#museenkuss

[museenkuss]

January. clear morning light. the first pages of a new journal. earl grey. lace-trimmed cotton camisoles. cold cream. curling up with a new book. honey drizzled on fresh baguette. powder-soft perfumes and vintage dreams. cashmere. the scent of snow. a new poem to learn by heart.

[monstress]

2, 8, 10 & 13 💌✨

2. You know the Faerie Queen is holding her ball at dawn. What dress do you wear to seduce her? (Description or photo)

obviously i’m ready to seduce her with this enticing, macabre fit like an unseelie high lady with gauzy cape ready to envelop her in my arms

8. What poem would a kind-hearted mortal have to recite to entice you intorevealing yourself to them?

show me your face / i crave / flowers and gardens / open your lips / i crave / the taste of honey 

— Rumi

10.  A horrific beast has locked you in their castle. What character trait oftheirs would sway you to look beyond that gruesome face and, eventually, makeyou fall in love?

i’m already quite taken that they’d comply to national health regulations and implore me to #StayAtHome but! if they’re earnest in their declarations of devotion and are infinitely kind to me, then a bitch might be swayed

13. You’re a dragon. What do you hoard?

in reality, empty notebooks. ideally? expensive ornate tea-sets.

[museenkuss]

November. cashmere sweaters and silk-shimmering legs. chai latte. nighttime yoga sessions. a bag stuffed to the brim with library books. chocolate espresso cake. solo dates to the cinema (the scent of popcorn and velvet seats). matte lips. hazelnut butter with fig jam. morning fog pressing against train windows and melting the skyline. jazz by candlelight. rose-scented hand lotion. notebooks filled with mini essays and painting descriptions.

[museenkuss]

“How I transformed my body in 90 days” type video but I’m becoming a Renaissance Woman. Vlog footage of me reading the classics for hours on end, writing vocabulary lists, drawing in my sketch book to epic music. On day 15 I talk about how I’m slowly adjusting to my elaborate home cooked meals and how I struggle with the genealogy of the Borgias. There are montages of me educating myself on history, astrology, astronomy and dressing well, I take horseback riding lessons and go to museums. Erasmus, Machiavelli and Lucretius are stacked on my bedside table.

There’s a segment where I say “it’s day 53 and I’m really struggling… I can’t even write a sonnet. I don’t see any improvement in myself. Is this even worth it?!” The stakes are rising. I’m shown ripping up pages of rhymes in calligraphy. I swear as I rush around the kitchen, trying to prepare my oysters. I sit at my desk and sigh, head in hands, my desk covered in stacks of notes, huge volumes on art history and printed out articles. The dramatic moment comes when I for the nth time try to walk and gesture with sprezzatura while balancing books on my head for better posture. I fall. The books topple to the floor. I’ve reached rock bottom.

Black screen. Voice over: “It was really hard. I felt like Dante, in the dark forest, having lost my way. And then, I realised what I needed: I had to go on a grand tour.”

Music swells again, there’s a montage of me packing and travelling in busses and trains. Landscape rushes past. I read Goethe’s Italienische Reise on the journey. Finally, there are snippets of me in Munich, in Vienna. I take a selfie in front of Parmigianino’s self portrait in a convex mirror, showing off my own elegantly contorted hand. I’m in Florence, breathing heavily with excitement as I walk along the outside walls of the Galleria degli Uffizi. “Oh my god, there he is—“ I film the Petrarch statue, the phone visibly shaking. “I can’t believe I get to meet him…” I whisper with awe. Cut. I’m blowing a kiss at the right Grace in Botticelli’s Spring (I have a crush on her). I’m in the Loggia di Psiche in Rome, I’m kneeling on a bridge in Venice to touch it, “Tintoretto walked on these very stones..”, I’m filming the ceiling of the Camera Degli Sposi in Mantua. I’m in the streets of Grasse showing off a bottle of Fragonard perfume I bought, I’m teary eyed in front of the Concerto Campestre in the Louvre. Cut.

I’m back home. “It’s now day…79. Those were the most unrealistic two weeks of my life. And the most expensive. But now I’m back on track. I feel like I can really do this.” With newfound vigour I get back to my battered Reclam German/Latin edition of Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Day 81, 85, 89. Emotional/hopeful music. I show a Shakespeare sonnet written in beautiful calligraphy. I’m in the museum sketching the composition of an annunciation and taking notes on a Venus by Cranach. I practice a speech I’ve written following Cicero’s rules on rhetoric. I’m back on horseback. I present a cake of some sort.

DAY 90. I’m at my desk. “Wow, what a journey. Now let’s see the transformation I underwent in those 90 days.” I show side by side footage of me from day 1 and day 90. I look the same, except day 90 me is wearing all black, Castiglione style, and has better posture. Back to the desk. “I changed so much. I learned so much about myself and my limits. I’m still not fluent in Latin or Italian. But what I learned is that beauty is everywhere, especially in the struggle, and it’s worth cherishing. And now, I’m back and stronger and more curious than ever. If you haven’t followed me on tumblr @Museenkuss at this point, what are you doing? Click the follow button and give this post a like because NOW, the fun really begins. A renaissance woman never stops learning.” From under the desk, I grab two books and put them on my desk. The Tale of Genji and Sei Shōnagon’s pillow book. “It’s time to expand my horizon.” Black screen.

