It’s June 2024. The elderflowers are blooming and Brian Cranston is an old man.
I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a chart in which to document the various stages of all the local plants. Each plant would have it’s own column, and then there would be columns for blooming time (exact dates and stages); length of blooming; colour of flowers; types of growth (young shoots, seed pods, etc); location in the neighbourhood; feelings evoked. I would like for it be very precise and well rounded, like data collection. The chart would not provide any use to anyone but me. I could keep on top of it and add to it every day for years to come, and in the end it won’t really be able to offer anything other than maybe some insight into how dedicated I can be. I think it would be worth it just for that.
There’s something stopping me from doing it in this way. The poet in me wants to make it beautiful. I worry that I will cease to be an artist and become a data collector instead. I am dreaming of linen bound note books with light pencil sketches of each plant, notes written in italics, dried flowers glued in and their names scrawled in latin beside them. I always have to make a big song and dance out of things. The girl in me wants to make it pretty and delicate and expressive. A chart feels pragmatic and goes against my girlish instincts. Maybe that’s why I’m called to it; it’s an opportunity for expansion. Perhaps it is an opportunity to organise my passions, instead of always letting them fragment and scatter themselves around. Maybe I need to painstakingly categorise in order to feel like I’ve really got to the bottom of things. I guess there can be no harm in trying it out, even if just to tick it off a list, say I tried it, and move on.
Becoming more organised doesn’t have to be a sacrifice. It can just be a new way - a better way - to be passionate.
I’m envious of those who can organise in this way. To love something enough to give it extreme structure. I love documenting the plants, and it’s something I dedicate a lot of time to, but I often feel I have nothing to show for it. I just don’t think I’ve honoured it enough with poetry. Maybe if I gave it structure, applied a strict process, it would feel more like I’d loved it properly. What I want is one point of focus, where I can direct all of that time and energy and actually have something cohesive to show for it. Am I about to start making a chart for the flowers?
I think I might be. I think documenting in and of itself is poetic. Just the fact that we are so desperate to hold onto things, that we cling onto moments in the hope that time won’t pass us by. Taking photos on our phones that we never look at. Writing ourselves notes that we will never read again. Keeping momentos that fill up our shelves and yet fail to evoke feelings of remembrance due to their oversaturation in our field of vision. Surrounding ourselves with memories to the point we aren’t even capable of experiencing anything close to reminiscence. We remember the feeling of nostalgia and long to feel it again, so we do all we can to try and elicit it, not realising that in doing so we are pushing the feeling even further away. Nostalgia and reminiscence come naturally and in their own way, by their very nature they are unexpected, that’s what makes them so profound. So much of our documenting selves in a byproduct of our obsession with nostalgia.
We’re all just trying to stop time from moving so fast. So far I’ve used art to slow down time, and it’s worked nicely. The last few years are clearly documented in sketch books and if you look back through them you can see the progression of my practice, as well as the ways in which I’ve changed as a person, the life events and people I’ve processed, the feelings I’ve transmuted. I wonder if I can expand that effect with a pragmatic approach - a new layer of the process.
Perhaps I can deepen my passion with structure.
Bryan Cranston is a good measure of time. When I want to see how much time has passed I’ll google recent photos of him and look into his eyes. Lately this has me feeling a certain way. The way you look at your grandparents and think wow they’re getting old. I remember when my Nan used to drink Baileys and smoke cigarettes. Now she drinks wine and hasn’t smoked in ten years, though the lines on her face all point to the centre of her mouth. The way she tells me a story and I think I’ve heard this one before, but I let her tell it anyway, just to hear the tender recollections of an old woman who used to be a young woman who used to be a girl. She tells me about Fulham back in the day, before the coffee shops and the boutiques. She tell me about the estate she grew up on, how those flats cost millions now. But she’s not bitter, she’s just observing the passing of time.
I measure time by observing the people around me.
It’s June 2024. Time is passing and I’m trying to document as much of it as I can. I have an 8 year old son. I look at photos of the garden when we first moved in - it feels like an entirely new space now. It’s June 2024. Time is passing and today not one, but two videos have told me I should be making elderflower cordial, and I might just do that. My yellow solstice roses have died, I think I will preserve them. It’s June 2024. Time is passing and I can’t stop thinking about the age of innocence, I rewatch it once a year around the same time. The yellow roses are a symbol of strength. I think for that reason I don’t find them that appealing. I prefer the pink ones. It’s June 2024. Time is passing, and Bryan Cranston is an old man.
Nem. x