TRAVERSING Z

Joan Didion

the view from march

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INTERVIEWER
You have said that writing is a hostile act; I have always wanted to ask you why.


JOAN DIDION
It’s hostile in that you’re trying to make somebody see something the way you see it, trying to impose your idea, your picture. It’s hostile to try to wrench around someone else’s mind that way. Quite often you want to tell somebody your dream, your nightmare. Well, nobody wants to hear about someone else’s dream, good or bad; nobody wants to walk around with it. The writer is always tricking the reader into listening to the dream.

I cannot remember when I last wrote. Last night I made the decision to say no (after days of arguing for the best possible schedule for this project, ugh) because I finally sat down and looked at my calendar and realized: there truly aren’t enough hours in the day. Something has to give.

I also realized I need to rewrite Prima Materia in omni. This may pass. But it solves so many problems. So many. And creates this vast, elegant circle to a piece I wrote back when I first started this whole thing, when I was different, a difference I can’t go back to but would like to hold dear nonetheless.

I like vast, elegant structures. They are the bones I need to hang my words on, the meta-outline that keeps me from falling off the edge of the world.

The Didion quote is from the Art of Fiction, the long-running interview series in The Paris Review, which used to be free but is now partially behind a paywall. Which is fine, it’s fair, we need to re-learn to pay for art, whether it’s through government support or direct subscription. It’s on my list for when I’m flush again.

Before you get to the paywall, though, you have the above, and this:

A certain amount of resistance is good for anybody. It keeps you awake.

Which was worth waking up for, this morning.

2 weeks to paris.

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and i am starting to get nervous, a kind of childish don’t-blow-this! anxiety that i haven’t felt since, well, i was a child.  also starting to have wild, desperate wants, such as finding an expert on 18th century postal systems or some way to handle a justaucorps from that time.  this trip, i must keep reminding myself, is about locations first: locations, layouts, distances.  the touch and feel of stone and metal.  textures of wallpaper and wainscoting.  it is about bringing the backdrops into focus.  anything else is gravy, and gravy can’t be forced; gravy just happens.

i am, however, proud of myself that my packing list is already close to joan didion’s.  didion packs well and writes better; i went through something of a Didion Phase in college (and i suspect i’m one of many).  i have always wanted to travel more, and more lightly, than i normally do: to move through the world with relative ease.  this trip is my first solo, personal outing in many years; to find myself instinctively packing and planning just as my younger self daydreamed i would? it is very satisfying.

(i am caving a bit in that i’m using a wheelie, but only because i did not have the budget to spring for a tom bihn tri-star.  next trip, right? right.)

ms. didion’s packing list, from the white album:

To Pack and Wear:

2 skirts
2 jerseys or leotards
1 pullover sweater
2 pair shoes
stockings
bra
nightgown, robe slippers
cigarettes
bourbon
bag with: shampoo, toothbrush and paste, Basis soap, razor, deodorant, aspirin, prescriptions, Tampax, face cream, powder, baby oil

To Carry:

mohair throw
typewriter
2 legal pads and pens
files
house key

This is a list which was taped inside my closet door in Hollywood during those years when I was reporting more or less steadily. The list enabled me to pack, without thinking, for any piece I was likely to do. Notice the deliberate anonymity of costume: in a skirt, a leotard, and stockings, I could pass on either side of the culture. Notice the mohair throw for trunk-line flights (i.e. no blankets) and for the motel room in which the air conditioning could not be turned off. Notice the bourbon for the same motel room. Notice the typewriter for the airport, coming home: the idea was to turn in the Hertz car, check in, find an empty bench, and start typing the day’s notes.