[museenkuss]

Essentials for Winter (21st Dec - 20th March)

pops of colour (umbrella, tights, scarves, coloured pencils...)

wool, cashmere, cotton, leather

notebook

skincare products with a specific scent to remember this time by (limited edition hand lotion, a body butter I haven't tried before...)

on that note: a specific project to focus on and finish.

barbour or a proper coat

a perfectly useless trinket with sentimental value to keep in one's bag

calendar (full of dates and notes, preferably)

a book of fairy tales

a handkerchief (cotton) for wind-tears or a dripping nose on brisk walks

Guerlain perfumes

rooibos tea and hot chocolate

overdue library books

ballet discipline, ballet grace

the voice of Miuccia Prada (STUDY STUDY LEARN WATCH MOVIES UH WATCH ART READ LITERATURE)

[museenkuss]

Things to write about — whispers in the dark

I. torn silk stockings

II. moon’s shadow

III. what’s in her bag: the woman who visits after midnight

IV. the rustling behind the curtain

V. an unexpected gift

VI. the woman who collects dolls

VII. the voice in the back of the car

VIII. silky furs, sharp teeth

IX. the sugar bowl

X. was it a nightmare?

[museenkuss]

IV. the rustling behind the curtain

They did tell me upon arrival that the room I’d booked wasn’t available due to an unfortunate and quite unexpected haunting. Terribly sorry, they said, we upgraded you.

Which is how I found myself, not in a small room with a small bed tucked against the wall, but rather in a grande suite with a balcony and tall windows. It was terribly inconvenient, of course, since I’d asked for a room with as little morning sun as possible. It’s bad for my health, you see. But at least there was a canopy bed, with red drapes that promised muted, rose-tinted darkness.

I took good care to close them, entrapping myself in a small room of soft bedding and soft walls. The shine of the awkwardly-placed lamp was just enough for me to read by, and here I floated, amidst rustling cotton, for maybe an hour or so.

It’s entirely possible that I dozed off, but I came to when I noticed a soft ripple in the walls surrounding me. Curled up on my side with my head propped up on my hand, I watched the movement dance from left to right, like a butterfly behind a gauze-soft curtain. “Excuse me,” I finally said, “is there something I can help you with?” (The tone doesn’t quite translate, it was a very formal ‘you’. Add some sharpness, a hint of ice.)

The rippling stopped for a moment, something pushing against the soft walls of my enclosure and leaving a hand-sized imprint. “You’re in the wrong room.” (This time, please imagine a dusted politeness: this was a second person plural ‘you’, a ‘you’ most formal, most removed in time and space, but very gentle.)

“They gave me a new one. The old one seems to be haunted.” As I spoke, I searched the folds with my eyes as my guest (quite uninvited) had done with her hands, looking for the spot where they’d part.

“What misfortune!” My guest (my host, maybe, the situation was unclear) kept her hand still and pressed to the fabric, which I appreciated. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

I has moved against the headboard, as far away as I could from that reaching touch. “Terribly inconvenient. Would you like to come in?”

“I very much would. But I fear I can’t find the entrance.”

“Try a little more to the left.”

“Oh,” she said, “there it is, after all.” And with that, the red softness of my curtains parted and she crawled out of the darkness like it was water, with night dripping from her hair and clinging to her dress.

“Please excuse me”, she said (dusted-polite, still), “the sight is much lovelier in moonlight.”

“I find it very lovely,” I said in return, referring to the shimmer of her hair and the shimmer of her body under her dress, the shadow of her bellybutton. “What did you come here for? It’s late, you know?”

Her hands crawled over the sheets, rustling cotton. “I would like to warm my limbs while you dream.”

It was a polite proposition, and understandable with how the chill was creeping in. “Let me feel your limbs first. I don’t like cold feet.”

Rustling cotton, the weight of her dipping the mattress. Up close, she smelled faintly of cool grass and silk. She sat on me like a nightmare, heavy on my stomach. “Please,” she said, and guided my hands with her cold fingertips.

The skin on the inside of her wrist was delicate, the flesh of her arm like soft marble, smooth and cool. I felt the weight of her hair against the back of my hand and the knob of her spine against my palm. The mist-like fabric of her dress tickled my hand as I caressed, briefly, the soft weight of her breasts. My fingertips brushed the cherry-hardness of her nipples and the shadow of her bellybutton. Her hair, night-cool, tickled my face as she leaned in.

“You’re too cold,” I said. But I said it again, informal, “You’re too cold,” and it made her smile.

“Would you mind terribly,” she whispered in the rosy darkness, “warming me up?”

No, I must’ve said over the rustling cotton, although I do not remember now. No, I wouldn’t mind.

Her feet were very cold. I did not dream.

[museenkuss]

May || offline hobbies, cool wind and warm rain, Darjeeling, falling asleep while reading in bed, shower oil, light jackets and tentatively bare legs, a new diary set up, the first strawberries, clay masks, a fresh stack off books on the nightstand, sparkling wine, the first drop of rain falling on a warm-bare arm, a gauze-delicate veil of perfume, new exercise and writing routines, grapefruit for breakfast, notes scribbled on index cards. The refreshing, tart sweetness of spring.