Joyous news

What follows is an excerpt from Roses and Potatoes, a collage novel about happiness by the Lithuanian artist and writer Vaiva Grainytė, the librettist and co-creator of the opera Sun & Sea, which received the Golden Lion Award at the 2019 Venice Biennale. Published in Lithuania in 2022 by Baltos Lankos, Roses and Potatoes features several epistolary exchanges between Vika (in Vilnius) and Davis (in Canada). 

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Ride your broom without looking to the side 

Hi Vika,

Why are you ignoring your Vitamin D? It improves the mood and strengthens the bones. And teeth too, which are relatives of the bones. Their whiteness is proportionate to their strength, and after all, your brilliant smile is our beacon. . . . I’m kidding :))!!!

My tooth is fixed—all extracted and sewn up. I found myself in the hands of an oral surgeon named Archibald Davidson, who, before beginning to let blood, asked how things are in that Yugoslavia of mine—what the weather is like, whether Croatia is still part of Slovakia. Thank God his hands were considerably more professional than his knowledge of geography. The greatest cause of stress was not the operation but the initial encounter with the doctor, i.e., that confusing way they greet strangers here. I keep being thrown off by that “Hey, how’re you doing?” or “Hi, how are you?” I find myself taking a deep breath and start getting ready to explain that I’m doing not bad, just sleeping poorly, and that work or creative frustrations are getting me down; you know me, I’m an open book ready to instantly bare my heart if I sense that someone shows the slightest sincere interest. . . . But every time, just as I’m getting ready to mutter my first syllable, the greeter has already gone on their way or asked another question. That “how are you” doesn’t mean much here, it’s like a neutral, damp “hello,” an etiquette algorithm that always requires the same reply— “I’m fine” or “I’m good.” Things like “I am not so well” would cause unimaginable damage to the established communication codes and would throw everyone off the rails.

On the same theme: I spent a few days in bed—the pain wasn’t so bad, but out of curiosity I occasionally popped one of the opiates that I’d been prescribed. (I didn’t care for the kind of anesthesia they produce—I understood how much I value feeling everything.) You won’t believe it: they’re legal here! Instead of painkillers, the good doctors prescribe their patients all sorts of narcotics. Around here, apparently, even the slightest discomfort is unwelcome, everything must remain in an undisturbed “I’m fine” state. You could say the same about smiles: if your mouth doesn’t form one during a conversation, it’s like going round in public without washing, skipping your morning shower. Take Jessica, the wife of one of Kevin’s friends, for example. No matter what she’s talking about, she faces her interlocutor with a wide, toothy grin. Her tired eyes have bags under them, but the light shining from her teeth cancels any symptoms of exhaustion. A perfectly trained smiling apparatus, like a NATO soldier!

I stretch my lips to the sides, I really try, but I just can’t reveal my teeth, I don’t know whether it’s a question of anatomy or a lack of training? Here’s a quote, copy-pasted from my own research—an essay I’m currently writing on the theme of happiness (and dentistry, since everything is, haha, connected):

If we look at it historically, artworks generally only depict teeth on the faces of different varieties of misfits—drunks, madmen, scum, demons (you might be interested in a book I’m reading right now: Angus Trumble’s A Brief History of the Smile). In our contemporary context—considering the costs and therefore limited accessibility of dental procedures—beautiful, healthy, white teeth are like a calling card indicating your social status, how much money you have in your pocket. . .

Kevin and I were watching a silly comedy yesterday which featured a chimpanzee dressed in a butler’s uniform. The animal smiles and laughs so much you’d think it actually liked being fondled and tugged by the characters in the film. 

Animals smile—show their teeth—from terror, in order to frighten, defend themselves and ward off danger. So that furry film character was probably utterly terrified.

You know, in this land of forced smiles, I sometimes feel the same way.

