The eccentric lady of Primrose Hill

The dragon and I hear sounds tonight. We realise that we haven’t listened to music in a long time. Step by step, swaying slightly to the left, we make our way as the party lights buzz nonchalantly. Old Paradise Yard is full of secrets. One, in particular, is club Iklectik. There, in hushed electricity where ordering a drink is a mastery of subtlety, we are drowned in sound. And it is such a relief. Thomas Stone, a master of experiments, is playing electric contrabassoon awash in visual art. His partner in crime, James, has tumbled us through a nightmare forest, a place I somehow recognize, only through its searing power.…

W.B Yeats was my neighbour. Sadly, we never met but he has a dreamy lilac plaque commemorating his time spent in Primrose Hill. An Irish friend introduced me to his poem, ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’, and it’s beautiful. Knowing nothing about my neighbour, as is so often the case, I wanted to learn. A representative of Irish literature, he seemed to keep a mute on his nationalistic views until later in his life, shifting between phases of varying influences and passions and styles, like all amazing artists. What I found fascinating was his attraction to spiritualism. “If I had not made magic my constant study I could not have…

Dad and I. My swedish dad is something of a spirit, I think he comes from somewhere further away than the stars. We used to have little travels together, Valencia, Palestine, İstanbul. One day perhaps a cycle trip through Iran. We created a world together, him and I, an experimental music project named Generationer. Generations by Hultmark&Hultmark. We rehearsed intensively for four days in a half derelict castle, Brancepeth Castle in Durham. It was October and bitterly cold. In woolen hats and socks we traipsed amongst snake nests of wires, pedals, bells, keyboard, soprano trombone, Brian Nisbet’s poetry (and words of our own), tears (mine), computers and a bassoon and…

Since meeting Fernando the osteo, let’s call him GF, my interest in essential oils took a rocket moon leap. Doterra is apparently the only place to source them and I am building a tiny collection. Deep Blue, copaiba, jasmine, lavender. Jingling glass bottles of potions that I line up along my fairy lights. They glow at night and take on the forces they represent. Bergamot, wild ginger and lavender for a friend in a dark place. Precious melissa oil to encourage the healing of my mum’s precious viola nerves. Green Witch, my handbook to a familiar spiritual world. I am growing little shoots, little sprays of green in my room.…

I am a damaged musician with a dragon in my leg. A few weeks ago I was given the bottle label of ‘a large central and paracentral (right-sided) L5/S1 disc prolapse with thecal effacement and radiological caudal compression’. A label to wrap around one of the beautiful cobalt blue glass poison bottles I found in a market, ‘do not drink’. I am rendered unable to play for an unknown amount of time with possible surgery looming. I was supposed to play Knussen’s solo bassoon craziness this Saturday, a piece based on Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’ and became captivated by the story, a fairytale of sorts. It grotesquely portrays the somewhat fragile banality…

2.13 am and the dragon is in my leg. It sleeps there, curled along the sinews and blood rivers, smoking nonchalantly in its dreams. Sometimes, its acidic grip is more than lying down is able to bear, and I reach for the pills. The blessed drugs. Yesterday I found cobalt blue poison bottles, glowing vessels of glass beauty clearly marked ‘do not drink’. I would like to fill these with my drugs, my pain blasters, instead I planted them on my windowsill to catch the morning light. 2 something am and I am still here. ‘Keep smiling, your smile’s beautiful’ said the lady on the tube.