Hvitur, Hvitur Dagur (Hlynur Palmason, 2019)
I can be a monster sometimes.
My eldest child was born in a hospital, at approximately 09:00, over 19 years ago. My youngest child was born at home, at approximately 19:30, over 16 years ago.
Some fragments:
Running through the streets, to the nearest hospital, carrying my eldest. They are a little less than two years old. I'm frightened. It's around 02:00, and they are slipping in and out of consciousness. I'm trying to keep them awake, and I've over-estimated how strong I am. I don't know how long I can keep going.
It's 13 years later - I've challenged my eldest to be a better human being, to be more responsible, and they are responding by shutting me out - refusing to speak to me. This continues. For 7 months they do not speak to or see me at all, and although each day cuts me, at no point do I regret what I said.
My youngest is 1. Her mother and I have recently separated. She climbs out of a 2nd story window and onto a ledge, approximately 30 feet up. I am not there. Her mother pulls her from the ledge and closes the window. She's crying.
It's 13 years later - my youngest has decided she doesn't want to live with her mother any more and she moves in with me. Her mother spends 2 weeks crying.
My eldest is 16. We're in Paris. They're finding the world increasingly difficult. I'm looking at Paris through their eyes - the dizzying noise, the people. It's been less than 5 months since they started talking to me again - everything is less easy between us than it was, but improves with each passing day.
I can't run any more, the pain in my legs is too great, my breath cold and jagged, rasping my throat. A taxi pulls up next to me and the driver asks if I need help, I tell him I do, but have no money. He says he doesn't want money, and I climb in.
My youngest is just over 2 years old. We're at a fireworks display. I want both of my children to feel no fear of fireworks, but it's too much for the younger one. She weeps and grips me tight with tiny hands, her fingernails growing whiter every time there is an explosion.
My youngest is 15 and I'm screaming at her. The back story behind this is deeply dark and personal. I've tried to help over the last year with patience and meetings and appointments, but something inside me has snapped - and in order to protect her from something terrible I'm now shouting at her. Once I'm done she will run out into the night and I will not see her again for almost a year. No matter how many times I call she will not answer. If I were her I would have done the same thing.
The taxi driver takes us up a slope to the doors of the hospital - he runs me into the hospital. My eldest has lost consciousness. Their skin is ivory white, the palms of their hands scarlet. They're drenched in sweat and barely able to breathe.
My eldest is 4. We're at a birthday picnic. They have taken a small cloth and tiny portions of party food and set up a second, smaller, picnic site. They're doing this as a present for the birthday girl. When they reveal the surprise the birthday girl berates them for spoiling the picnic. My eldest doesn't understand and their eyes fill with tears. As I'm watching this unfold a piece inside me breaks, forever.
My youngest is 4. We're at her sports day. She wins every single event, bar one. Her victories don't come by a nose, but by yards. her physical ability so far advanced that nothing is a challenge. At the end of the sports day she is covered in medals and I give her a cookie from a batch we made together the night before. She laments the fact that she didn't win all of the events.
The hospital have identified what the problem is. My eldest is placed into isolation and needs to be intubated. They are awake now, but don't have the language skills for me to explain that this needs to happen. They stare at me while doctors and nurses hold them down, their eyes filled with confusion and pain.
My youngest is almost 16. We're in hospital together. We wait for hours and hours to be seen and while we wait we talk about the rift that caused her to move out and back in with her mother. She wants me to apologise, but I can't, because sometimes a parent needs to be soft and warm, there for you to hold onto - and sometimes a parent needs to be made of granite, and stand tall against that which threatens those they love. My youngest and I are cut from the same stone, as are my eldest and I, but one aspect which might be more uniquely shared by my youngest and I is a stubbornness that knows no end. And perhaps it is because of this that this rift echoes relentlessly for both of us.
I regret what happened that night, more than I can really explain, but I can't apologise. Why? Because if it happened again tomorrow I can not guarantee that I wouldn't have the same response - and apologising for something that you know could be repeated tomorrow seems disingenuous to me, perhaps I'm wrong. One thing's for certain though - something died in me that day, and has not grown back. It's almost as though my hands slipped while carving, the knife becoming lodged in the wood, and now there is an unwanted notch, the smooth surface marred, for ever. This event was what Lacan would call 'the hammer blow of the real.' It knocked me out of a routine and into something else: an existence of doubt and pain and self-hatred. And although I found myself in a hole, I eventually climbed out, and my youngest and I are tentatively reaching out to one another again, but the clay from the soil in the pit has stained my skin, and can not be removed.
