Baryshnikov, Russian Poems, тоска, Pretty Salads and Dim Sum
I went to see Baryshnikov reading Brodsky at the Apollo the other day. Completely sold out and packed full of Russians. Misha, whose beauty has in no way been diminished with age (and he took his clothes off to prove it), read his dead friend’s poems, sitting in front of and dancing inside of a kind of greenhouse that looked like an abandoned railway station somewhere in Russia. The surtitles glanced off the top of the building like smoke, words of emptiness and despair, of pain and loneliness. And, of course, Baryshnikov is not young, the Soviet Union, from which both he and Brodsky escaped, is gone, but so is so much that was wonderful about Russia and the whole performance seemed to be about loss and decay. This is what I wander around feeling all the time and for that hour and a half I was not alone. When everyone jumped to their feet with a roar, tears streaming down their (our) faces, I was one of the people who understand this abyss of sorrow in which there is great beauty. I know – in England I’m a weirdo. But in Russia I’m normal. Hooray! It’s SUCH a relief to be allowed to bleak!
There’s a Russian word “tosca” тоска with the stress on the a, unlike the opera heroine, that means a kind of melancholic longing. It doesn’t have an English equivalent but you can use it casually for nostalgic sadness or just a sense of bleakness, sadness. If you’re staring out of the window at the endless snow and someone says, “What’s up?”, you can just say; “тоска”.
That emotion isn’t really allowed in England. There is this feeling in the West that somehow we’re supposed to be happy and content. We’re supposed to find the right partner and a fulfilling job, to keep healthy, stay attractive. Then we feel crap when we fail (as we must). So many of my patients, and, I’m sure, everyone else’s, are mainly appalled by their own failure to have a blissfully perfect life. Russians or, at least, Russian poetry and literature, seem to understand that loss, suffering and crushed hopes and dreams are what life IS. They mourn openly. Or, possibly, ‘it’ mourns openly – the canon.
The night before this an old friend (who lives a life so conventional it’s actually weird and who has tried with all his might to repress his existential grief behind a facade of money and familial duty) sent me a Yevtushchenko poem – Goodbye Red Flag. The last line is “and I weep” “И плачу”. He weeps for the loss of something that he never wanted or loved but the loss is great anyway.
ANYway, mad Russian stuff aside, look at the fabulous dim sum we had before the Baryshnikov. Chinatown being delicious – the fug of smells is so fantastic as soon as you get near. Couldn’t pay for it though because my son had taken my purse out of my bag to get twenty quid for bevs the night before. I am so unsuspicious-looking (never, ever get stopped or searched ever anywhere) that it wasn’t a big deal. Went back to pay later. Oh, but CUSTARD BUNS. Can I just say CUSTARD BUNS.
The food photos above – roasted salmon on spinach sprinkled with pomegranate seeds, toasted nuts, spring onions, avocado, sugar snap peas…what else? Well, everything. It’s everything salad again. I think lemon juice, salt, spring onions and parsley make life delicious.
The rhubarb cake is the German one I’ve made before and the recipe is a few blogs down. But I can’t stop making it. It’s so beautiful and stupidly delicious. I’ve added vanilla essence and yoghurt to the recipe lately. Seriously, it’s just any simple cake recipe with grated lemon rind in it and you push a lot of rhubarb in. Bliss.
The other salad I sort of Waldorf’d. Spinach leaves and spring onions, watercress and probably some grean beans or peas or something, but then I thought I’d lob some chopped apples in (do not peel them, do not peel anything) and grapes. Then toasted some walnuts and made a yoghurt dressing. Yoghurt, olive oil, lemon juice, crushed garlic, salt and pepper. Oh, and mustard! I know a real Waldorf salad has cream in the dressing but that just seems gross. Then I put sausages on top but it wasn’t pretty so no photo of that. Could have been any meat or fish at all. I live off these salads.
Therapy for lasting change via Skype or even email: annablundy@gmail.com
Went out for oysters to celebrate being ridiculously fucking old and they served wine in a green plastic bucket, the kind you make sandcastles out of. Pleasing. Had a massage from a Chinese lady who works the beach all summer, 10-20 people a day after Easter (just us and the very beautiful German family next to us, though not very near across the meticulously raked sand [saw the blonde afro boy doing the raking] with a newborn baby [jealous] on April 12th) and was thinking about being touched. I’ve read about massages for the very elderly in homes and how wonderful it is just to be touched by another person. Was feeling this myself and melting under the bliss. Very rare for me these days and strangely lovely. I was wondering about the incredible loneliness of the mentally ill and how rarely touched most long-term mentally ill people are. It must be important for sanity. Assuming one isn’t a physical abuse victim, but maybe even then, when it’s controlled and seen.
Slightly lurid picture of Everything Salad there, but the only one I’ve got. Wait. Has it got some weird filter on it? Possibly. So, I was watching a picture of David Bowie flash up on the TV yesterday, all bony and glazed-eyed (him not me), and wondering why it is that I have always hated him. I mean, not him personally. I didn’t know him and am sure he was lovely – everyone says so and I believe them. But I never really liked the music (except for the obvious few that real fans probably hate – Changes, Modern Love….the easy ones to like), they aren’t coming on my desert island, and I’ve always found his face too hideous even to look at. This occurred to me. He doesn’t like me. Aloof. Distant. Other worldly. He doesn’t beg for our love in the way that Elvis did, the way most singers do. His seduction (at least in public) is the type I hate most – “I am really fantastic and I don’t give a shit about you.” A lot of people love that. I hate that. How is that attractive? I don’t know. It isn’t. I want someone in this world to show some vague flicker of interest in me (by the way, this is not going well as a goal so far). It’s the same as people who like cats. They always say; “They’re so cool. They just don’t give a shit about you.” Right. Okay. Cool. “Dogs are so pathetic because they love you so much. So needy.” Right. Okay. Cool. I want to be adored! I’m needy! I need to be bounded up to and loved. And I want my celebrity to love me, to need me, to ask me to love them. This was my David Bowie epiphany. I know everyone will hate this.
