Letters to Charles
9.11.2020 “Charles, I've been reading Alice Munro’s “Too Much Happiness” before falling asleep. I don't know if you read it or heard of it. I received it as a birthday gift two years ago. It's a collection of short stories. It makes me think of you and the time you used to send me your short stories. What happened to them? A.” 10.11.2020 “ A, Your question about my stories is apt and painful. Nothing that I don’t know, and I truly appreciate the question, as I need to hear it. It’s rather difficult to not make any answers not sound like excuses, even if that’s not my intention. For me, it’s reasonably clear what happened, and why my output of fiction dropped off a cliff, but my focus is simply on rectifying that problem. Funny enough, your message comes on a day when I finally feel settled with work in my new place. I believe that I’ve mentioned Alice Munro twice in DN. She lives just over the border from here. Maybe about two hours away, I believe. (You do cover quite a distance in that time.) I’ve always wondered whether her stories feel ‘placeless’ or as ‘anytown’ in their setting. Most of her stories describe a similar small town feel; it’s Canada, but probably nondescript for most people, and similar enough to what they see from small towns in movies. What I pick up from her stories, however, is a clear sense of place. If you erase the border, the culture of where she lives merges seamlessly with the area around here.* Most of the details are subtle and difficult to articulate, but her stories feel very local to me. I recognize the people and manners.** * Here includes everywhere but where I’m writing from right now, oddly, as I’m now in the city, which is far outside of her stories. I’m in the place that characters in her stories refer to when they talk about the big city. (Although they almost always mean Toronto.) ** As I completed that paragraph, I realized that perhaps what I recognize from her writing isn’t that unique and, in fact, a Nobel Prize winning author is probably giving everyone a strong sense of place, whether they live in Buffalo or Tokyo or, perhaps, Bucharest. Thank you for the kick. I really appreciate it. Fiction coming soonish. Charles 10.11.2020 “ Charles, Well ... you might have mentioned Alice Munro twice but my memory is something very unreliable (close to non-existent) when it comes to names. I had a shitty day emotionally speaking today. Lately I've had these states that I believe are the closest I get to panic attacks. It's a lot of anxiety for the future and a lot of things to do daily that pile up until a last single drop simply makes me explode. I get very anxious, nervous, aggressive, I feel like crying, like shouting, running and standing very still, like wanting to be alone and needing protection, attention and the care you would give to a child, I want to be left to my own devices because all attention feels like an attack, but also loved and fucked madly ... all at the same time. I feel torn and there's a constant fight between exploding and getting myself back on track. So after this ... let's call it a "day", finishing or better said deciding to stop working at 21.00 I left the studio and on the (long 50 meters) way home I suddenly decided I am going to take a bath. I rarely take baths, I have no patience for them, I take showers. But once or twice a year I get the urge to take a bath. And I regret it as soon as I'm in it because the water gets cold too fast and I'm reluctant to reheat it and I end up spending too much damn time washing. I could never get to that point where I relax in a bath. But today, having the day I've had and probably also having your message in mind, I decided to ponder on it. Why do I hate baths? It can't be the feeling of wasting water. I know the Bucharest hot water pipes are so old and worn that 1000 cubic meters of hot water are wasted in the ground every hour. Our apartment's monthly combined (cold and hot) water usage is 12 cubic meters. So it's not that. There's no way my saving water during a yearly bath would make a difference. The answer is a typical romanian story and it is why Alice Munro's stories sound very american to me. Our definition of small town / rural / past is different. Back in my hometown, when I was little, before the '89 revolution and some time afterwards taking a bath and washing your hair was a weekly business. We would wash daily, but as little as necessary and with very small quantities of warmish water. There was no running (permanently accessible) hot water. We had something called a boiler (we called it exactly so, using the english word, having no idea it was english and that it meant something) that ran on wood fire. My father heated the water in the boiler once a week and used enough wood to heat the amount of hot water the boiler could heat in one go. And the three of us (myself, my mother and father) had to make do with that. We all used the same bathwater. I washed first in the clean water, then mom, then dad. We also had to use as little water as possible for rinsing and we had to be quick so the water wasn't completely cold by the time my father's turn came. And I believe that remained stuck somewhere in the back of my head because although I like the feeling of hot water all around, I never relax enough to enjoy it. And I think this might just be a perfect metaphor for my entire existence. Munro's stories sound foreign to me. I mean I like them quite a lot, but I don't get the feeling you get. I know and recognize the culture from books, movies and music, but it is not my culture. Can't wait to end my days with your fiction. A.”