you are closed

I was told this last night by an older Japanese gentleman in a Chinese noodle bar.

And it is probably true.

The problem with The Black Narcissus in recent times is that I have been too guarded and not my usual open self – the reason most people liked the site in the first place. This is because I have been stressed out of my mind. Riddled with anxiety. Which in itself is a Black Narcissus cliché: the Person On The Edge.

I don’t want to be that person. But life in recent years has just taken over me, and I haven’t quite had the strength to claw my way back to physical or mental robustness (though I am trying).

Right now I am at the beginning of an official year of absence from work – which might sound nice, like a dreamy sabbatical where I can just write and float about smelling perfumes and pontificating on Japanese cultural observations while somehow also getting through knee surgery, but thus far, it is not (in brief; eight years ago – almost to the day – due to osteoarthritis and loss of cartilage and a great deal of pain I underwent double osteotomies – procedures that were chronicled in great deal here on the blog when despite it all I was in a real moment of creative flow prior to writing and publishing my perfume book – typically Neilish hysteria and florid hyperbole (though all those words really did get me through it and I now look back on that time almost with nostalgia); interim surgical measures to utilize what cartilage remained in my knee bones in some kind of reverse flamingo limb modification that worked for a few years; but now that I am listing to the side like The Elephant Man it is time for the full knee replacements. I can walk. Some days are fine. But others really are not. Bone on bone. The Little Mermaid, no, The Big Mermaid taking plodding aching steps, a pain that takes its toll. And what a graceless gait – I have to say that being a great hulking monster on sloping bananas doesn’t do wonders for one’s self esteem.

First, at the end of May, I am due to have what I call the filet-o-fish, in which they pull out the metal bolts that have been there all this time. When fully xylophoned and filetized, I will then have a month or so to recover from that horror before the surgeon – the same one as last time, a kind of Knee God in Japan I am lucky to be having again even if the hospital itself is a dingy nightmare in an unappealing suburb of Yokohama; last time he didn’t leave any scars, even if that seems less possible with knee replacements, when you are apparently scarred like a dog’s dinner — gives me the first artificial joint. Healed, the right one will come later.

Finishing work and trying to get used to the idea of (hopefully)being on the dole and acclimatizing myself to my new lay about status has not been a piece of cake. Setting up the social security for the year has been extraordinarily stressful, – my god – the procuring of doctors’ notes in this pre-surgery period has badly taken it out of me (I was never great with administration and bureaucracy; the understatement of the century), but now that the wheels of governmental justice are turning and it all does seem to be working, it means that I won’t necessarily be as penniless as I was fearing and can try and calm down and get ready for it all. I do tend to overeact. Just a tad. And I have D, so it is alright, but then you do have to think about burdening your partner and not just becoming a lazy old slag lying on the tatami mat feeling sorry for itself.

Which is why, now I am not working, I am (perhaps too assiduously) trying to make sure that I give him enough space. Making a bit of a big deal about it. But a lot of people who know us say that we are their ‘goal relationship’ – after all, it will be 32 years in June, so something must be going right — but if there is one reason for the success of us as a couple, it is possibly that we don’t even necessarily think of ourselves that way; giving each other room to breathe is VITAL for us both. Which has been easy for many years now because he works mornings and I work evenings, meaning that weekends and Mondays were our time to get excited to hang out again and catch up on everything. Which is much more difficult indeed when you are just at home all the time basically in a depressed state of misery.

For mental health experts out there, or those who have had similar experiences, I would appreciate a discussion here and any advice you might have. I went to the local doctor yesterday and asked if he thought I might need antidepressants/ anti-anxiety medication, which I have never taken before and am open to, but also very wary of, already being dependent on painkillers and sleeping medication; I am not sure I want to add another blood plunge of chemicals into the mix. He said he didn’t think I was suffering from depression. I am too genki. Too pleasant and cheerful seeming. I could ‘talk normally’.

But he might be right. I have looked up the symptoms of clinical depression, and they don’t fit. I have lots of energy, am not lethargic, nor despondent nor suicidal (more a blue and melancholy afternoon thing);, I haven’t lost my appetite nor especially gorged more than usual, and I haven’t lost my enjoyment of anything – except perhaps hideously chemical commercial and niche perfumery. And I admit I was a bit blasé about the cherry blossom in Kamakura yesterday, exquisite though it was – but then again I was having a Difficult Day. Sometimes, if you are feeling dark or sad inside, no sunshine nor sweet smelling flowers can rectify the situation.

