When I was thirty-one I wrote a self-portrait every day for a year. I typed it out, a folder per month, a page or so a day. For example:
I like valleys, not wind, and sea and mountains only on royal days when I'm ready.
What I like best of all is a hand upon my forehead or the world somehow exactly equal to that as I watch from beside a tree.
I'm honestly selfish, and in lucid, plain moments think that others are mostly dishonestly unselfish.
I've always thought I'd never really been hurt. But sometimes I believe I've been hurt on a grand scale.
For a week in March I drew a self-portrait instead. Mostly patterns, one or two words. In July I went to visit my parents. Hand-written and noticeably blunt. I have been clearing out a filing cabinet and found these, among other files, manuscripts, clippings, photographs, envelopes—many envelopes. Hard to know what speed to take a dismantling of this kind. How much to read and how fast. Lecture notes on Pinget, Cocteau, Baudelaire. A story collection called Cacti and Succulents, three copies. Music notes for Monday Night At Home, a radio piece. An early artist book called Suckling Herd, hand-written on a blotting paper book, with tipped-in extracts from the Farmers' Journal.
Dizzying.
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