Sometimes I like finishing work at midnight. I used to like it when I finished at five, but now I don’t think I could do that to myself again. But really, it’s always been the same things that I like. I like the quiet roads, the stars and the dark and the cold. I like coming home, making something to eat and not remembering that it’s the middle of the night. It’s very quiet, I know I’m near the water, there is nobody outside and it’s a very clear and still night. I want it to rain and pour and soak the ground. I like the sleepy kind of awake I feel at this time- like I don’t know what time it is, so I don’t know what I should be doing. But I do what I feel like. I forget about the time. It’s dark. It’s 00:34. But maybe it’s just a dark day.
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I need to read more. Books. But I feel a bit lost when it comes to books. I think the main thing that stops me from reading as much as I used to is that awful feeling of guilt. I should be writing and if I don't feel like writing I should be reading but not this book, I should be reading something to do with my work. I should be researching and reading around and reading theory and making notes. There's no point reading this. I have actually thought that before: that there is no point reading a book because I'm not going to use it. What a horrible way to think, but I don't think there's any clearer way to prove how university sucks the enjoyment and the point out of the subject. No reading is wasted or pointless. So after posting this blog I'm going to find a book on my shelf that I haven't read before, or I'll go to bed and read another ghost story by Charles Dickens. Or I'll read one of my favourite books, which is a collection, or a selection, of Anne Sexton's letters. I will find something. I never finished Jacob's Room.
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I used to love leaving work late. If I wasn't up early the next day, I used to really relish trundling home at my own pace in the witching hour, listening to nighttime songs. Like Mew! I only ever listen to Mew at night or in winter.
ReplyDeleteI hate that guilt too, I felt it so much when I was doing my MA. The thing is, short of consuming and retaining the entire bloody library, I'd still have felt guilty. The key is to read smart. And yeah, read what the hell you want, there still seems to be some lingering whiff of modernist affectations that literature shouldn't ever do anything so vulgar as 'entertain'. Fuck that, why else would I ever want to finish the bastard thing? Whether I'm entertained by narrative tension or from richness and transcendence, I'm still entertained, in a way. Finding enjoyment is the only way you can ever read, and keep reading.