Music Video "Award Tour" by "A Tribe Called Quest" from Marcus Lebov on Vimeo.
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I am leaning outside the windows of my bedroom at my parent’s house. A ladybird explores my window ledge.
It is quiet except for the distant rush of cars passing on the nearby motorway, and some sporadic birdsong. The birds are deep in conversation. Perhaps he is right, it may be spring after all.
My eyes drift along the plume of smoke I exhale, seeing only one bird perched high in the tree across.
It is orange breasted and moves its head with a quick and sudden sharpness. It seems the most delicate thing. When it chirps the tone rises up like a question. It is anxious. Uncertain, neurotic.
You’re always anthropomorphising everything
He says.
Perhaps he’s right, I am projecting my feelings onto it . It could be perfectly happy there, serene, content. I wish I knew what sort of bird it was.
He thinks I’m allergic to nature. This is not true. I grew up with it. Came of age on long walks, picking berries, sipping nectar out of honeysuckle flowers, collecting baskets full of pine cones to burn.
I liked the lavender in our garden best, not because of its smell, but because the butterflies and hummingbirds would always hover there.
When I first moved back to London, what I missed most about the place I’d left behind was the seasons.
Distinctive seasons, magical for a child.
Snow in the winter that fell heavy from the sky and stuck fast to the ground until it came up to your knees.
Breezy springs where crocuses and daffodils would bravely break through the frost .
the summers were almost too hot but then it meant you could run with your friends through the sprinklers and have fights with water balloons or water guns.
And autumn,maybe most stunning of all , leaves in every shade of the rainbow, I liked to pile them up and dive into them, their softness breaking my fall
I finish my cigarette, its cold now, I should close the window. I don’t know what the bird sings about. I cannot speak its language. But why should I? It’s song is not for me after all.
Waiting at the very short queue at passport control the man who looks at my passport has an accent that is really too posh for his occupation. Did something go wrong after Eton? As he gives me my passport back, the chinese man who sits at the desk next to him shouts out
NEXT!
The man serving me shudders, shakes his head while casting a pained look at me, leans over and says to him
No need to shout… it’s not as if we’re in Germany.
The chinese man looks embarrassed. I take my passport back
Waiting at the stand to buy my coach ticket to London, the twenty something Spanish girl who serves me is less interested in the transaction, more interested in how her hair and make up appear in her reflection. She’s cute so I forgive her for this.
I leave with my ticket to buy a sandwich and a coffee at pret and over the tanoy someone says
Carlo Fanni please come to the information desk. Carlo fanni.
I catch the eyes of two burly security guards in flouro jackets . Their faces are lit up like gleeful school boys. I also can’t help from smirking.
Carlo fanni.
I hear a girl say to her friend
He must have really enjoyed making that call. Carlo fanny..
her friend can’t stop laughing.
When I get to the coach stop,, I’m accidentally (I hope ) pushed aside by a group of Italian girls who seem lost. They ask the guy at the bus something in italian, and as I am thinking, Italians think they can speak Italian everywhere well..The boy replys, in Italian. Actually, he is Italian. The girls don’t’ seem to appreciate their luck.
He tells me I can’t take my coffee on the bus but I have nine minutes. I step aside and ask the bus driver if I can take my suitcase on the bus. He says no (in an accent I think is polish) but offers to put it into the boot for me now while I smoke.
When I finally get in I attempt to hide in the back but am soon surrounded by a class of dutch students. I look out the window. Its warmer here, but also greyer and wetter. Why didn’t I pack an umbrella? I should know better. It’s nice to be home.
I would be too tempted to look at your emails.
But there is nothing I’m scared of you seeing.
I’d rather not have it…I’m the type who if I found a diary…would look through it. But at least I’m honest to myself about that.
yes.
I go out on a night with myself. I am taking myself out on a night on the town…my way…no compromises. I will go to as many places as I like, stay for as long or as little as I like. There will be no one to consult or argue options with.
