Thank you Hamburg. I enjoyed driving past the Landungsbrücken and taking in the view of the harbour. I saw huge container ships sailing out to sea. My walks in Hirschpark, Baurs Park and along the Elbe were beautiful.
My meetings with Sabine, Susanne and Birgit have been great and inspiring.
She constantly complains about the burden of being old, but on the whole my mother is doing well. I'm happy about that. It was a pleasure to meet her friend Hannah, as well as a couple she knows from the time when my father worked at the Universitätsklinik Eppendorf. I wish she would enjoy life more.
Processing Linda Hayford and Marina De Remedios, Bucerius Kunst Forum
Last Saturday there was a ray of hope. At the invitation of the Hamburger Kunstmeile, the French artist Saïdou Lehlou curated a performance program called CORE that covered the entire day. I was lucky enough to see all of the performances. Really great!
CORE
Ndoho Ange and Sophye Soliveau
Mackenzy Bergile
Autothérapie: Unbolting colonial statues from our consciousness
Nabiki
Older than the Sun
Saïdou Lelouh and Johanna Faye
Earthbound
Linda Hayford and Marina de Remedios
Processing
Otherwise, my experience is that people here have just as little time as in Gambia, but it's somehow different.
It is somehow considered good form to have no time and to make yourself scarce. Especially in the neighborhood of Blankenese, where I grew up and lived until I graduated from high school, the tone is often ironic and disrespectful, sometimes even rude and then again very arrogant. The direct manner is more accepted than the polite, distant manner, which I find much more pleasant - Die feine englische Art as it is called here. I haven't managed to regress in the short time I've been in Hamburg. But I feel insecure and no longer as free as when I arrived ten days ago. If I stayed here any longer, I would become depressed, which means that I am avoiding depression that is already on the horizon.
Thursday, 8
Excuse my reluctance to write at the moment. I'm more busy planning than gathering my thoughts. In preparation for my trip to Germany and Switzerland.
This morning I saw an excerpt from a YT interview with Patti Smith about solitude that I wanted to transcribe but then discarded because I found it wasn't really necessary. But now I'm going to do it because it is necessary. When I was looking for the specific part of the video, I came across the part about writing. It's an interesting interview, not just those two parts.
To the question if writing is like a form of prayer fo her, Patti Smith answers:
Well, writing is many things. I write every day.
I write every morning. And intermittendly through the day.
sometimes it comes out like a prayer
sometimes it's funny
Sometimes it's just my imagination let loose.
A lot of improvising. I'm quite an improviser style writer.
I don't think about what I'm gonna write
I just sit down and just see where I go.
And that's why I like this style of
a sort of different kind of memoir
I don't even know what I call it
But I like this sort of semi fitional,
autobiographical fiction almost
and although there's a lot of fact in there too.
Real people who really exist.
But it's many things for me.
And sometimes it has practical applications.
I might be writing in an introduction to an Emily Brontë book,
so I have to study Emily Brontë and think about her and try to picture her.
So that's a different kind of writing.
So it just depends what I'm doing.
To the question if her relationsship to being alone has changed over time:
Yes, certainly.
When I was really young, I liked being with my siblings,
but didn't like being around people a whole lot.
I just liked to be with my books.
Of course when I was a teenager, like any teenager, I liked my friends
and then I wanted boys, and always wanted a boyfriend,
but after my husband passed away, and my children grew,
I found myself alone quite a bit,
and then I found that I no longer
really craved companionship.
I was fine on my own, and I really don't get lonely.
But I do have my own companions.
Writing is my friend. This book was my friend.
When I was done with that book I felt really sad.
It was like my toothbrush. No, don't go.
but I have good friends. I just...
I like my solitude, but I'm not a hermit.
Like my idea of solitude is
going into a café, a quiet café
and sitting in a little corner and writing.
So there's action. There's coffee.
Maybe there's music playing
But I still feel a little sense of aloneness.
I'm not that kind of person that has to be in
a room alone with, you know,
no one bothering me. It's not like that.
It's more like a lack of responsibility.
I'm just roaming around, doing my thing, and
I can sit and write in a cafeteria
with all kinds of stuff going on,
and the clanking of silverware,
but I just have my little seat and my coffee
and I'm totally happy.
Patti Smith Interview 2019
Thursday, 1
Art Space Work of the Month
Rudolf Riester (1904-99) Place du Forum, Arles
etching, 1976, 43 x 35 cm