Still, if you are properly depressed you are supposed not to really enjoy anything, nor even be able to get out of bed in the morning. But I am enjoying – despite my palpitations and vague sense of dread that starts to rear its ugly head mid morning and peaks in the afternoon when I do usually feel really low – almost everything. Cinema is as absorbing and mesmerizing as ever. We went back to England the last two weeks of March; nobody is getting any younger and you never know what is going to happen on the operating table – and flying with economical Air China (tip for the easily stressed; make sure you distinguish between Air China and China Airlines in advance: trust me, it isn’t worth the cortisol when you find yourself in the wrong terminal at check-in) was a fascinating experience in itself; I immersed myself in Chinese cinema all the way back to the UK – an amazing insight into the culture, despite the films needing official approval first; one, a social realist working class drama called Another Day Of Hope – struck me as a bona fide masterpiece and I was totally enthralled – also by being able to eat real Chinese dumplings for the first time, albeit only in Beijing and Shanghai airports. My cultural antennae were on fire – I was totally stimulated; sometimes perhaps too much, my problem overall; hives are never that far away and I have been forced to pretty much give up coffee as it can just turn me beyond jittery into a hyped out megafreak – but still, I went to the cinema the other night to give d a break and was ensconced (somewhat) happily in the dark – for the first time in my life literally the only person in the cinema, to see Babygirl, feeling a bit like some creepy incel only visible to the projectionist; like everybody else, I was also stunned and devastated by the brilliant Adolescence on Netflix. No. No apathy here, mate. Pleasure and appreciation are still intact.

Though the visiting schedule in the UK was way, way too packed on this trip back, with very little time alone – very hard for both of us – at the same time it was so emotionally rich and wonderful to see people that it was worth it. To properly reconnect with family and our best friends. I don’t think I was ‘closed’ – or that my ‘light has gone out’ – as a friend of mine told me recently, even if it is true that is wattage is a little dimmer at times – but more on that later. D and I went on a wonderful spring day out with my parents to the Warwickshire to see the daffodils at Baddesley Clinton as lambs frolicked in the farm fields; it’s a family joke that I always say how hideous I think daffodils are; not intrinsically – though that deep yellow is problematic – more in how they look against, say, brutalist concrete or even worse, suburban brick gardens next to pansies marigolds and other grotesquely hued fleurs that make my brain feel ill whenever I see them. But in the lush, English countryside, in the medieval church graveyard of a stately home, with hyacinths, primroses, fields of cowslips, in the gorgeously yellow sunlight that dappled your eyes into semi-delirium – they were an unforgettable sight.

London struck me also as being terrifically beautiful for the first time ever. I have written about this before – in fact I have probably written everything in this piece before and am just becoming a totally repetitive bore: I have never liked London and did not enjoy living there remotely when we were there in our mid twenties. But we happened to be there during perfect daffodil weather on this occasion; sunny and bright with wisps of cloud and fresh, blue air; coming by coach into central London from Norwich (also extremely beautiful – am I more homesick for my country of birth than I dare to confess, even to myself?) I was properly awed by the architecture and grandeur of Westminster and Pimlico, Marble Arch, Belgravia.

On the second and last day of our brief incursion into the capital I also had a productive meet up with my literary agent in Holborn, where, on another beautiful sunny day, we discussed how to proceed with my Japan book, which has stalled somewhat in recent times with overwhelm and writer’s block and my not quite knowing exactly what direction to take it in (the pressure I put on myself in this regard – you have a year off, you have to write a book – hasn’t helped my overall state of nerves, but once I get the right angle and the right balance between the personal and my perspectives on Japan I am hoping that I will get on track again. )

This is not a revelation for me, that I need to be creative to be happy. Everybody needs to have something they enjoy doing. When I don’t – like not writing on here for months – quite simply, I feel shit. A big yawning chasm of dolorous melancholy opens up in me when I only remain passive and watch binge shows on the computer, much as I enjoy them. It’s better than just being indifferent to the world and only staring into space but at the same time there is a limit as to how much you can sit in front of the screen, goggle eyed then just retire to bed. Going to the gym and cycling definitely helps – oxygenating yourself is a definite partial route out of malaise and I am going to try and keep to that as much as possible if the legs hold up – D is going to teach me some of the more manageable yoga moves and breathing exercises he has been learning at his classes too.

But all of that is no substitute for spontaneity and the real connection and catharsis of writing – either my book, or on here. It depresses me to think of how many potential posts I have had for The Black Narcissus; written them in my head; but then somehow not quite had the juice to bring them to the keyboard – and out into the ether. So many. Posts on perfume of course, and all things smell oriented (I am really not enjoying our cat’s weak bladder in the house right now; for the smell sensitive quite traumatizing); but I wrote about so many other things as well; things in the news; obituaries. But they just died a watery death in the fluid of my braincells. And I couldn’t retrieve them if I tried.