. . . I had hardly written that last sentence when I realized that the mandatory smile territory is unlimited. Wherever you go, you’re sure to meet smiles (even the Arctic dog sleds are probably marked with them) —they’re in public toilets and trolleybuses; the satisfied little face looks out at us from chickpea packages and political ads; it spreads among bags and t-shirts like an infection and is firmly entrenched in the toy industry; even I can’t avoid them when I’m writing emails, when I’m far away from you and we can’t see or hear each other in person. Oh, and here’s some more interesting info on this topic:

Harvey Ball, the American graphic designer who created the smiley face symbol, never expected that the little icon would become more popular than the Star of David or the cross. Though his smile spread like an epidemic, Ball made less than fifty dollars from the commission and later died of liver cancer.

:) OK, I might have got a little carried away here. . .

Anyway, all sorts of neurologists and psychologists unanimously argue that smiling has a positive effect—that the whole image we see travels straight to the brain, which identifies the raised lips and string of teeth as a signal of positivity, which improves both our mood and metabolism.

In other words, looking at this icon has a therapeutic effect. So I’m sending you a whole bouquet—broom-tail of its clones—babies, bunnies: may it sweep away all those childhood girlfriends’ annoying photos, wash away the heartache and compulsion to reproduce your DNA, and clear out the stench from your oven. Ride on it with your head raised high and don’t look at other people’s lives, because everyone’s life is a snake which twists in unpredictable directions.

:)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))!

Davis
10 December 2020

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Re: Ride your broom without looking to the side

🤮 on your tail.

But thanks for the last sentence—you put it well,:), hahaha. I’ll write back later xxxxx.

V.
10 December 2020

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The making of Valentino’s little mouse

Hi Vika,

Where did you disappear to? Why haven’t you written? Has work, or that time-suffocating quarantine, got you down? Last time, all I got for my broom was your laconic promise to write and some nauseating little golden balls, which I put in my treasure box, and now wait for the moment when you’ll once again throw me at least a few words about yourself. Should we call each other? I’d like to hear and see you, though I also value this almost anachronistic means of communication, the electronic epistolary genre. . . Since you aren’t saying anything about yourself, I’ll tell you how I’m doing, OK? (I imagine you nodding in agreement.)

Well, it turns out that Kevin and I have come to resemble your classmate Sima—i.e., we’re taking family photos with intertwined fingers, except that the sweetheart that has been added to our duet has untraditional fingers and sharp little nails; in other words, I have big news: I can already chew with the left side of my face, the hole where my wisdom tooth used to be has closed up and . . . ha ha, we’ve had a kitten, so we’ve become interspecies mom and dad, or rather dad and dad.

But, my dearest darling, let me start from the beginning:

Our application to adopt a black cat named Jekyll was accepted, so we set out on a two-hour journey.

The animal shelter was located in a field somewhere; the four-room house echoed with yelping dogs, while cats lounged about in a three-story apartment block of cages. A member of the staff left us to contemplate the scene in adoption room 2: Jekyll looked more impressive than he had in the online advert. Not only because black is always glamorous: this creature’s face clearly revealed Bagira DNA, while the texture (in sensory terms) of his glistening fur made me think of a spruce tree—prickly and gentle at the same time. This intriguing, panther facsimile of a cat could be of interest to zoologists and might drive terror into priests for its possible connections to witchcraft. As soon as I touched its exotic ear, the cat turned onto its back and started to purr and writhe. (Jekyll’s favorite activity is to get his teeth into some toy, bring it to a person’s feet, wait until it gets thrown again, and then scamper off to fetch it. In other words, he’s not just an elegant demonic panther, but a dog to boot.) We were surprised by how friendly all the shelter cats were; even the eyeless, tailless ones let us stroke them, and two orange creatures attacked us with pleas for attention—it seemed they would break through the bars of their cages.