I am acting out with a serious case of (a term my mate b-ski invented) F.O.M.O
Fear
Of
Missing
Out…
Why else would I attempt to go to four events in four hours? And how will I know when is best to be at each space?
When I arrive at trash city limits at the diamond lounge, my first thought is: Waiting on my own is not so much fun. I get more than a few stares. What do people think of me in this turquoise dress, on my own, writing in a lime notebook? Maybe they think I'm a journalist?
And then a woman's voice says
Excuse me
I move aside to let her pass, miss her face but catch her walking off, all long legs and tight black vinyl knickers, fishnet hold ups. Yes… I've come to the right place.
A dj moves to the dj box, a mic is adjusted. Something must be happening. The lights dim and then, to a pulsing hard rock soundtrack, a curvy brunette performs a striptease down the runway shaped stage. Her every move executed with precision, perfect. The act culminates with a dance with firey wands, which she juggles and swallows, occasionally stopping to take a sip from a pitcher of fuel, occasionally spitting out a spray of fire.
After her act I walk out into the street and decide I need to give myself some games to make things interesting, like if at this very moment I turn my head, and see a cab then I am allowed to hail it.
Bingo
I tell the driver the address he says something in german that sounds to me like
*what hour of the street is it?
I give him the number again
I havn't understood, he asks again
What hour is it..?
I say I don't know, apologise for my german. He says its ok.asks where I'm from, apologises for not speaking English. And then I say in german
Um do you mean which corner? Its between this street and this street
Yes, that's what he meant.
When we arrive at the gallery I'm disappointed. I've been to this space many times before. Each time was heralded as the best party ever. Each time I'd walked in to the two packed rooms you could barely move through and left shortly after.
Why was I here again? Oh yes, an exhibition, with an after party with a major dj, and the clincher, everyone would be wearing masks.
As I push through the doorway and look to the dj I realise I have no idea what this major dj looks like. So it could be him spinning,or not. And yes everyone is wearing masks, but by now they have all been pulled back to their foreheads. Giving everyone strange hair, with the impression of metallic headbands.
I consider getting a drink, then pretend to be looking for someone. Then I actually make the effort to fight through the crowd to look at the art, and many people give me pointed glares for this effort. If I wanted to see the art, why did I come now?
There's not much point in staying. I invent a new mission. I will not leave until I have a mask. This is slightly tricky as it appears they are no longer giving them away, so getting one means taking one from someone else. How will I manage that?
I will wait for the first boy who smiles at me…no that could get dangerous. No I will wait for the first boy who smiles at me…shyly. Yes. I will pretend to be looking for someone, and then the first boy who smiles at me shyly, I will go up to him and say very politely
Enshuldigung... kann Ich deine Mask haben?
And after a few smiling boys, I see the one I'm after. The one who meets my eyes, smiles and then immediately looks away. He seems very surprised when I go over to him. And when I ask. He smiles again.
Naturlich...
Grinning now as he takes it off and hands it to me, as if he's happy to have done me this favour. I wait for him to disappear out the door way, before counting to five and then walk in the opposite direction out the door.
After the fourth event, a cabaret night at the kookurburra comedy club, I leave with my friends to an anarchist bar nearby. The bartender looks at me like I'm insane when I order a jackdaniels with soda on ice. He modifies this to a jamessons (without ice, anarchists find ice offensive apparently) and another glass beside it with seltzer water.
I consider joining a friend across town at the club wilde renate, but think better of it, and traipse back in my highheels to the ubahn to finally make it home.
I know where its going, where I want it to go, but I’m not sure how to get there…This I mean. This thing you’re reading now. This thing that I’m writing…
Oh.. but see it’s not just a blog. I mean yes of course it’s a blog. What you’re reading now. But its also part of something else… A show. A performance.. yes I know its not one now but just wait. That will come later.. or at least I hope so.
The problem is, what I’ve realised is, if you are basing something on real life well, its not like writing fiction, when I can sit back godlike, look down at my characters and say..
what do I with you now?
