Of Dogs and Daughters: Between Surrogate and Self (book excerpt)

Simona Koutná Of Dogs and Daughters

OF DOGS AND DAUGHTERS

by Susan van Veen An ad for a newspaper subscription that reached me through Instagram last week introduced to me a new Dutch word, a neology: spijtmoeder.

It’s a portmanteau, consisting of the words spijt, meaning regret, and moeder, meaning mother. I did not engage with the article that promised to explain all about this phenomenon, for I currently cannot afford a newspaper subscription. There was however a subtitle, a quote, that went: ‘A spijtmoeder always thinks she is a singularity’ supposedly stated by a clinical psychologist whose name I did not register. Was this some newly discovered, rare subspecies of homo sapiens?

In taxonomy there are many old and new words for all kinds of interesting things. For example, the last known individual of an entire species is called an ‘endling.’ Once the endling dies, the species becomes extinct. There is also something called a ‘monotypic taxon,’ a taxonomic group that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon (grouping). A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. Homo sapiens are a monotypic species, and so are Beluga whales, the only member of the genus Delphinapterus.

Canis familiaris, the domestic dog as we know it, is not a monotypic species, our dogs do still have many living close ‘family’ members. The genus Canis (Carl Linnaeus, 1758) was published in the 10th edition of 5

CONTENTS

Vlasta on a film set (Czechoslovakia, 1950)

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5

Of Dogs and Daughters by Susan van Veen

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Preface

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Happy Couples by Dodie Smith

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Convenience / Blind Spot by Susan van Veen

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The Dalmatian Rose

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Perdita by Dodie Smith

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The Sky is Pink and the Roses are Blue

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Giuseppa’s Home through my Experience

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Giuseppa’s Story, in Her Own Words

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As if all Dogs Can Make a Revolution

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To a Mum

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A Matter of Optics by Carmen Dusmet Carrasco

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Contact Lenses

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Je tohle divadelní hra?

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Postface

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About My Work

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Contributors

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Bibliography

my vision of the future, maybe I see it through other situations? The fluid, unbounded form is complemented by the process of growth. It grows, it surrounds us so that it is everywhere. This is the feeling with which it copes. In the same way that we close our eyes and visualise the Dalmatian Rose, we imagine how it grows and how it feels as it fills the surrounding space. Let’s imagine and record how the Dalmatian Rose feels, let’s become that character, archetype, heroine, image, crop, mythological flora and its feeling. Let’s record how we feel as an omnipresent being – an entity that, despite itself, ceases to see the world around it. The world can collapse and change underneath it, this feeling is important because each of us can relate to it – sometimes feel it. It is important to connect to it and experience it fully in the extreme form of becoming this entity – the Dalmatian Rose. Not when we are spectators (by sight) or recipients, someone who is surrounded by something, but the one who surrounds.

Let us focus on this feeling.

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PERDITA

by Dodie Smith Now, said the Splendid Vet to the Dearlys, ‘you must get a foster mother.’

He explained that though Missis Pongo would do her best to feed fifteen puppies, doing so would make her terribly thin and tired. And the strong puppies would get more milk than the weak ones. The Dearlys had better telephone all the Lost Dogs’ Homes. And until the foster mother was found, they could help Missis by feeding the pups with a doll’s feeding bottle.

Mrs. Dearly was driving across a lonely stretch of common when she saw what looked like a bundle lying in the road ahead of her. She slowed down and as she drew closer she saw that it was not a bundle but a dog.

Instantly, she thought it must have been run over. Dreading what she might find, she stopped the car and got out.

At first she thought the dog was dead, but as she bent down it struggled to its feet showing no signs of injury. It was so plastered with mud that she could not see what kind of dog it was. What she could see, by the light from the car’s headlights, was the poor creature’s pitiful thinness. She spoke to it gently. Its drooping tail gave a feeble flick, then dropped again. ‘I can’t leave it here,’ thought Mrs. Dearly. ‘Even if it hasn’t been run over, it must be near starvation.’

She patted it and tried to get it to follow her. It was willing to, but its legs were so wobbly that she picked it up and carried it. It felt like a sack of bones. And as she 17

GIUSEPPA’S HOME THROUGH MY EXPERIENCE In Burzanella there is a small church next to one of the main paths crossing the village. In the church under a shadow of light and modest decorations, on the left side, there is an icon of Saint Teresa. I found the same portrait in a hotel room – Giuseppa’s home, who is living there while taking care of the place. In her room, under a row of family photographs there is a framed portrait of Saint Teresa that she purchased before she knew she would move from Sicily to the mountains. Before Giuseppa knew I was coming to meet her, she purchased this portrait with dark spots that I presume to be Perdita’s.

