‘A problem to be faced about history’: Marion Milner on holiday

But these seasons, weather in the soul, not easy to forecast, know when lie fallow, sow, this only be found by experiment. Ideologies are never interested miracle of being. I can’t see least point being authority at price one’s liberty. The diaries with which Marion Milner began her autobiographical project for most part slim, and compact. Small enough fit into a pocket or handbag, discreet, some designed specifically women, many contain pages printed information before blank lined pages. In addition conversion tables calendars there is about cooking (sample French menus) British Empire – diary from 1921 comes sections ‘Areas Populations Empires Countries’, ‘Colonial Foreign Time Differences’, ‘Populations Areas Countries Chief Colonial Cities’.1 Milner’s project, its beginning, framed paratext empire conventions femininity. A number themes run through writing effects varying forms attention, sagacity body, mysteries everyday living. approach, open-ended experimental, combining text image, also shared across books. first these, Life One’s Own, was published 1934, working on final one, Bothered Alligators, till death 1998. Discussing keeping holidays, Eternity’s Sunrise (1987), fourth book quintet, develops both approach previous writing. haven’t had chance look that form basis Sunrise. pandemic, then West London floods, meant archives Institute Psychoanalysis stayed shut. Curious as am, don’t have visit learn ‘populations areas empire’ were altered time took holiday Greece (1959), well subsequent visits Kashmir (1971) Israel (1975). I’m ways change populations history lived inscribes itself This inscription can fruitfully tracked elaboration ideas solitude. presents extensive personal statements solitude, significance imbues experience alone, suggest, way crafting response she through, particular two world wars their psychic costs. Writing article though, August, wanting away but unable travel (visas, plagues), couldn’t help read manifesto holiday. What follows an account am persuaded. On Hellenic Cruise 1959, herself sad. It Greece, 59. Neither Parthenon nor Daphni Mosaic ‘spoken’ her.2 1904, Freud himself unsettled Greece. Standing Acropolis looking landscape he thinking: ‘So all really does exist, just we learnt school!’3 essay wrote experience, years later 1936, attributes strangeness statement feeling ‘derealisation’ (Entfremdungsgefühl) brought guilt ‘the satisfaction having gone such long way’.4 easier, suggests, think quite believed all, than believe his own good fortune, so exceeded father. reservations were, face it, more prosaic. She attributed situation ‘totally unfamiliar (since days my boarding school) doing everything crowd’.5 By cruise reached island Chios, ‘come suspect moments solitude essential’.6 Eschewing group trip monastery Nea Moni describes ‘surfeited sights’ instead silence: ‘And there, beyond wide stretch sea, misty land. “Turkey”, said our driver. But, front left, mountains, mountain hinterlands Chios. lovely view, yes. momentous thing it silence’.7 silence liquid, ‘flooded’, ‘enveloped’, ‘permeated’, ‘soaking’.8 drinks in, ‘taking great gulps it’.9 We’re left impression urgent physical need satisfied. At book, relief silence, crowd, seems incommensurate scant discussion why important her. All that, absence something doesn’t speak. beginning continuation books, where aimed find out ‘what might wanted’.10 27, attempting develop ‘a method discovering true likes dislikes, finding setting up standard values truly borrowed mass-produced ideal’.11 Her next An Experiment Leisure, begins question do spare time’, especially those people (‘very often they women’) whom may ‘so fatally live parasitically upon other people’s happiness’.12 books key scene encounter self, Sunrise, turns evocative associative memories calls ‘beads’, explicit various meanings holds her.13 second following year, once again added commitment attending congress ‘Aesthetics’, noted excitement leaving ship early alone conference. band plays writes ‘felt played me, celebrated steps onto Greek soil, responsible myself, passport no longer kept box hundred others handbag’.14 As moves further ship, travelling coach dark night, fears dissolve feels ‘deep, unreasoning joy, coming far down inside’.15 same trip, hat flies off busload philosophers aesthetics congress, day Delphi. persuades bus stop chases after errant hat. Separated yet another ‘herd’, moment ‘exultation’.16 Milner, time, ‘alone land’.17 Here, occasion capable, though conveys thrill escaping. visited When accompanied colleagues did ‘speak’ repetition tour group. Then went back, twice, each unaccompanied. Alone, eluded her: ‘I feel see’.18 experiences different knowing’ joy plain Doric capitals’ steady rhythm pillars’.19 gap between object observer closed, Parthenon, it. attention becomes possible One I’ll make list points conflict herd. ‘They’ assume what happens