I feel as if a new Billygean is emerging from the ashes of some past life.
She says yes a lot more. She no longer favours nights in with a keyboard, roaming the cool house in the early hours.
She can sometimes be found up very early, showering before anyone else even stirs, pacing the kitchen waiting to tell her father her new last-minute plans, in train stations as the sun rises over the tracks.
She eats out a lot. Fingering new foods, breads dipped in oils, Moroccan spices, sweet, hot fruit. She drinks too, not in that old, urgent way but savouring the taste, the velvety wine smooth in the candlelit glass.
She has long talks with friends,at their houses, in cars at midnight, last-minute in rickety pubs.
Even when she sits still within her old life things feel different. Everything has a slightly decadent air. The baths are sweeter, the water darker and swirling. The candles glow brighter and even the walks she takes to those fields are somehow more savoured, more precious as the sun drenches the fields with the last of her beams.
It is almost as if this Billygean should be wrapped up and stored away, for this spontaneity, the explosive nature and heightened senses cannot last. It is as if life has slowed down to allow her to make these memories, squeezing them like fresh oranges out of each minute.
Glad you’re staying with your dad. He sounds like the kind of guy you need around right now.
I’ve been away a while and am only now catching up on your personal gyrations. Still writing as well as ever. Do you think you’re a bit narcissistic btw or just creative? And how does one tell the two apart?
What makes you say I need my dad around right now, would you say?
I am of course entirely narcissistic, as are most authors.
Security? familiarity? company? sanity? friendship?
Is that enough or should I go on?
Btw I like your honesty!
What I mean is, why do you think I need these things at this particular time?
I think it is the author’s obsession with the protagonist, it’s just that she is (based on) me
BG