Journal: Tulips / The Tate
Room 2 - The following is a test to see how a journal format will work on here!
- Katherine Mansfield
Earlier, after I accompanied Room 4 for her belly button piercing (her eyes scampered up and down the the ceiling when the needle went through - I watched her disembodied for a second, but she said it didn't hurt) and we had coffee at a place with flowers on the table, we got our essay grades back. We felt pride, rising up, somewhere leagues below our conversation. I knew it was there - a gentle, huge face like the surface of the moon, breathing its hot breath upwards through the earth.
I'm reading Sinead O'Connor's autobiography. I'm listening to Adrianne Lenker. All we do on this earth is express. The expressions might vary in depth and truth, but they are the only thing which tells us that we exist, so we love them. And I always thought that it was about making your expression the best, the clearest and loudest, but it's not about the person receiving it, or being heard at all. It's just about expressing. I don't mind if no one ever reads anything I write - or worse, if they do but don't care. I write because I want a record of the present moment, the same reason anyone writes anything.
towards the water
it's not Dickens' Thames anymore, it shines
it rises up to you
it sings of vastness
it softens.
10am I entered London with red roses and I'm leaving with tulips. What happy, persevering heads - they look up at the sun, survivors of twenty-four hours' travelling. These girls have seen half of London. Shoreditch, prosecco and oysters; they've had half a pint of a silly-named beer thrown over them in a pub. 'You're not allowed to be so happy' joked one older lady to us as we began a route of countless tubes. They were swung around Crystal Palace Park at dusk where the purple of the sky turned the white blossoms pink, and when we walked up the grand steps to the absence of the palace. They survived when the weight of the pizza stiffened all conversational faculties, and they sat atop an abandoned arm chair, carried like an emperor into dinner, as we grunted along the streets to B's house with the free piece of furniture. We were laughed at for dropping it by a couple in a restaurant.
I never want to move from this spot by London Bridge. Nothing in the world looks like this, at least nothing from the world I've come from. There are moments where different lights intersect, and everything looks too beautiful to be real. I think I see someone sat on the other bank, writing. In a flowery shirt, with a bunch of sweating tulips. Maybe they're younger than me - maybe older. Could be hours or decades, I couldn't tell you. I wonder if they look at me and think the same thing: 'is that? No. That can't be ---'
Everything eats and is eaten. We find it out together. Assuming they've been here a few years - maybe they can tell me how it goes, but I imagine they'll want me to find out for myself. I think they're excited for me to know. I'd like to shake their hand, but they closer I get, the further away they're sat. That smile, those sparkly eyes... I'm glad I could keep my smile.
God, it's not what life could be, its what life is!
In the Tate Britain
The man on the desk took my tulips. 'No one's ever given me flowers before,' he said, twirling. 'Well, it's a pretty day!' I said, and it didn't seem to make sense as a reply. His eyes shone regardless.
Stanley Spencer, The Wool Shop (1939)
Here you see the flat on our biannual pilgrimage to the yarn shop in Bath. Flat 3 observes while Flat 2 and Flat 4 fight over alpaca wools while Flat 1 surveys fabrics for a new project in the back.
Edward Burra, The Snack Bar (1930)
Here we see a gentleman expertly carving ham, in a style evocative of Room 4's carving of the chicken at Christmas. Both wield the knife in such a precarious fashion that one wonders how it doesn't end up in their leg.
John Duncan Fergusson, Blue Beads (1910)
Katherine! What are you doing here! The day after returning that bloody copy - my bible of the last six months - you come running back into my life, here in shining splendour. I wonder who sat for this portrait. I wonder who saw you and thought Mansfield. You look rather faceless to me.
Mark Gertler, The Artist's Brother Harry Holding an Apple (1913)
Mmmmm this is my apple - you want my apple - mmmm you can't have this apple its too tasty for you.
Gluck, Flora's Cloak (1923)
"Gluck was gay and gender non-conforming, avoiding gendered titles and preferring to be known simply as Gluck. The female body in Flora's Cloak is more realistic than it is often painted by male artists. Flora's thighs are muscled, her breasts are small and slightly uneven. The painting still maintains an erotic overtone, but one where the female form is celebrated in a way not defined by the male gaze.'
And there she was. With flowers emerging, barely perceptible, from the sky. And those huge, soft eyes know that femininity is not confined to biology or legal frameworks - it runs free through nature, flowering on the earth like the spring. Those tiny brushstrokes, Gluck. So tiny. Your hands - across time - evoking a spirit which is in us both: the feminine, detached from the woman.
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