Day 5: January 31
In the abyss there is this line from Tim Lott whose stackable newsletter I just subscribed to:
There are countless reasons not to write a novel, and only one to actually do it.
Because I must.
In the abyss are the old trees in the Parque Maria Luisa. I think I have to go to them today, the old trees. Some of them are called “Laurel de las Indias” - not from India but somewhere along the sea route to India, they were found and brought back. They feel connected to banyans with their elephant skin trunks and leaves and the massiveness of roots. I danced around those trees this summer, in a video for The Good Manners, speaking my truth under them.
The old woman says: Some of us were once trees. Others were stones. You are like me. You come from the lineage of tree. You remember bark, the river of sap, the roots of love, the branches stretched to sky, the secret knotholes and slipholes, the pregnancy of blooms and flowers…
He comes from the lineage of stone. He remembers dark, underground, pressure of heat on rock, the water that rounds pebbles, the fractures that break volcanoes, the force of mountains being pushed up towards sky.
This from my novel that feels almost done. The Village at Night.
One dawn, a girl appeared. She was eight or night, She had long hair and dark eyes
as dark as obsidian when light finds it? Esperança asked
Yes.
But I have dreamed her.
I know you have.
I have seen her, Esperança felt her breath quickening. I have seen her walking away from ashes, from broken roots where once stood a great tree.
Yes, The old woman is seeing straight into Esperança . I am forgetting the story. You will remember.
All that is left is to remember.