More detailed:
This rift came at a time when I decided, deep down, that I no longer wanted to continue existing. It all started very quietly - a gnawing feeling of anxiety that slowly grew into voices that echoed from inside my head, telling me to kill myself. I found that I was no longer able to walk near a road or stand close to a train track, because the urge to throw myself in front of a truck or train would become overwhelming. Naturally, I focused on this problem - took up a course of medication, meditation, and slowly the voices went away.
But then the rift occurred, and subsequently the desire to continue existing never returned.
People will tell you that they are there for you in these kinds of situations, but that's not really true. I chose a few people to speak to, some others put themselves forward - none of them really listened. They might contest this, but it's true. And for a few of these people it was because they have their own lives, and for that I can not fault them. But the majority of people simply didn't care. Perhaps they said they did with words, but they said quite another thing with their eyes, and their actions. The upshot being that no one really listened, or rather, I didn't feel heard. And so I quietly removed myself from everything. Stopped trying to ask for help. Withdrew. Focused on the tasks at hand. Chop wood, carry water.
So that's where I am at the time of writing - at a place where I genuinely feel no particular desire to continue existing.
And yet I do.
The overriding factor in this decision to continue is simply that I need to be here for other people. I need to continue existing in order to help people. And although this article focuses solely on my children - and they are of paramount importance to me - there are others, some with greater or lesser importance, and some with vast importance, and all these individuals are connected to me by a distinct silver thread that marks the uniqueness of our interrelationship. I play a different role to each of these other people, I am a different person or need for them - and I find myself required to maintain these threads we share by simply choosing to breathe in and out: put my shoes on every day, drink coffee, smoke, walk, continue. I have come to understand that my existence is like a small flickering flame, visible from afar - and that it needs to keep burning so that these people can peer through the darkness and see it, or approach and feel its gentle heat, whenever they need to. This tiny light is almost like a shared scream in the darkness.
I know several people who have been through experiences like this, and from my perspective they dealt with it by removing their connection to those they were supposed to be there for: shunned their children, their partners, their family. Some went insane, some crawled into a bottle, some simply disappeared. And then there are people I know who have performed this action of shunning those who they are supposed to support in what appears to be an attempt to learn more about themselves, or to become more financially successful. Personally, I think this course of action, ignoring those who need you, whatever your motivation, leads to a bad place. As Mark Vonnegut said: We're here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is. But that's just me.
Kant said that making the decision to continue existing in order to be there for others is a 'beautiful act,' and maybe it is. I simply don't know.
What I do know is that despite my lack of interest in existing I have now found a form of transcendence in the execution of tasks. I spend more energy and time on tasks now, and I (as ever) ensure that I perform each task to the best of my ability. The task (whatever it is) gives me a reason to keep breathing, and the traces that the tasks imprint on me are the footsteps I leave in the sand - both micro and macro. Recently I cut back four bushes and afterwards I looked at my hands, a maze of cuts and scratches, and felt that the marks left behind by the task on my skin were equivalent to the shadow I cast on the ground. Proof. Of something. And then there's this: I clean better than I ever have before, cook better food, write better words (or not, you be the judge), make better plans - my general ability to stick to a task and see it through and see it done well has never been stronger - and yet there is no desire within me to do anything - I am hollow, and simply do these tasks because they need to be done.
And then there is the gnawing anxiety that comes with the completion of the task. Because while it exists the task gives focus and purpose, but once it is done... once it is finished... what then? Silence. The void. Thoughts. A space that gives room for those destructive voices to come back, and they must be kept away at all costs. The answer? Find another task - whatever it is. Ride through these periods when you are between tasks as best you can. Yes, this will be complete eventually - but move on, keep moving.
Sometimes, when I'm between tasks, silently contemplating the eternal question of 'What next?', standing still, people show me pictures, or words, or make me listen to music - and I smile and nod because it's the polite thing to do, but I really don't care about most of these things anymore. But then there are moments which are different, and it's hard to say why. But perhaps there is some consolation to be had from spending time with those who either explicitly or implicitly share this experience of having to continue to exist with no real desire to do so, or come from a place of great ambiguity regarding this question, those who keep moving: Joan Didion is one, Ingmar Bergman is another, Lou Reed, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Mark Rothko, Susan Sontag, Hlynur Palmason, and Louise Bourgeois are other examples. Slide down the surface, while feeling the knife cut you to the bone.
Keep getting up, keep putting your shoes on, keep breathing in and out for those who need you. Be soft at times, granite at others. Have no real desire for your own existence. Chop wood, carry water.