So, back, briefly, to the potential diagnosis of what is going on with me, if you don’t mind — and all of this is not too self indulgent. Is what I am describing depression? Or – what I think – actual, full on burnout, in the textbook sense?

Some readers have been reading Le Narcisse for years now on and off so are probably all too familiar with my self-obsessed personal travails – it truly embarrasses me how much guff I have exhaled from my system on here: some readers seem to think that the emotionally honesty has its own rewards for them, and I hope that is still the case, but it can also leave you feeling quite vulnerable and overexposed. If one were to forensically psychoanalzye all my writing on WordPress over the years it would be obvious that I was on fire for the first six or seven years (I started BN in 2012) – and then crashed sometime around the time that the Monster came into power -particularly in cahoots with the coronavirus pandemic, where, as I have written several times before, I lost my mind. I wrote so much about all that at that time it pains me to recall it, in truth, but I know that that oppressive and claustrophobic time, coupled with the politics, finished me off. I then had a few years of true torment regarding the past in England that left me in a heart-pounding panic attack for two or three years, and I think I was eventually overcome just by all the emotional tumult.Last May or so I definitely felt something incinerate inside my brain; like a filament burning out. It was horrible, actually, as teaching, which I have been doing for 32 years and was totally used to, started to suddenly feel untenable. I became very avoidant, and the sheer extroversion to stand up in front of classes of Japanese teenagers, overcaffeinated with aching knees and be delightful and charming made me feel as though I was simply fizzing over. This is the only way to describe it. It was as if by talking too much and rousing and arousing the students when I felt broken and damaged that someone was opening up my veins and pouring in bicarbonate of soda or battery acid. I would feel dizzy and unsteady on my feet; do my best to try and do the lessons properly – and we did have pretty good results this year – but I would always feel extremely put upon afterwards, insane, even, necessitating even more carbonation in the form of convenience store beers afterwards – and thus, ultimately compounding the problem.

Yes, the beer. Oh dear. Should I even get into all that now, I wonder. But there is no doubt that there has been far too much of it, and wine, over the years, and that it has all had a negative impact on my health overall. We have no choice but to cut down significantly this year (way too much fun to give it up altogether; I think alcohol is basically a gift from nature and wonderful when you get it just right) – and to not have that option at all, to just continue on the conveyor belt of life until the inevitable death without a chance to sometimes just retreat into a lovely bubble, is not an option. At the same time, enough is enough. I have my pre-ops on April 28th. I have to get real.

This did not stop us yesterday, however, even though it was supposed to either be a non-drinking day or just a beer on the balcony Wednesday at sunset. As is often the case, we ended up drinking – not loads – but given how blue I have often been recently, it was rather amazing how the evening ended up being so life-affirming.

Sensing that D very much needed some time alone after the exhaustion of the trip (does travelling just become too much in middle age? I am not the intrepid traveller I was at 25, elated the entire time on my way back to the UK from Malaysia, when I actually wanted the flight to be longer so I could watch even more films; I used to gaze at Siberia for hours feeling scintillated while drinking G + Ts when we would fly from Tokyo to Birmingham or Norwich with KLM via Amsterdam; it was a glinting, exhilarating icy miracle in the Russian sun). Now I feel hemmed in and trapped, entertainment aside. So much more arduous. Sigh. Ageing.

But having been in each others’ pockets for weeks on end on this occasion in the UK and beforehand I decided to spend two days and evenings by myself this week to give him some space. Gym, cinema etc, but damn did I start to feel lonely and hollow and heartbeaty by the afternoon (so what is this? ‘Depressed mood’? ‘Anxiety disorder?’ – or just a natural reaction to spending too much time by yourself? )Or just thinking about mortality and the shocking state of the world? (I can’t go into all that right now but my god how awful, awful, awful, he is: how can an ostensibly sane person stay that way in these dire conditions?…….)

Anyway (goodness I am rambling on: sorry. Once this catch up post is out of the way I am hoping it will free me to get back into more regular posting on perfume, whatever catches my fancy or has been happening; right now I feel the need to purge a bit though writing all this is tiring me out ….Is burn out an all round thing? Has anyone experienced a proper case of it, like this?).

