Speirin
A year's unresolved questions
Friends?
Why does everyone look so tired? Why can no-one reply to their messages? Why does each conversation begin with “I’m overwhelmed”? Why is an entire community or class of people operating so far beyond their capacity for so long? Why can’t we stop? Why can’t we stop each other? Why can’t we stop ourselves? Why can’t we stop even when we know exactly what is going on?
Is collective over-commitment an expression of a consumer society? Is the undone to do list ethically and aesthetically related to the pile of unread books? Is taking on another unachievable project a socially encouraged form of self-harm in the same way that buying another unreadable book is a socially encouraged form of consumerism? Is that why everyone ghosts on dating apps? Is that why no-one will reply to my messages, or is it because I’m a trans woman rapidly approaching middle age? Are we approaching tasks and projects and emails the same way as a feed of pictures, swipable, immediately forgotten, only there in order to be moved on from to the next thing to be moved on from? Does everyone have too many friends, or not enough?
How can people who like to plan be friends with people who like to be spontaneous? How can order be friends with chaos? How do I accept that most people don’t communicate the way that I communicate? How do I forgive myself for the way that I communicate? Is it just really annoying when you’re left on read? Does it need this much analysis?
What is the word for the collective experience of degradation? Why are all the trans women I know incapable of straightforward earnestness? Why are the most beautiful moments of connection couched in the most vicious and ironic terms? Is pessimism the ruling aesthetic of contemporary trans life, or is that a specifically white and bourgeois expression of trans disappointment? Should I read the news more? Should I read the news less? How can I read the news when at any moment I might be ambushed by hatred? Am I coping or am I just shut down? Is this experience or is this a shell? Am I tending my fire or am I in hiding? Is there a difference? Is this ever going to end?
Am I writing better now that I write about trans life less, or have I grown afraid to show what’s strangest and least palatable? Am I writing better now that I write about insurrectionist politics less, or have I forgotten how to connect with the movements that sustain me? How do I speak to the elders who’ve betrayed me? Do I want to? Is good writing enough? Why is writing always the first thing to go?
Have I become a nostalgist, or is there a way to approach ecological writing that does not naturalise belonging? Am I still pursuing acceptance where it can never be found? Is it possible to write about a mountain in Scotland? Is it possible to write about a mountain anywhere? Do mountains want to be written about? Do I need to say anything new, or is anything true enough? Is there a difference?
Will I rest now, or will I find another way to fill each day with the things I’m supposed to do? Will I be able to go outside? How am I going to retrieve my boots from where I’ve left them? Will I be able to go up a mountain soon? Why is the first thing I’ve done when I’m supposed to be going on holiday to make a list of all the things I’ve left undone? Why am I writing this blog instead of resting right now? Why am I giving my time and creativity to yet another death-making startup machine? Why am I asking questions to which I already know the answers?
Love,
Josie
What I’ve Made
I wrote complete drafts of two books this year. I hope to be able to share news of some of this before too long.
In the mean time, I’ve been writing deranged little fictions in the form of Letterboxd reviews.
What I’m Doing
Going on holiday. I will not, please God, be writing to you on January 1st, but I do plan to be back on January 15th.
It’s been good to write to you this year. Thank you for reading.