letter #25

The case of the unpacked un-packed suitcase

My Dear Friend

Has it already been, has it only been one week since I last wrote? I know that for you this week has been one of ups and downs, with a lot more of the ‘will they won’t they’ stealing into your calculations, more cancellations, more trying to read the tea-leaves to decide what you will or won’t be able to do in the coming days and weeks. (Isn’t Where the Wild Things Are, the most perfectly composed piece of prose? I never got tired of hearing my mother read that Max sailed ‘in and out of weeks and almost over a year’ and then to get home again ‘sailed back over a year and in and out of weeks and through a day’. I say it over in my mind so often I think it might have become etched into the grooves of my brain as it passes through again and again and again).

As you know, sitting here in Adelaide I remain, on a day-to-day level relatively unscathed by this pandemic. Today, my greatest challenge is drumming up the energy to unpack the suitcase I didn’t pack for the holiday I didn’t take. If you’re wondering how it has come to be that I need to unpack a suitcase that is un-packed it’s because I like to pack suitcases using the little packets I’ve bought along the way. (The manufacturers call them cells, but I call them packing packets and every time I say those words ‘packing packets’ I think, ‘How is it that I have not made a fortune from one of these niche ideas?’). So the little packets are packed, but the shell of the suitcase is empty. Of course, if I unpack the packets now before I start foraging through looking for this shirt or that pair of socks the unpacking process could be straightforward. But we all know that I’m going to leave them in that pile under the window, growing more and more ragged with each passing day leading into a month. So in four weeks, when my beloved finally cracks and says, as he always does four weeks after I return from a holiday, ‘Are you ever going to put that pile away?’ it will feel like I went on a holiday even if I didn’t.

I logged back in to facebook and to twitter this week as I tried to keep up with the lockdowns, border closures, the bridges raised, the moats filled. I was back to the moontime scrolling, trying to divine what might eventuate. But I’ve logged back out now … I started getting into meaningless arguments. First, there was the woman commenting on the post about the Tailem Bend exposure site. She was talking about our rights not to vaccinate and our rights to congregate and she said that our ‘Nuremberg Rights’ were being violated. I couldn’t stop myself saying: ‘Good grief, what?’ and then one thing led to another as they so often do. Second, there was the person in a discussion about the Bold and the Beautiful—I don’t know whether you’ve been watching this week, but Liam was saved from his jailed fate when Thomas opened a video on his phone sent by Vinny showing the circumstances surrounding Vinny’s death. But it included events that happened after Vinny died, meaning that Vinny sent the video AFTER he had died. How could that be? I asked, not really caring, because I don’t watch the Bold and the Beautiful for its proximity to veracity. But as she continued to argue, I began first to care and then to feel invested in ensuring that she understood that sure, a recording could keep going after a person had died, but that person could not send a video after they were dead. We—this person and I—did not agree to disagree.

So I’ve logged back out again.

I’ve been listening to Enya a little bit lately. I know you think she’s daggy, but I’ve never not loved Watermark. I find it melancholy and soothing with twists of yearning and lashings of optimism in exactly the right proportions.

I’ve also been listening to those sleep meditations you recommended. And they do work, but I wake up feeling quite disconcerted wondering what it was they were telling me once I fell asleep. What were they whispering in my ear? On a not unrelated note, one morning when I woke up I saw that the last searches I had done the night before were for: cross sections of thigh muscles; and can you join the police in your fifties. I have no recollection of why I was searching for those things, though it is true I have been preoccupied lately with how to keep my bone density in good shape, so that might account for the interest in muscularity. But why did I think I wanted to join the police? (You don’t need to answer that, although I’m sure in your usual way you would have some insight that would make me laugh).

And you? How have you been? Staying warm I hope. Enjoying just the right amount of coffee through your day, and reading a book that nourishes your mind and never overwhelms your spirit.

I think of you often and with love

Tracy xx