When we bent down, we set eyes on a curled-up little tabby scowling at us from a cage in the corner. As soon as we picked it up, the little creature started purring feebly, though its tensed body signaled stress. (At that point Jekyll was kicking up a fuss in his cage, demanding that the attention continue, or maybe, having packed his belongings, he had been impatiently waiting to move out of the shelter since morning.) The deciding factor was not the tabby’s strange timidity and retreating manner, but his backstory: he was found at the edge of a highway with pustulant eyes and crackling lungs, frozen, and riddled with infections. His so-called passport document listed, from October, a litany of veterinary notes.

And then there was Jekyll—a beloved house cat who had been given to the shelter only because his owner’s work had forced her to move to Europe. The knowledge that older cats cost less than kittens, and that this fully grown coal-colored feline had received hundreds of likes on Facebook, where he was showered with awww’s and compliments like “the sweeeeetest vampire,” liberated us from any potential feelings of guilt for breaking our promise: we canceled our application and put down our cat adoption signatures in favor of the tabby. We received the little beast not only vaccinated, dewormed, castrated, microchipped (a tiny chip inserted under the fur makes it possible to quickly identify a lost pet), and cured from his infections, but already with the romantic name Valentino. Having spent much of its short life traveling from one vet to another, the tabby withstood the journey without letting out a single meow. When he arrived at his new home, he instantly disappeared, so we spent two hours crawling around on the floor trying to liberate the kitten from the kingdom of cobwebs, and then another two taking turns holding him next to our hearts so that his ventricle would stop fluttering. Finally, Valentino relaxed. We spent the evening listening to his loud purring instead of the CBC news, and from 4 a.m., we became the ones who were hunted, spending the first hours of the brightening morning trying to convince him to get out from under the bed.

(And now we’re writing this note to you together—except that my co-author is telling me where to put commas from under my arm, as he’s still apparently afraid of open spaces and any kind of noise, including the keyboard. I find myself addressing our little son in Lithuanian, so that, surrounded by two languages, he might more easily adjust to a world as motley and chaotic as the pattern of his fur.)

The above was copied from my Facebook post, because that’s where the whole adventure was best documented. (I know you’ve erased yourself from all social networks.) I should stress that this news is a few weeks old, or maybe a month, but I wanted to tell it all to you in detail.

Since then, Valentino has grown a bit, gained some confidence, and purrs incessantly. It seems like the kitten is in a constant state of euphoria, or perhaps this is his constant song of gratitude, a throaty hymn of happiness celebrating our family trio. . . During the daytime the soft woolly creature sits on my lap and warms my legs as I work at my articles and bemoan the narrowness of my horizon. Kevin works from home as well, but perhaps his office is not as warm, or the kitten simply adores me more, since it’s from my hands that he receives his daily blessing, i.e., calories. Valentino doesn’t eat any kind of mass-produced cat food but enjoys handmade raw meat dishes. We became very interested in questions of cat nutrition, and spent many hours on the Internet studying the ingredients of commercial cat food. It turns out there is exactly zero percent real meat in the most popular ones. Manufacturers add grains, and all sorts of random carbohydrates that are bad for the feline organism; the vitamins in these foods are synthetic. Cats like them, they eat them willingly, but it’s the same as a human eating a lifetime of addictive junk food saturated with flavor enhancers—they wouldn’t last long. In short, we listened to a few online lectures about how beneficial raw food is for cats. And this raw food is not cheap ground meat slopped onto a plate by the back of your fingers but a precisely balanced potpourri of raw meat. The essence of this kind of feed is to imitate the cat’s natural, original prey: some mouse or shrew, so the feed should contain bone, cartilage, heart, liver, and blood. . . And then supplements, which must be added in the precise number of drops. Kevin used a food processor to grind up chicken legs and crush turkey necks. But those neck vertebrae are pretty monumental, so he had to call on the axe for help, and then more grinding and grinding, so there wouldn’t be any sharp splinters. The whole process took about three hours, our clothes ended up spattered with bone juice, Kevin sprained his wrists, and he’s still wearing elastic bandages as though he’s injured himself playing basketball.

