspace. I needed to write this piece of writing, on objects according to Virginia Woolf. And instead, as I imagine Woolf would have done too, I ran errands. The errands being the objects of procrastination. The action that keeps a certain tradition alive. Imagine a sheep farm where no lambs are born. No such place exists. So, instead of becoming an actively writing artist, as I suppose I should be to reach approaching deadlines, I became a wandering artist. I went outside. On a walk, using the poor dog as an excuse. I felt the walls of my apartment closing in on me; instead of it feeling like a safe heaven it felt more and more claustrophobic, like I was living in my own coffin. Surrounded by inanimate things who, when the stillness kicked in outside, started vibrating louder, and louder. Jane Bennett would describe this as vibrant matter, that incredibly loud silence inanimate bodies excrete, in these moments of stillness and inner silence. They try to tell me something that I couldn’t possibly understand, because that is simply outside of my realm of comprehension. Even though they are known to me, like old friends. I know exactly what most of them
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