Only… I guess that doesn’t make for great fiction either. The best stories come from a place I don’t really understand, like they are being dictated to me by someone, as if I am not the author at all.
About what you are reading now, the larger form of it. I’m so excited about reaching that final scene, that I am distracted from getting there. Because I don’t want you to be reading this from a screen, I want to skip to the part where you are in a bar or a small theatre and I am performing these words for you. But how do I get there. How do I take you with me?
I said all of this to him last night. He is also a writer so I felt like he may understand. He asks me what I’m writing, what I’m writing about. I try to explain it to him, but when I tell him it comes out jumbled. I’m embarrassed to admit, even to myself that I’m not sure what it is about at all.
I don’t know how to get to the end. Its been based on reality, but now….
maybe… I need to fabricate something…to push it forward
He grins, pauses…saying only
Patience. Something will happen…you just have to wait…
When you walk into the front door down the hallway you will come to a closet, open it and you will see shelves and shelves of our high heels (Hers are the highest). To the right, enter the living room. there is a cabinet from my parents house, we painted it black in their back garden and inside you will find all of our cd’s. mixed up in four wallets. Our books are also mixed up, on the shelves in the bedroom, but we’ll go in there later…
When we unpacked our boxes, our first argument, possibly our first ever argument in years of being together, was about our books and cd’s. She did not want to mix my books with hers, my cd’s with hers. She wanted to keep her things separate. I was offended. She felt silly. So we arranged them together by type, by genre, by artist.
But where were we? Oh yes the living room. The sofa is black leather with white piping, a two seater. It was hand made in brighton by a small company that specialises in art deco remakes. We went down to the shop to go through leather swatches and styles before we ordered. Next to it is a swivelling glass and chrome table, by the white leather bibendum chair. (Not an original, but as stylish as it is comfortable. that company sent us two by accident, and we deliberated for ages as to whether we could get away with keeping the extra one. )
There is a cocktail cabinet,, where my collection of martini glasses are kept, and the matching flasks we got at work, when there was a jack daniels promotion at the bar. We found the dining table beside it in a tiny antiques stall in the south west of England. We took a train out for ages in the pouring rain, to get there.. The couple who sold it to us, advised us how to clean it, how to prevent the surface from scratching. When we agreed to buy it, we made a little toast, the four of us. They asked us about our new place, they liked us I think, they said they wouldn’t charge us, to deliver it over.
She organized everything in the kitchen, I can never find anything but the glasses. There are red wine and white wine glasses, champagne and shot glasses, brandy balloons, All the plates at her request, are large and white. There are heat resistant placemats we bought at john lewis, to protect the dining table from marks.
Walk out of the living room and down the hallway to our bedroom. There is a low dark wood double bed. We got so giggly trying out all those mattresses. The sheets white, white like the walls, the plates, the placemats. The duvet and pillows are filled with goose down feathers,. The two wardrobes and vanity, are a suite from the 40’s. We found them on ebay, amazed at their beauty, their craftsmanship, when they arrived. We liked the idea of putting on our make up sitting at that vanity, until she finally pointed out, in that corner, there was never enough light.
When it became clear it was over, for a few weeks we thought we could still live together until she found a new place, or at least we tried. And then I took a bag to a friends place, and then she took a bag to a friend’s place, and she emailed me, with a tone that was exceedingly polite, asking when would be convenient for her to collect her things, asking to arrange a time.
I stayed away on the day. On next morning, when I arrived, I walked through the flat, , convinced there would be something she’d forgotten, one thing she left behind. But the removal of all that was hers had been meticulous. Every cd, book, notepad, poster, card, photograph, dress, belt had evaporated from sight.
Thinking I’d catch her out, thinking I might stumble across something she had missed I looked under the beds, behind the desk, along bookshelves. But all she’d left behind was her absence, and all of the many things we had found together, chosen one by one.
