A Year In America

Originally posted October 11th 2023

Home to me is theoretical. There is no place in the world where I practice. The intersection at Deans Grange, dull stretch of Middleton rd, dead silence at Gish lightrail stop, vague sights in Crowfoot park. These are symptoms of a life not attached to one place. A childhood home is only in movies. I have always been in a state of moving, the longest I’ve lived in one house was between the age of 11-16. Even there, we were blocked in between a train track, a high way and an airport. So even when not moving, the world around me was coming and going. For someone who has always craved stillness I rarely put myself in situations where I’d find it. I’ve lived, so far, a peculiar life, having the privilege to have lived in or just next to four major cities; San Fransisco, Dublin, London and now New York. And these places are full of people not from here. We’re all waiting for the rent to go up and move further and further out. The stability of a childhood home, where my room would look just the same as before, is dream given to me by TV (I always found it odd, if not creepy, to have a shrine to your child’s lost innocence. The rooms always look like they stopped decorating at age 10. A car bed and a poster of a model. A shelf of toys. Trophies from football games. How do they have room to spare for such things?).

I moved into a new apartment close to the one year anniversary of my return to America. Something I never planned to do, but I’ll add there was never much of a plan. I left at 17, briefly returning for the last 4 months of the school year where it became apparent it was be unwise for me to stay. Originally, I was going to go to school in Ireland for 2 months and live with my grandparents. That trip got extended to Christmas and I’d made friends I still talk to today. My return to America was painful, I’d found a place I fit in, did well in school and finally felt a bit of that sense of home. I’d never liked living in America, as a small child wanting to return to Canada, I didn’t even like Disneyland. Returning felt like failure and I was resigned to apathy. Withdrawn and bitter, I didn’t make life easier for myself but I can hardly blame a 17-year-old for not acting maturely. My mother took note of this change and made a plan to get me back to Ireland and once I was there I didn’t look back. When people would ask me if I planned to go back to the States I laughed, as if it would be the most ridiculous thing in the world.

A month after turning 28, I arrived at JFK. My mother and I waited in a customs queue for 2 hours. It was late, and the cab journey to my sister’s place was chaotic, the driver going in circles. My bedroom was small, the previous roommate left a twin bed and a plastic table. I again felt resigned to it. I didn’t mind the small room, I didn’t mind how the apartment leaned to one side (once I took a level and placed it on the floor, watching the bubble shoot to the left). I was at a point where I believed I would never get better. I was convinced I was going to die (from a heart attack or cancer, a fear I’m still working through). In retrospect realising I was passively killing myself for several months beforehand, hoping I’d drink myself into oblivion, returning to America made me feel I had failed even at that. It’s a very weird feeling, feeling that you failed to die, as if it’s something to be ashamed of. Now I’m anxious all the time about dying, I’m so worried because now I want to live, the rug will be pulled from under me (and I’ll bonk my head). In therapy, I’ve worked on confronting it, thinking about dying as not a good or bad thing, it’s just something we do. I don’t need to seek it out or worry about it’s eventual arrival, it’ll find me when it’s time.

This passivity of living has caught me in its trappings too many times. It’s so easy to say “who cares” while internally screaming, raging against yourself and everyone. It feels like a long con, a joke I don’t get. I’m afraid to stop repeating myself. What would this new way of living look like?

I’ve been back in therapy nearly a year now, my therapist noting my enthusiasm for nature and art. We’ve talked about me looking into studying horticulture or botany. But I’m not a scientist, I like being around animals and getting muddy. Fixing fences, opening the gate and watching the ducks run out. Not for the chemical composition of these things. And not for the sake of ignorance, I’m just really bad at maths. But we talk and consider these things as options. Thinking like I don’t have any wont get me anywhere. So we talk about residencies or MFAs, things that would get me out there and cater to my enthusiasm. I don’t know if I’ll end up doing any of it, but it’s fun to think about. Like, for years I’ve thought about doing an MA in Glasgow in War Studies. I want to do something very different to an Art BA, the idea of doing a Fine Art MA rarely crosses my mind, only because maybe it’d kill time. I want to do so many things, I want to work for a forestry programme and drive around inspecting trees, I want to herd sheep, I want to study bronze age metal making, I want to talk to people who know way more than me and take whatever I retain and roll with it. I want to settle down and have a home and a family, I want to travel to Australia, I want to eat something I’ve never heard of. I want my body to feel like the safest place in the world and walk into any room and not worry if my teeth aren’t white enough. I want to be brave.

This past year I’ve struggled with the most basic tasks. Brushing my teeth, taking a shower, eating, sleeping, all of it has been terribly hard. But now, writing this, I can see the change. The habits I’ve made, the routines that have stuck. I was telling my therapist, for so long I neglected myself so when things started to get bad I couldn’t tell. But now, having consistently shown up for myself, when I miss a meal my stomach grumbles, when I forget to brush I can feel it in the morning and quickly sort it out, my lack of sleep means I need to take it easier the next evening, make some tea, make an effort to wind down. I finally understand mindfulness, it is a check in with yourself instead of letting things boil over. You don’t wait for things to get worse. Meeting myself where I’m at does not mean letting myself slip. Thinking you’re a bad person does not make you a better person. Self-pity, anxiety, lonesomeness, it’s all so boring. If this year has taught me anything, it’s that self-loathing rumination often disguises itself as introspection. That being in your head, not talking to anymore, helps very little. The dream of the hermit is a sad one, not an idyllic scenario. Isolation will stop you from hurting or being hurt, but it will also stop you from loving and being loved. You get in your head too much, you watch videos of people over-analsying everything, to confirm some bias, and everything becomes theory rather than living. Most things I have no control over, but I am an active participant.

