Three of Three in Guadalajara
Elves, energy cleaning, and vomiting mere feet away from Colm Tóibín
After I realised I was giving a talk to hundreds of excited, restless students in this school that I had not planned at all, after the experience of the school band playing to me as I sat rocking in disbelief, I became extremely calm.
I was thinking, well it has to be translated simultaneously, which cuts it down by half. I was thinking, I’ll probably never see anybody in this room again so I can just say whatever I like. Then I began to talk utter rubbish- earnest rubbish which I wholly meant but can you imagine trying to recall all your origins in a coherent way to a room of teenagers? It’s hard.
I was trying my best, but the only things I care about that I could think were relevant to them, were about the way I didn’t believe I would ever be able to do anything formally legitimised, because of where I was from and what I could see in my town. So what I did when I was a teenager and beyond was to conspire with my best friend Kathi. We dreamt up little zines and projects, and our love for music and poetry and novels made us sturdy in our school years even though the rest of the world felt so far away. We were able to live that way for long enough to get us into the actual world- where she thrived fairly instantly and I fucked up for ten years, but that’s another story.
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