(By the way, it was in Canada that basketball was invented by a nineteenth-century PE teacher called James Naismith, who sought to develop a sport that led to fewer injuries—you can Google it if you want to learn more, just enter History of basketball.)

(I didn’t hurt myself as badly, as I was using a knife; on that occasion I was gutting the heart of the deer shot by Kevin’s sister, and used a blender to turn its giant frozen noble liver into a black puree; its consistency was like an incarnation of mélas kholé—living proof that it’s not something made up. . .)

We threw everything into a bucket, added the ground meat in portions, measured drops of taurine by milliliters, threw in micrograms of E, B, and other vitamins, then weighed the portions of potpourri-Frankenstein meat and vacuum packed it in little bags that went into the freezer. One day’s ration (in Valentino’s case—95.5137 grams) is determined with a formula that takes into account the cat’s age, weight, level of activity, tabby-ness, eye width—don’t ask, there would be too much to explain. So that was our weekend, full of meat and bone geysers.

But then Valentino, that joker, has now for the second night in a row caught himself a mouse—a real, natural one—and gobbled it up to the last whisker, making a mockery of our efforts to construct a menu for him!

. . . but a cat certainly provides a lot of joy and coziness, a kind of constant celebration of gentleness. But what I most wanted to say is this: whenever I’m stroking Valentino, I’m filled with a feeling of meaning and wholeness. A feeling that I’ve done something good in my life, that I’m not existing just for myself, that by saving a life, we’ve given a new, love-filled existence to a helpless, abandoned creature. Please excuse the sentimentality—can you see what all this tabby-ness is doing?

My friend, I’ll be waiting for a letter or any kind of message from you. And I wish you a Happy New Year—it’s already February and we haven’t yet spoken this year, so . . . Be happy and well, my dear! I love you, big kiss.

Yours, Davis
Atlantic Canada, 13 February 2021

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Joyous news

Dear D.,

That’s a good one with the cat-son, love it! . . . I can just hear his glorious purring. And you know, we have some synchronicity going in terms of pets: I too have a bit of—or rather a huge piece of—news on that front. So I too will include a little segment from my diary, it’ll be easier to explain what happened that way; then I’ll continue.

I like the night: when darkness descends, my head works better. Once the table lamps are turned on, I find myself calming down. The monotony of the days no longer gets me down, I’m living simply, with my routines; and I know that I’m not the only one. Two more projects have been postponed, so I’ve had to bury hopes of seeing Oslo or Copenhagen any time soon. Strangely, I accepted this news without any stronger emotions or waves of disappointment. I continue to sketch and do layouts, working on local assignments. It’s nice to be able to sleep longer in the mornings, be my own mistress. For breakfast I order something from Wolt, they deliver it to the door—a way to give myself a treat; I watch some good movie on MUBI and then, after dinner, I sit down to work.

As usual I was up very late (letting my mind wander is part of my work): for inspiration I was searching the Internet for architectural examples of Scandinavian libraries and, without even realizing how Google’s footpaths got me there, I was at Oslo City Hall—that’s when I started exploring mythologically themed frescos, and ended up reading some random travelers’ reportages à la “Castles and Coffee” from Copenhagen’s Art Nouveau town hall. My attention was strangely caught by a blogger’s final sentence, a seemingly accidental detail—about the drawing of an owl on the door of that Danish city hall’s archive, which preserves the documents of people who like to get married there (https://castlesandcoffeehouses. com/2018/01/18/copenhagens-romantic-city-hall/) –

(This, you could say, superfluous, piece of information is relevant to the subsequent course of events and is comically and symbolically connected to the story about your cat, and his name.)

With my eyes glazing over, I realized I’d had enough: I’d probably exhausted my daily (nightly!) limit of work hours, it was time to go to bed, the chimes of my inner-city hall bell were telling me that I was tired. But my legs were resisting that bell, they were asking to be raised onto a pedestal—apparently, they had accumulated too many fluids. (For the last few weeks I’ve been drinking nothing but hibiscus tea, slurping up buckets of the tangy pink drink.) I stepped out into the moon- and lantern- illuminated street.