I don’t see myself staying in the US long-term, I still have the same restless energy of my childhood, knowing I’d leave someday. But it’s not meaningless. Most days I do not share the apathy of my younger self, though some days it creeps in, it never stays long.

Now for a tonal whiplash after that very deep bit of writing, I also wanted to make some recommendations for Halloween season because I love this time of year and horror. I’ve got a list of movies and a few books to suggest if you’re looking for something to get you into the holiday spirit.

Movies:

The Witch (2015)- Of course I recommend The Witch, this is one of my favourite movies and it’s a wonderful creepy historical horror. The fact that they nailed both a historical fiction and a horror is amazing, you can read it so many ways. It’s not fright a minute but it sticks with you.

The Descent (2005)- This film will leave you like you’ve been electrocuted. The building of tension, the claustrophobia, it all works so well. It’s much more overtly scary than some of my other picks if you want a more straight up horror film.

It Follows (2014)- The horror movie that got me into horror movies and it still holds up nearly a decade later. The soundtrack, the weird historical era (1970s? 2010s? 2050s? Who knows!), a looming threat. The atmosphere is everything.

Ju-On (aka The Grudge)- Not the American remake The Grudge from 2002, the original Japanese film is so damn creepy and great even when watching through your fingers. I consider this one of the great horror films, it’s simple yet draws you back for multiple rewatches. It’s unerving in a way I haven’t got from any other horror film. Something about the slowness.

REC (2007)- I hate zombie movies. It is a genre I cannot get into. They really scare me despite being considered the level 1 movie monster. This is also the only found-footage horror on the list because that genre as well is plague by terrible cheap attempts at scares. Not this. I watched it once and never again because it scared the hell out of me. But it’s also a movie I think about a lot because it’s very good and if you want a scary movie this is the one that’ll startle the hell out of you. It follows a news crew in Barcelona doing a segment on firemen’s nightshift, they get a call to an apartment building and are trapped inside by the police for mysterious reasons.

House (1977)- A surrealist, Japanese horror that is a mad ghost story. It’s visually striking, bizarre, someone gets turned into a pile of bananas. It’s not scary so much as baffling.

Let the Right One In (2008)- I love this nasty vampire movie from Sweden. I saw it when it first came out on DVD and found it nauseating. In more recent years, as my horror/gore tolerance has gone up, I’ve come to love it. Really creepy, grounded in realism, a weird love story, what more could you want!

Books:

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson- A ghost story (but also maybe not a ghost story) that has for the most part been horribly retold through cinema since its publishing. Mike Flanagan’s adaption for Netflix is fantastic but a completely different story. This book reminds me a lot of Herk Harvey’s 1963 film Carnival of Souls. I’m going to copy and paste a rec I did a couple years ago (because I’m lazy): “Shirley Jackson’s wonderful The Haunting of Hill House published in 1959 still feels fresh and keeps you locked into the mystery. It is a horror story with a soul (who’s soul? Dun dun DUN!), I found myself as tense as the characters, terrified of every door and hallway. Jackson does not overload the reader with metaphor or comparison, she makes you face the horror as it is. No frills or cutaways. A perfect read for the changing weather.”

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly- I listened to this on audiobook at 15 and it made me realise I didn’t dislike reading I was just reading the wrong books. It’s so beautiful and haunting, it’s one of those stories you think you know but then you read it and see all the gory details. Deserving of its praise.

Pet Sematary by Stephen King- Come on, who doesn’t like a cursed burial ground where someone comes back but different and King’s usual bizzar choices. Go on, it’s a good camp fire story.

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata- It’s a societal horror with some haunting imagery I’ve never stopped thinking about. Stealing another old rec:“A refreshingly dark story about society, being an outcast, trauma and being an alien(?). Sayaka Murata (writer of Convenience Store Woman, another amazing book) grapples with societal pressures in a much more intense story in which Natsuki, a shy young girl, falls in love with her cousin Yuu who believes he is an alien. Natsuki also has her best friend Piyyut, a Hedgehog plushie from planet Popinpobopia who has gifted her magical powers. Things quickly escalate from there (like, really escalate) and adult Natsuki begins another trial of fitting in and becoming herself.
This story is not for the faint of heart.”

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer- Ugh. Such a great book. I remember reading it on the train to uni and walking into the studios dead eyed and silent, just processing this book. It’s not super dark, just cosmic horror that really makes you wonder.

The Warlow Experiment by Alix Nathan- A man is locked in a basement with no contact with the outside world for money, what could go wrong? It’s an isolation horror that will surely give one existential dread and what could be scarier than that?

Thank you for reading,

Enya xx

Poem: I’m Never Gonna Finish Moby Dick

9/10/23

Caught a glimpse of overhead mountains
Beached whales puffing out smoke
like red and white towers, trailing behind the road.
Twelve buckets of water an hour-for her forehead
Fever dry, sandy crevices
Zinc white on the shore.

The whale will die
with nowhere for her to fall
five years later no bones will remain
under which bonfires were placed.
Once upon a time she would be cut and quartered
lighting lamp lights along the coast.
Could other whales see the little lights
and know
it was made of their cousin?
Would they find it comforting to see them in the dark-
No. Most likely not.