The exercise for today* turned out to be: Make a pattern of repetitions. And this is what I got:

A Pattern

It’s not because she doesn’t want to leave the house; not because she doesn’t want to see the beech trees on Beach Way, she’d like to see the beech trees, the beech trees will look lovely with the low spring sun lighting their almost transparent fresh young leaves; it’s not because she doesn’t want to see and it’s not because she doesn’t want to meet Mrs Wei on Beach Way, or anywhere, she may enjoy Mrs Wei, her amusing anachronisms; her philanthropic pretensions, it’s not about intentions; it’s not because she doesn’t want to see the sea sparkle as she walks down Beach Way enjoying Mrs Wei who will surely look up from her rose-bush, secateurs in hand as she passes and say ‘isn’t it a peach of a day?’ with a hint of exclamation but not enough for a mark. No, it’s not because she doesn’t want to leave the house or see the leaves of the Beech tree glinting its greens, the sea glittering at the end of Beach way as Mrs Wei stops to almost exclaim. It’s not because of that.

As luck would have it I drank too much wine last night by mistake. Feeling thus rubbish and worsening as the day wore on I’ve spent quite a lot of time watching videos of interviews with Lydia Davis, a writer whose name has long been familiar, but whose work I hadn’t actually looked at before. She took me back to my university days when a tutor recommended I read Amy Hempel, I was instantly smitten. There’s something about being slightly hungover, or sleepy that works in my favour when it comes to learning from the work of other writers. I think it may be because I don’t, can’t, overthink in this state, so the work just washes over me. I kind of bathe in it, and absorb a little as one must absorb some salt and some kelp minerals from a day spent in the sea. It’s too soon to say but I think I can probably make something of this piece if I keep working on it.

*From Bernadette Mayer’s writing experiments.