My Inspiration for October 2020

Oct 31, 2020

1 min read

One more wonderful crimson and yellow October is gone, and woe is me, for what good can November bring? It’s the doorway to dark months of misery and grey skies. This month I really enjoyed pondering on different aspects of autumn, the bright, vibrant and groovy autumn as painted in George Bellows’ painting “Autumn Romance” and the more grey, drearier side of autumn which makes one melancholy. I’ve been daydreaming about the Symbolists, both poets and painters, Bruges and dead girls in art, the gorgeous Marine Vacth in the film “Jeune et Jolie” (2013) and the film Beau Pere (1981), Nietzsche’s poetry was a new discovery for the this month.

“I think the most courageous thing to do today is to conquer ourselves from within—not blaming others.”

(Anaïs Nn, from The Diaries of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 7: 1966-1974)

“Romantic obsession is my first language. I live in a world of fantasies, infatuations and love poems. Sometimes I wonder if the yearning I’ve felt for others was more of a yearning for yearning itself. I’ve pined insatiably and repeatedly: for strangers, new lovers, unrequited flames. While the subjects changed, that feeling always remained. Perhaps, then, I have not been so infatuated with the people themselves, but with the act of longing.”

(Melissa Broder, from “Life without Longing”)