Anyway, anyway. I was cycling in the late afternoon light yesterday carrying a plant I bought in Kamakura and I bumped into D by chance at Kitakamakura station. It was one of those lovely moments where it was as though we were seeing each other for the first time (and therefore definitely worth the two days of dark isolation I would say – he needed those evenings to himself); I loved the romantic comedy coincidence of it (neither of us was supposed to be there as such). and although he had bought all the necessary groceries for the evening meal, I couldn’t help noticing that the Chinese noodle place was open and that we could have a beer to catch up on the day and unwind (come on, we are Brits: cut me some slack).

Tairiku is a run down old Chinese joint that was run by a lovely, always smiling and beaming Japanese lady in her eighties and her doting son until her unexpected death last year (again, the old me would have written about that day on the spot but it dissipated into the night; we had gone down there on D’s birthday in kimono old man pyjamas thinking fuck it only to discover candles and incense burning and a picture of her and a totally bereft man. We stayed there for a while with him to toast her, even with tears streaming down my face. It was tragic, and he is still crushed. But we still go in there, and so does the rest of the community. There is something about the fading, peeling red decor, sumo calendars and grime-covered Godzilla figures as well as the just cooked freshness of the food that draws us back. We have been off and on regulars for years.

Yesterday evening, besides ourselves in one corner there were two other customers on the other side of the restaurant. Genteel, older men – probably teachers I thought- drinking beer and having a good time; with friendly twinkles in their eyes. I had to use the loo. And that meant squeezing past aforementioned handsome old dude, who wanted to start up a conversation. And what is wrong with that?

Nothing. It’s fine if you feel like talking to strangers, but I often (think) I just don’t want to, especially when it gets to the how long have you been in Japan conversation and I feel so mortified at the level of my Japanese – which is fine for someone here for a few years but truly not for someone here for what is now approaching three decades. His friend said something to the effect of just leave him alone he doesn’t feel like talking – so I just nodded politely and went back to where we were sitting.

Then. It was bizarre. That place has enough space for about 12 people, but suddenly – I thought it was some kind of stunt or internet prank or that I was Jennifer Lawrence in the home invasion horror film Mother! – or part of a wacko Kate Bush video from the early eighties when suddenly hordes of people started pouring into the tiny space; many those in their forties to eighties I would say but so many of them, at least in my mind – it seemed unbelievable. What was happening? Ordinarily, I would have said right let’s go, trapped in my plastic red corner, but there was something so cinematic and theatrical and absurdist about the whole surreal and colourful scene that there was no way we were leaving- when the drabness of reality is suddenly pricked up a notch and you are in more liminal terrain, that’s when we both feel most alive.

Handsome old gent (74, I told him later he looked like Alain Delon and he almost wept; someone had apparently said the same thing to him forty years ago and he couldn’t believe it) cornered me with a friend though as soon as the hikers – members of a local community group that protect the essentialities of the beautiful area we live in and who had just been up in the mountains having a hanami cherry blossom viewing party and ready to continue drinking) and he said to me outright You are closed! Why?

I realized then and there that I probably was. Am. Or I just have a particular personality type (opposite to d, who is always happy to meet new people and chat with anybody, even though I am presumed to be far more of an extrovert overall, but we all have our own unique extro/intro melanges in this regard). Also, I don’t necessarily want someone in my face when I have come in for a chat with my boyfriend. Asking all the where are you from what do you do questions.

But everyone was so friendly, and drinks were being passed around, beers poured out, the atmosphere so jovial, Mr Delon and I eventually found a common topic in our love of the cinema and conversed in a mix of English and Japanese as I started to unclench inside and become less uptight and talk with some of the other people as well at the table (which I never left – if I stood up my legs might not make it, plus I have never been able to ‘work the room’ the way D was, laughing happily in all the joviality). Though pinned in the corner, part of me, I can’t deny, thrilled to the humanity of it all.

Which was captured most wonderfully in the moment that one of the people there, a man who does performances of traditional Japanese singing with his partner on shamisen at various venues in the prefecture, suddenly broke into song. Basically saying, how wonderful it is that we are all here at this noodle shop during cherry blossom season – let’s eat and drink and be merry; let’s all live in the moment; we all clapped, then I suddenly heard myself singing – in the same key – in Japanese, in made up lyrics something along the lines of, arigato gozaimasu, but now we have to get back to make dinn–er, we can’t drink any more be-eeer, and we have to look after our eighteen year old ca- at

– at which point, more applause broke out; we exchanged Facebook details with a couple of people, one who sent me a message while I was writing this this afternoon; ‘I believe you have the ability to recognise the essence of people you meet for the first time’, which, all in all, is a big improvement from being told that I am ‘closed’.

I am. A bit. Particularly now.

But not completely.