From Danielle Collobert’s notebooks, December 1959.

From Danielle Collobert’s notebooks, December 1959.

to U.

Hi — I already always wanted to write you — it didn’t happen — why — you know — we always write to talk to ourselves — always — actually I haven’t written a line for the longest time — except poems — but you know that — that isn’t writing something — I believe that something is ripening just now, little by little — at time I’ve said to myself that the moment I’m in has extraordinary flavor — so good — but I didn’t begin to understand what it was in such a moment — I can’t even locate the feeling involved — I try, of course without success, to recapture it, relive it — of course that’s impossible — what it will suddenly bring out in me — where I’m going — at this moment I feel like adding things up — drawing a line and summing up, like Sartre said — not getting lost — it’s meticulous — and necessary — I haven’t the strength for it — it would take too long— but I’m making little starts, one after the other — I begin “okay here I am — alone — totally alone — nothing counts — death close — my death —what there is around me — facts — things — maybe even human beings I can do without from one day to the next — I’m available — completely — merciless freedom — you remember — I stop myself here — I can never go any further — anyway what is further — I can’t know — I’m up against a wall — And yet, when I come back, there’s this uneasiness — reminder that I’m not okay — that sometimes I need others — so strong right this minute that I hope someone comes along, anyone — I’ve got my hands on some clay — I am having to do something — write — always the wall — sometimes I hope that elsewhere there’s no wall — it’s dumb — I know I’m going to keep finding myself anywhere — don’t need to write — not necessary — I do it because days go by and I fill them as best I can — in any case — not to write for someone — for other — and then compose — imagine characters — can’t do it — it’s fake…