Basel, Switzerland
I wake up. The cherry blossom of the neighbouring house has burst into bloom. Bees in my garden, the last of the winter snow glimpsed at a distant mountain, the clear sounds of glacier water running in my dreams. When I was nine, I asked for a cassette player for Christmas. My parents were bemused, but I have it still, in my quarantine room. Half an hour before I sleep every night, I play a cassette of Baul music. It is the music of a time so deep and far in my memory I have to travel downstream across years to reach it. It is the music of old lullabies and words falling through my throat half-remembered, my lips forgetting how to shape them. [before falling asleep] Baul music helps me keep time — but also lose time in the drifts of waves lapping against the music-boat. I think of the boatmen rowing through endless phases of the moon. [after lunch] The insistent drone of a phone ring. Cut. Ring. Cut. I reach out across the gulf in my dream, echoing Tsvetaeva, my skin nearly trembling to meet warmth — and then a flood. I watch Ghibli movies — particularly Kiki. It makes me smile, but also the slow melancholy dreaminess of the movie feels too close. Kiki lying in the grass, Kiki and Jiji listening to the radio, the way time slows down every time I watch the movie — or now, everyday-- Will I see you again? More spirit visitations in my dreams. I start: dear so-and-so, the tulips are glowing with light and I fear their petals are thinner than tissues; dear so-and-so, I met you in a train station and we sat on a bench (we would not dare to be there now); dear so-and-so, the bleeding hearts in my garden have bloomed again and the last time I remember that happening was ten years ago — yes, ten years, and I feel drawn to that plant, its impossibility; dear so-and-so, I am hungry — I am always hungry… dear so-and-so, I want to touch your hands again. It is spring. Pratyusha is an Indo-Swiss writer. Her pamphlet, Bulbul Calling, is forthcoming with Bitter Melon. Her debut pamphlet Night Waters was published by Zarf Editions in 2018; she co-edits the eco/world poetry zine, amberflora.
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STAY HOME DIARYan online archive of diary entries by Asian artists and writers, recording our lives from March to April 2020. |