Northern Italy, March 29th, 2022

Saint Teresa, Giuseppa’s room (Burzanella, Italy, 2022)

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GIUSEPPA’S STORY, IN HER OWN WORDS I didn’t voluntarily decide to leave the house. In fact, I didn’t think I ever had to do it, it wasn’t in my thoughts at all. After my husband told me to leave, I couldn’t take it anymore, so I went to my mothers. It was hard for me, 28 years can’t be erased by the swipe of a sponge. I haven’t separated to make myself a new life to find myself. I just had to do it out of respect for myself as a woman because I no longer felt loved or understood. It happens that two people are wrong for each other. Certainly, I have my wrongs too. It was very painful, for a while we had some misunderstandings, but I thought they could be resolved. But I was sure I couldn’t stay in Casteldaccia near my home, seeing my house every day was impossible.

So I moved after three months to my brother’s house in Burzanella. By this point I was sure that no one needed me anymore, my children were grown up. Giuseppe had to study in Rome, and Anna had to finish her master’s degree in Bergamo. In Burzanella, I started a new life. I live a life for my children, they are my support and strength.

Just listening to them on the phone a few messages, and when they come to see me – yes, when they come, it’s the best thing, a fantastic gift where I go back to being a mother. I miss them the most, they are my whole life. So now I’m working, and I’m fine, always grateful to God for everything. I don’t know if I have been and am.

I lived in Palermo until I was 24 years old, where I was very happy. I loved Palermo so much. I moved in with my parents to Casteldaccia to a very beautiful village that 23

are stripping them from their bodies, because it’s too dangerous to show signs of sex, erected penises, clitorises, tits, hairs. We are wet and horny if we see a squirrels’ pussy. They cannot hide the pleasure.

I talk about my different take on feminism and you ask me what I buy for dinner. The violence is caused by comfort. The way we redecorate houses.

Written in Rome, shortly after meeting Giuseppa

‘She kept her fears to herself. Why should she frighten Pongo with them! How fast the miracle was traveling! She thought of the days it had taken her and Pongo to reach Suffolk on foot. Why, it seemed like weeks since they had left London! Yet it was only – how long ? Could it be only four days? They’d slept one day in the stable at the inn, one day at the dear Spaniel’s, one day in the Folly, part of a night in the barn after the escape from Hell Hall, then a day at the bakery. So much had happened in so short a time. And now, would it be all right when they got home? Would it? Would it?’

Miracle Needed

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POSTFACE: BETWEEN SURROGATE AND SELF The first time I heard Giuseppa’s story was from her son, who was my flatmate when I lived in Rome. He told me about the journey of independence Giuseppa had undertaken after she divorced her husband. At the time, Giuseppa had just moved from the South of Italy to the North, from the town where she was born into unknown territory. Here, she had opened a hotel. I visited her there, and she told me her story.

In the lobby and the dining room, Giuseppa’s walls are decorated with fairy tale stills depicting Disneyland scenery, occupied by Walt Disney’s most famous characters. Then in Giuseppa’s own room, I found the first trace of Perdita’s Dalmatian family in the form of incidental black-and-white spots on a framed portrait of St. Teresa.

Giuseppa became a surrogate mother to me during my stay. I was not her daughter, but I was a daughter and I was striving to understand.

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‘In the lobby and the dining room, Giuseppa’s walls are decorated with fairy tale stills depicting Disneyland scenery, occupied by Walt Disney’s most famous characters. Then in Giuseppa’s own room, I found the first trace of Perdita’s Dalmatian family in the form of incidental black-and-white spots on a framed portrait of St. Teresa. Giuseppa became a surrogate mother to me during my stay. I was not her daughter, but I was a daughter and I was striving to understand.’

Of Dogs and Daughters brings a compelling record by female artists and writers, whose voices have been documented and collected through friendships and chance encounters, in an attempt to redefine the mother-daughter relationship through a surrogate lens. Combined with found material that proposes dog-human perspectives, it explores images of closeness, of violence caused by film franchises, and mechanisms of nostalgia aimed at caregivers and children.

The contributions by artists Carmen Dusmet Carrasco and writer Susan van Veen are complemented by the introspections of memoirist Giuseppa and interlaced with passages from the novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith. Each voice represents a unique personal account against a backdrop of deficient social support, single parenthood and absent caregivers, serving as meeting points on a journey of inner emancipation.

Simona Koutná Of Dogs and Daughters Edited by Susan van Veen 978-90-833621-9-9 Onomatopee 249