I didn’t manage to get very far from home when I saw something weakly floundering in a puddle. The little bundle was smooth and soft, but as soon as I touched it, the tips of my fingers stung from fine cuts. It took a moment before I understood—it was a baby owl dusted with a fine sheath of shattered glass!

I brought it home. Once it was in a warm room, the little bird seemed to perk up, started to gasp and squirm. I used a hairdryer to blow the micro- shards of glass from its wings, then gave it some tea and what was left of my sandwich. The baby owl had a good appetite and wasn’t afraid of me. Revived from his snack, he gazed into my eyes. I am so at loss for words here that I can only express it like this: skdfhvrurėūę9u0ą čiuhfcjkcjgjbh[alskdbchsjokjfevfnsjnscjbjaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa!—it was something transcendental. I was flooded with an all-encompassing feeling, I would even say that we understood each other to the very roots of our nerves. We sat like that until morning, greedily soaking each other in through our pupils, as though desperately trying to make up for the time that had passed before we knew each other. Then our stomachs began to rumble in synchrony—a kind of green traffic light saying it’s time for breakfast, the hunger mechanism kicking in after we had drunk enough of each other’s company. I made a six-egg omelet and we devoured it in equal parts.

(I cracked up thinking that this creature hatched from an egg was feeding from what Sexton called “a chapel of eggs” (open up that same Anne Sexton collection, c.f. “Welcome Morning”, p. 455); as if I were to eat my own living quarters, or . . . myself . . . Which I know perfectly well how to do, I had mastered this practice, but from now on everything will be different!)

Even though I hadn’t slept a wink that night, I didn’t feel like bed. The owlet also seemed to be in a good mood: flying around the apartment, exploring every corner (it perched on a curtain rod, wrought havoc on a bookshelf, pried open a cupboard door, pecked away at an apple left on the table. . .), before finally focusing on a Soviet-era vintage armchair. Because it seemed as though that’s what my friend wanted, I removed the backrest. The owl plunged into the recess and began to sigh with joy, his happy hoots getting louder the deeper he buried himself in the cushion. . . The owl (to be more precise, it was an Asio otus, or long-eared owl) often roosts on my shoulder, which it seems to like as much as its armchair-hollow.

After the owl moved in, the bad smell disappeared from my home. (Perhaps it scratched out a mouse mummy baked to the back of a floorboard???) I don’t need coffee anymore and feel the constant thud of a ball of pure energy inside me.

Less than a month later, the owl began to lay eggs at the foot of my bed—and that’s how I learned that my roommate was indeed a female, or hen owl (the creator of these eggs does not eat its own eggs)! Now I can always have a very fresh omelet. But a complete breakfast is not the real source of my joy. It’s three o’clock in the morning and this nighttime orphan has brought both hygge and a perfect Valentine’s Day to my home and heart. I jokingly say to myself and the owl: it was not I who traveled to Denmark, but Denmark that came to me. . . If I had been away, the little girl owl would have drowned and frozen alone in that puddle . . .

I hope that you’re not freezing, you sweet Valentine’s pair? You really cheered me up with the story about the bone-grinding, it’s clear that Kevin and you are made for each other. I can’t imagine anyone else who would take up such strange housekeeping and dedicated weighing. A very Happy, love-filled, New Year’s to you!

Vika
14 February 2021

Lithuanian writer Vaiva Grainytė’s text-based practice shifts between genres, interdisciplinary works, and publications. Her book of essays, Beijing Diaries (2012), and the poetry collection, Gorilla Archives (2019), were both nominated for Book of the Year in Lithuania. She is the librettist of the opera-performance Sun & Sea, which was awarded the Golden Lion at the 2019 Venice Biennale, and of the opera Have a Good Day! (2013), which earned six international awards in Europe.