My eldest child was born in a hospital, at approximately 09:00, over 19 years ago. My youngest child was born at home, at approximately 19:30, over 16 years ago.
Some fragments:
Running through the streets, to the nearest hospital, carrying my eldest. They are a little less than two years old. I'm frightened. It's around 02:00, and they are slipping in and out of consciousness. I'm trying to keep them awake, and I've over-estimated how strong I am. I don't know how long I can keep going.
It's 13 years later - I've challenged my eldest to be a better human being, to be more responsible, and they are responding by shutting me out - refusing to speak to me. This continues. For 7 months they do not speak to or see me at all, and although each day cuts me, at no point do I regret what I said.
My youngest is 1. Her mother and I have recently separated. She climbs out of a 2nd story window and onto a ledge, approximately 30 feet up. I am not there. Her mother pulls her from the ledge and closes the window. She's crying.
It's 13 years later - my youngest has decided she doesn't want to live with her mother any more and she moves in with me. Her mother spends 2 weeks crying.
My eldest is 16. We're in Paris. They're finding the world increasingly difficult. I'm looking at Paris through their eyes - the dizzying noise, the people. It's been less than 5 months since they started talking to me again - everything is less easy between us than it was, but improves with each passing day.
I can't run any more, the pain in my legs is too great, my breath cold and jagged, rasping my throat. A taxi pulls up next to me and the driver asks if I need help, I tell him I do, but have no money. He says he doesn't want money, and I climb in.
My youngest is just over 2 years old. We're at a fireworks display. I want both of my children to feel no fear of fireworks, but it's too much for the younger one. She weeps and grips me tight with tiny hands, her fingernails growing whiter every time there is an explosion.
My youngest is 15 and I'm screaming at her. The back story behind this is deeply dark and personal. I've tried to help over the last year with patience and meetings and appointments, but something inside me has snapped - and in order to protect her from something terrible I'm now shouting at her. Once I'm done she will run out into the night and I will not see her again for almost a year. No matter how many times I call she will not answer. If I were her I would have done the same thing.
The taxi driver takes us up a slope to the doors of the hospital - he runs me into the hospital. My eldest has lost consciousness. Their skin is ivory white, the palms of their hands scarlet. They're drenched in sweat and barely able to breathe.
My eldest is 4. We're at a birthday picnic. They have taken a small cloth and tiny portions of party food and set up a second, smaller, picnic site. They're doing this as a present for the birthday girl. When they reveal the surprise the birthday girl berates them for spoiling the picnic. My eldest doesn't understand and their eyes fill with tears. As I'm watching this unfold a piece inside me breaks, forever.
My youngest is 4. We're at her sports day. She wins every single event, bar one. Her victories don't come by a nose, but by yards. her physical ability so far advanced that nothing is a challenge. At the end of the sports day she is covered in medals and I give her a cookie from a batch we made together the night before. She laments the fact that she didn't win all of the events.
The hospital have identified what the problem is. My eldest is placed into isolation and needs to be intubated. They are awake now, but don't have the language skills for me to explain that this needs to happen. They stare at me while doctors and nurses hold them down, their eyes filled with confusion and pain.
My youngest is almost 16. We're in hospital together. We wait for hours and hours to be seen and while we wait we talk about the rift that caused her to move out and back in with her mother. She wants me to apologise, but I can't, because sometimes a parent needs to be soft and warm, there for you to hold onto - and sometimes a parent needs to be made of granite, and stand tall against that which threatens those they love. My youngest and I are cut from the same stone, as are my eldest and I, but one aspect which might be more uniquely shared by my youngest and I is a stubbornness that knows no end. And perhaps it is because of this that this rift echoes relentlessly for both of us.
I regret what happened that night, more than I can really explain, but I can't apologise. Why? Because if it happened again tomorrow I can not guarantee that I wouldn't have the same response - and apologising for something that you know could be repeated tomorrow seems disingenuous to me, perhaps I'm wrong. One thing's for certain though - something died in me that day, and has not grown back. It's almost as though my hands slipped while carving, the knife becoming lodged in the wood, and now there is an unwanted notch, the smooth surface marred, for ever. This event was what Lacan would call 'the hammer blow of the real.' It knocked me out of a routine and into something else: an existence of doubt and pain and self-hatred. And although I found myself in a hole, I eventually climbed out, and my youngest and I are tentatively reaching out to one another again, but the clay from the soil in the pit has stained my skin, and can not be removed.
