Watching the Detectives
(I’m really sorry about the typos and any confusion they may cause.)
No idea why that song is called that. Maybe that’s its appeal. And I guess in the obvious sense - they are meant to watch us! A twist! Ho hum.
Did you know I was a screenwriter temporarily? It’s awful. Each time you try and perfect a draft - as you (I) can’t write any other way - and then they dismantle it while saying either it’s great or it sucks.
For example: I said it should be in line with Rosemary’s Baby all along - in that we don’t know if she’s right or wrong in her suspicions. I know it’s a Roman Polanski film but it’s an enduring feminist point; and when she is right - oh the sweet balm of validation! It also ties into conspiracy and why those theories appeal to the disenfranchised for whom stories have never been convincing. Not the usual stories I mean. I’m sleepy. Anyway… I was shouted down and we chose a smoking gun. Now the editor has changed it and we are back to my original vision - but with boring dialog and bad expository scenes in car parks, banalities in kitchens; and the character doesn’t know what’s going on, but we do, thanks to genre expectations. Or at least I think that’s what she’s going for. I can’t really tell. Let’s see what they think of the rewrite. I’ve also been told I can’t write for peanuts, which doesn’t feel great lol.
I wrote to say today I am considering a giant move to the country, out of the city. Maybe I won’t have the nerve but I really want the influences in my senses to be birds and trees annd anir and not other peoples’ clothes, shops, cars, windows. Yes, there is nature in the city and I seek it out daily, but it feels like a secret assignation. How I’ve missed you, lichen in the hospital grounds!
But… when I awoke this morning I went right to my front window and saw the wonderful trees in the park and realised I couldn’t leave. This is the longest I’ve lived anywhere, 8 years, and it’s also mine. No men live here. They visit. I like my house. I love my house.
So that was that. Then drank black coffee and thought: yes, I’m not consulting the I Ching or tarot cards - yes it is time to move on! The house would want me to have what I need. The exact opposite feeling and as convicted. Or the same feeling I guess, but opposite decision.
Both these decisions were full of heart and a billion percent (as the young man who once served me fish and chips asked when I refused mushy peas - was I a billion percent sure he asked) certain. And I thought…
Buddhism says that’s the thing - I am not here. Both could be great choices both could be bad. It doesn’t matter. And none of it is true. And maybe that’s why I fluctuate. Not because I’m neurotic and have CPTSD, maybe it’s where I am in my approach to Buddha hood- the unified self with desires is flimsy. But that can’t be because I’m so fearful. Fear I have, but desire, not exactly. The strongest desire has always been for solitude. For peace and quiet. Safety is in there.
Where was I? This deject who lives in the present alone with her coffee… where was I.
I’m not sure why I have the impulse to tell anyone this either. I think because I hope maybe someone has felt some of the same things…
I’m going to start my new novel soon, about the doomed leader of a late matriarchal tribe in ‘prehistory’. She’s a reluctant hero. So there’s that box ticked.