matters, you go, do, things happen, have. it’s none things, times between, nothing happens, moments, perhaps open letter, sit restaurant, exchange stranger.20 And sitting restaurant remove crowd herd guarantee There remain ‘mass produced ideals’ against possibility ‘drifting without rudder compass, swept directions influence custom, tradition, fashion, swayed standards uncritically accepted friends, family, countrymen, ancestors’.21 words, mind, theatre looked at. clear costs overcrowding: ‘unless one recurrently let go preoccupations social sink private sea being, will new beginnings, freeing old prisoning rigidities, spring renewal’.22 striking aspect thinking indeed finds alone. Such retreat surrender else. Inside presence ‘nearer breathing’ ‘an active “something” “I” “not I” gives me alone’.23 tries names presence, calling answering activity, inner other. holidays patient, ‘Susan’, would write titled Hands Living God. Susan came receiving electro-convulsive therapy hospital. For her, body’ associated terror dying.24 Working Susan, developed psychoanalytic vocabulary Written eighteen departs psychoanalytical terminology. internalised other’, term, ‘clumsy’ describe internal contact even acknowledges cared infancy presence.25 Sometimes refers ‘other mind’ accept.26 resistance experiencing other, fight allowing any “other” within conscious thought endeavour is’.27 Being mean remains radically unknown. allows wonder whether presence: ‘trouble has faith like nothingness, emptiness, void, turn inward’.28 something: ‘there’s always breathing. weight’.29 mysterious other’ companion solitude.30 attentiveness characterises inside body access ‘answering activity’. contrast reputation solipsism, psychoanalysis inhabited others. Towards Group Psychology Analysis Ego, makes now famous statements: ‘in individual’s mental life someone else invariably involved, model, object, helper, opponent’.31 goes further. human presences populate self. Alone Objects move site metamorphosis. ‘porpoise attention’ surfaces, lifts head mole reverie’.32 Observing pigeon Hampstead, ‘his pink legs strutting, gleaming held high’, while carrying shopping home, straightens ‘how proudly loves lives him, moves’.33 creatures nose variety attitudes, increasingly identified them: ‘people who scorn “being animal”, animal, felt dignity is?’34 Solitude, sense expansive connectedness. Having interwoven network presences. Here echoes William Blake’s ‘Auguries Innocence’. Compare ‘to grain sand’ ‘(i)s mud images come?’35 palpable associates objects animals entire non-human world. He interlocutor inspiration work, words recurring motif ‘Eternity’s Sunrise’ title poems, borrows quoting epigraph. Both Adam Phillips Emilia Hatton Hernandez contributions journal discussed debt English Romanticism acknowledged, turning Blake clinical papers writing.36 permeability links modernist contemporaries, particularly Elizabeth Bowen, hallucinatory quality perception blurs boundaries people. Jacqueline Rose puts Bowen Mary Butts, ‘push perceptual reality towards type vertigo precipice’.37 reasons extremely elegant sentences, sometimes difficult sentences leave reader displaced, unsure subject located, acting what. expansive, timeless connectedness eternity, stylistically tied contemporary moment. This, think, accident. desire precisely historical seem. connected leisure (‘the happens’).38 chanced upon, summoned, retreat. ‘wide focus’, described ‘knowing whole body’, alters sees.39 focus, awareness insignificant seeming unexpected ways. written continues idea focus seeking travels. collection, Eve Dickson elaborates how state consciousness suffused inhabiting drawing painting, life.40 making case capacity mind rest. opposed imperatives productivity self-improvement, engaged non-purposive eschews effort. retreats, experiments leisure, involve distance demands day-to-day living norms place time. Going holiday, taking afternoon family gestures stepping Cruise, withdrawing crowd. They create Whenever clutch anxiety, relation whenever flood inferiority lest should able reach goal aiming at, tried ritual sacrifice plans strivings. Instead straining harder, impulse getting difficult, said: nothing, want nothing,’ momentary gesture wiped existence. result surprised could few it; anxiety fall away, serene happy, also, short period, minutes, begin, entirely itself, throwing useful very problem been struggling with.41 language disturbs attempt purely optimistic exercise. Though extract tracks movement stuckness freedom via renunciation, wiping existence exceed narrative arc. We draw line dissatisfaction society, ‘plans strivings’ pressing need, open, hear. natural world, architecture Istanbul, work. texts witness wants bondage certainty knowledge, anew. immense urgency stakes high, willing wipe much woman leisure. Married man work because asthma, divorced single mother (these terms herself, bring home point) worked support family. diaries, worry