💥✍ Sometimes, as Philip Roth📷 said - “a habitual sense of prose decorum” is not nearly enough. Since March I've never written as many words since the last time I wrote as many words. Last time was the financial crisis of 2008. I seem to revel or repress in times of crises. Either words are spilling out because I enjoy the novelty, anxiety or fear; or words are spilling out because I am repressing the novelty, anxiety or fear. This week I stopped writing - first time in 6 weeks. The curve of novelty, anxiety or fear had levelled. Instagram had become repetitive: Zoom screenshots; artist support pledges; arts blackout; a saturating sameness, predictability & inevitability devoid of any new energy or insight, just the proliferation of nostalgia that once had life but not enough life leftover to inject new life into a lifeless present. Just when we thought the online world was sufficient, it seems the online world needs the real world producing at pace or it will become lifeless. Still, we try, we move on, post another post, even though we know everything we wrote or made before all this will be experienced & questioned in a new light when the new light comes. The other day we walked the same 2km circuit down by the river Suir that surrounds the splendid isolation of the island stronghold of Waterford Castle. My current mindset was not a good time to confront 4 teenagers joined at the hips in a walking wall of inevitability. Assumedly a dare, passersby backed up against hedge & bank with no room to avoid or think or respond to seethe in anger later. The wall kept moving, eyes forward, no acknowledgement, just sideways smirks. I saw the smirks coming. Rage is a strange thing. Philip Roth's words are marked by rage; that's why I like his words. When rage comes, it flows, like the speedboat that just clipped the surface of the Suir to create wave after wave & sizzle long after the boat is gone. My rage usually starts calm & succinct - "Move!" Then other words spill out - "Move, or I'll move you!" These words coming from a 6.6ft elevation under a handlebar moustache usually work. I'm 𝘶𝘴𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 happy words work because when words stop working, release takes over🖤

APRIL 30, 2020 (ORIGINALLY POSTED ON INSTAGRAM @a_flash_in_the_small_night