More detailed:
This rift came at a time when I decided, deep down, that I no longer wanted to continue existing. It all started very quietly - a gnawing feeling of anxiety that slowly grew into voices that echoed from inside my head, telling me to kill myself. I found that I was no longer able to walk near a road or stand close to a train track, because the urge to throw myself in front of a truck or train would become overwhelming. Naturally, I focused on this problem - took up a course of medication, meditation, and slowly the voices went away.
But then the rift occurred, and subsequently the desire to continue existing never returned.
People will tell you that they are there for you in these kinds of situations, but that's not really true. I chose a few people to speak to, some others put themselves forward - none of them really listened. They might contest this, but it's true. And for a few of these people it was because they have their own lives, and for that I can not fault them. But the majority of people simply didn't care. Perhaps they said they did with words, but they said quite another thing with their eyes, and their actions. The upshot being that no one really listened, or rather, I didn't feel heard. And so I quietly removed myself from everything. Stopped trying to ask for help. Withdrew. Focused on the tasks at hand. Chop wood, carry water.
So that's where I am at the time of writing - at a place where I genuinely feel no particular desire to continue existing.
And yet I do.
The overriding factor in this decision to continue is simply that I need to be here for other people. I need to continue existing in order to help people. And although this article focuses solely on my children - and they are of paramount importance to me - there are others, some with greater or lesser importance, and some with vast importance, and all these individuals are connected to me by a distinct silver thread that marks the uniqueness of our interrelationship. I play a different role to each of these other people, I am a different person or need for them - and I find myself required to maintain these threads we share by simply choosing to breathe in and out: put my shoes on every day, drink coffee, smoke, walk, continue. I have come to understand that my existence is like a small flickering flame, visible from afar - and that it needs to keep burning so that these people can peer through the darkness and see it, or approach and feel its gentle heat, whenever they need to. This tiny light is almost like a shared scream in the darkness.
I know several people who have been through experiences like this, and from my perspective they dealt with it by removing their connection to those they were supposed to be there for: shunned their children, their partners, their family. Some went insane, some crawled into a bottle, some simply disappeared. And then there are people I know who have performed this action of shunning those who they are supposed to support in what appears to be an attempt to learn more about themselves, or to become more financially successful. Personally, I think this course of action, ignoring those who need you, whatever your motivation, leads to a bad place. As Mark Vonnegut said: We're here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is. But that's just me.
Kant said that making the decision to continue existing in order to be there for others is a 'beautiful act,' and maybe it is. I simply don't know.
What I do know is that despite my lack of interest in existing I have now found a form of transcendence in the execution of tasks. I spend more energy and time on tasks now, and I (as ever) ensure that I perform each task to the best of my ability. The task (whatever it is) gives me a reason to keep breathing, and the traces that the tasks imprint on me are the footsteps I leave in the sand - both micro and macro. Recently I cut back four bushes and afterwards I looked at my hands, a maze of cuts and scratches, and felt that the marks left behind by the task on my skin were equivalent to the shadow I cast on the ground. Proof. Of something. And then there's this: I clean better than I ever have before, cook better food, write better words (or not, you be the judge), make better plans - my general ability to stick to a task and see it through and see it done well has never been stronger - and yet there is no desire within me to do anything - I am hollow, and simply do these tasks because they need to be done.
And then there is the gnawing anxiety that comes with the completion of the task. Because while it exists the task gives focus and purpose, but once it is done... once it is finished... what then? Silence. The void. Thoughts. A space that gives room for those destructive voices to come back, and they must be kept away at all costs. The answer? Find another task - whatever it is. Ride through these periods when you are between tasks as best you can. Yes, this will be complete eventually - but move on, keep moving.
Sometimes, when I'm between tasks, silently contemplating the eternal question of 'What next?', standing still, people show me pictures, or words, or make me listen to music - and I smile and nod because it's the polite thing to do, but I really don't care about most of these things anymore. But then there are moments which are different, and it's hard to say why. But perhaps there is some consolation to be had from spending time with those who either explicitly or implicitly share this experience of having to continue to exist with no real desire to do so, or come from a place of great ambiguity regarding this question, those who keep moving: Joan Didion is one, Ingmar Bergman is another, Lou Reed, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Mark Rothko, Susan Sontag, Hlynur Palmason, and Louise Bourgeois are other examples. Slide down the surface, while feeling the knife cut you to the bone.
Keep getting up, keep putting your shoes on, keep breathing in and out for those who need you. Be soft at times, granite at others. Have no real desire for your own existence. Chop wood, carry water.