Heart Of A Heartless Flower
For thirteen years, I was engaged to work as a Writer-in-residence within mental health services, based in Maidstone in Kent. The role lasted rather longer than I'd expected when I took it on – originally as a contract for a mere six months. The work was mostly limited to facilitating a one-hour creative writing workshop each week for mental health service users.
Initially these took place at a couple of day centres, so the attendees were patients regarded as being well enough to be discharged from the hospital. A few sessions were arranged in other centres. At one point I found myself working on reminiscences with dementia patients. And, hardest of all in emotional terms, a few sessions at the Eating Disorders Clinic.
Over the course of those thirteen years, I must have met hundreds, maybe even a few thousand, mental health service users. There are some I remember more clearly than others, and frankly I remember them mostly for tragic reasons.
Kevin, for instance, who would sit crying because he was unable to recall even his own name. The doctors thought he was suffering dementia until, after two years, they realised that his severe memory loss was a side effect of the psychiatric medication.
There was Sierra, mother of two small children, who was prescribed a course of electro convulsive therapy, and became so confused that she took an accidental overdose of her medication one morning, choking to death on her own vomit.
There was Bernard, who failed to commit suicide on a weekly basis, breaking the hospital shower with the rope around his neck or denting the car he stepped in front of as the driver was trying to park the vehicle.
There was the Japanese woman whose name I never knew and who, I was told, “never speaks”. And indeed, she remained silent until I tried to speak to her in my paltry, mispronounced Japanese, the ten minute stream of her enthusiastic response ending with a plaintive, “Wakarimasu ka”, at which I could only shake my head apologetically.
Most, though, drifted through namelessly as empty-eyed, broken vessels. Their stories formed a desperate litany of drug use, failed relationships, domestic abuse. A gathering of the barely surviving.
She was different, though. A spark in her eyes, perhaps. I'm not sure. Something in her attitude that said, “I am not broken, nor will I ever be”. When I walked into the room where she was waiting for me to begin the writing workshop, she began to sing softly, a little under her breath.
“What was so extraordinary about what was happening in those eyes? What was it they reflected – some obscure distress and at the same time some luminous pride?”
“Where does the time go?” She giggled when she saw that I had noticed. “Are you feeling insulted? I've been waiting for you. For five minutes”.
“We have another five minutes before the workshop is due to start”.
“I know. What was your favourite book when you were growing up?”
I thought for a moment. “Alice in Wonderland”, I said truthfully.
“That's funny. My name is Alice. My real name, anyway”.
“Really? That's a coincidence”.
“It might be”, she said.
“What was your favourite book when you were little?” I felt that I needed to regain some initiative.
“I'm the one asking the questions”. There was that spark in her eyes, again. “What are you reading at the moment?”
“A book called Nadja. It's by André Breton”.
“I know it. I could be your Nadja”.
A brief digression seems necessary here, to explain a little of who and what Breton's Nadja was, and is. André Breton, widely considered the first fountainhead of Surrealist theory and practice, published Nadja in 1928. This semi-autobiography recounts his encounters, adventures and misadventures with a young woman he named Nadja who he met by chance on the streets of Paris. In our 21st century understanding, we would recognise Nadja as having significant mental health issues. Breton, even with some degree of medical training and knowledge of psychology (at least, as far as it had progressed by the late 1920s), seems to have become enthralled by her, and to have followed her on a kind of inspired ten-day progress through Paris filled with strange moments and chance events. Not least among them are Nadja's own eccentric perspectives on the world around her.
"You could never see this star as I do. You don't understand: It's like the heart of a heartless flower."
Two other people drift into the room. Alice introduces each new arrival as if they were part of her family, or old friends.
“Meet Charles. And, oh, this is Abigail”.
“Good morning Charles, good morning Abigail, welcome. We'll start the workshop in a few minutes when the others arrive”.
Charles and Abigail sit down, and pick up the pens and paper laid out ready for them to use.
“My name isn't Charles”, says Charles, “my name is Bill”.
“And I'm Lisa”, says Abigail.
This continues as each attendee comes along. Alice introduces them, and then they tell me a name entirely different to the one with which Alice has christened them. There are ten service users waiting expectantly, by the time the workshop is due to begin. Alice is the eleventh and she is not waiting at all, she is busy drawing something on her paper. I am about to start the session by introducing myself when she abruptly stands up, steps across to me, and hands me her drawing.
“I'm not staying”, she says, “I don't need to stay, I'm already a great artist. And this drawing is for you”.
The drawing is a depiction of a stereotypical witch, complete with conical hat, besom broom and cat. It's childlike; the cat is made up from two circles, a small circle balanced on top of a larger one. It's been signed, “Alice. And Nadja.”
In all my time working in that environment, I never mentioned a single word about my Craft beliefs and interests. Was that drawing purely coincidental? How could she possibly have known? The answer still eludes me.
Alice saunters out of the room, blowing me a kiss as she goes. “See you around”, she says, and the door closes behind her.
I turn to the Occupational Therapist who's sitting beside me. “Should I hand this in? Maybe the art therapist would like to see it”.
“I'm honestly not sure”, says the OT, but after a few seconds' hesitation she adds, “You probably ought to hang onto it though, patient confidentiality and all that”.
“Alright. I might have to ask Alice to sign it for me, before I leave”.
“Oh, her name isn't Alice”, the OT tells me, “Her real name is Sue”.
"Beauty will be convulsive or will not be at all."
Note: I've changed all real names for the sake of confidentiality, aside from “Alice”; which of course was not her real name in any case. The quotations included are all taken from André Breton's Nadja, as translated into English by Richard Howard.
Philip Kane
By Grace Sanchez
Philip Kane is an award-winning poet, author, storyteller and artist, living in the south-eastern corner of England. He is an “Old Craft” practitioner, a supporter of Anti-Capitalist Resistance, and a founding member of the London Surrealist Group. Philip's work has been published and exhibited across Europe, in the Middle East and in the USA. He is a contributor to The Gorgon's Guide to Magical Resistance (Revelore Press, 2022).