rent, housework, pressure mother, reliable worker, considerate wife’.42 bear struggles gendered expectations: women’s enable express themselves … chiefly course, care child feeding too (at I’d picked idea) virtue sake’.43 Noting ‘many emblematic recounts solitary ones’ Rachel Bowlby introduction Own: sets gain least, gained of, “one’s own”: imagined free ties constrains “chatter” take “one” pristine sensual fulfilment world’.44 1931, 19 December, sentence, double bar emphasis: ‘Woman’s life’.45 Unlike entries similar titles (‘Being martyrdom’; ‘A woman’s ghoul’; ‘Attempt reconstruct jobs’) followed discussion.46 richly background demanding schedule obligations care. However and, life, advocating advocate total hope harvest reaped however necessary entry. Moments essential, rediscovered larger aim experiment, rather prescription: ‘weather experiment’.47 From characterised suspicion received postures certainty. Some tentative, shaped opinion, organised cliques. mention worlds Cambridge, Bloomsbury Group, psychoanalysis, brother Patrick physicist win Nobel Prize.48 concerned dismissed: ‘my taste uncertain, jeer sentimental etc. (Taste god School)’.49 dismissals come entry crying husband ‘teases high brow, reading War Peace’.50 strategises: ‘To avoid jeers analysts (my friends) must keep rigidly attitude “this ‘this’ enjoyable isn’t odd” shows valuable”’.51 become imagines ordinary himself, dependant experts hate this, …’52 position knowledge (such valuable) arm’s length have, first, contingent worries dismissed, became method, integral kind focus’ strive for. distracted crowds, troubled experts, maps guidebooks get enjoyment God already link ability knowing While patient reverie, vigilant separation self suspended. suggests reverie nourishing persecutory. Solitude presented practice suspension. near constant backdrop writing, opening sentence tells Leisure ‘blitzed print 1940 raids London’.53 First World War. attest affected nationalism wartime, continued trouble over years. dance 1927, discomfort amidst happiness: men killed war glow pride almost hot shame hatred’.54 haunt dead Gallipoli, ‘spiky black urchin’ middle (it wasn’t until picture diadema antillarum realised painful image was). To spent Spain, ‘actually elections led Civil War’.55 Helen Tyson’s distraught news European fascism (‘MASSACRE OF ABYSSINIANS’, writes, capitals, diary).56 biographer Emma Letley us training during wartime qualification paper delivered ‘buzz bombs’ supervision Melanie Klein used pedal V2s falling’ ‘too difficult’.57 During air London, terrified. impact provides stake lost distinction since ‘there nowhere bomb except her’.58 says Second declared ‘straightaway book’ ‘straightaway’ indication relied provide antidote environment.59 fact if concerned, drawing, facts detachment introduced observing eye perched sketching stool, attendant view-point fixed level horizontal lines vanish. seemed mixed them that. mixed-up places forged navigated. consequences displacement, holes, uncertainty seeks preserve certainties shaken, questions raised interests openness. about, threefold refusal ideology. instance, crowds inflected past come. herd, mass entity undertakes self-exploration. typical truth straight seeing hypocrisies voice fences bars life’.60 concern ‘voice herd’ Michel de Montaigne, whose Essays epigraphs chapters Own. Montaigne’s essay, ‘On Solitude’, quoted opposition individual: ‘contagion dangerous crowds. Either loathe wicked imitate them. grow many, different’.61 keeps company Montaigne straightforward matter removing individual Even removed carry affiliations ambitions impossible: ‘by ridding ourselves Court market-place rid principal torments life’.62 contagion inflection nationalist, fascist. implicated darker enjoyments sanction wary instances sports event (‘40000 singing ‘God Save King’) where, witnessing injury, neighbour horrid broken neck’;63 bull-fight anxious investigate potential susceptibility fascist distinctive meaning carries ‘Creeds’ ideological equivalent laments detrimental creeds, excuses, pretexts, savagery’.64 savagery lies mind: ‘Savagery share beliefs, surely anyone believes differently threatens absoluteness certainties’.65 murderous belief: ‘it’s insistence your absolute killing agree, pretending save souls, bolster beliefs’.66 discussing Christianity here, extends critique slave-traders (‘who prayed Christian boat loads manacled slaves, dying, Atlantic Africa’) monarchy (‘that Queen ours ordering burning three Kentish village believing did’).67 represented creed deadly, resulting Hitlerian certainty’.68 wonders laughing oneself deadly creeds certainties, posing question: ‘Can dictators laugh themselves?’69 end favourite clowns Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Harpo Marx amongst ‘have ineptitudes mirrored back’.70 unsurprising coeval not-knowing, belief tempered doubt inept, ageing, mysterious. here attempts ideology propaganda, weaponised fighting rejecting solitu