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Auden’s List W.H. Auden wrote a long list of past lovers then debated and deleted in his quest to define love. I tried to emulate but ended up stabbing a beanbag several times – a ritual designed to wipe out the past. Auden’s attempt was more rigorous than mine, he reckoned the plus and the minus of hope and desire, adding and subtracting until he arrived at an answer that satisfied. I chose a more visceral way; buried photos in the garden, burnt tapes, scored flesh, shed tears and drew blood. Yes – it was a melancholy affair! Twice weekly I walked from Hampstead to Belsize Park to sit on a brown velvet cushion – whilst my analyst smoked and her cats took up residence on the chaise longue, which I refused to lounge on. There was clean washing draped on the radiator and the smell of perfume in her bathroom. For a while it was comforting, but the interpretations didn’t resonate and once I was disturbed by the commotion of her parents squabbling, or so I surmised – because I don’t understand Italian. This sound of discord had a familiar echo and I fled with my heart racing – because no one is wise and no one holds the truth and in the end the knife and the bean bag thing did the trick just as well. |