Esoteric & Based ft. JENNA
Guest memo #9
Guest Memo #9: Jenna
Jenna is a ’90s baby, silk-dress designer, divorcée, mother of two. She has degrees in Fashion, English Literature, and Psychology and lives in Cape Town.
⭐ 3 April 1995, Aries sun, Taurus moon
📍Cape Town, South Africa
OO: What is your relationship to your phone, and how do (or don’t) you set boundaries with it/social media/doomscrolling?
J: I have a healthy respect for my phone. I love how easy it is to capture cute moments, the way it connects me to friends far away, and reminds me of plans I’ve already made. I have a special place in my heart for doomscrolling; the mindless consumption of imagery and information provides me with a soft way of ending the day. Kids asleep, phone out, scrolling through the strange web of posts strangers all over the world have created. What a strange and curious universe we have created with our phones. I find it fascinating. I am an A-type, my phone is clean, and messages and emails get responded to promptly. I respect all forms of communication.
1. A Book
The White Hotel by D.M. Thomas, 1981
First published in 1981, first read by me at 17 in 2012. The White Hotel describes itself as ‘a startling poetry of violence and redemption’. It’s divided into 5 sections and ‘interlaces history, lush sexuality, psychological truth, fantasy and the craving for brutality, in the case history of Lisa Erdman, a patient of Freud.’
My 17-year-old self was captivated by the sensuality of the sexual poem. The visual imagery provoked and tantalised, shocked and abhorred my own intrigue by it.
Reading it through a broader lens that experiencing more of life lent me, now having studied the basic concepts of Freud, having breastfed my own children, and having experienced my own sexual deviance. I had a different understanding of what the sexual imagery was conveying, invoking, or provoking.
It begins as this sexual monolith of raw sensuality, then transforms into a detailed unpacking of her life, weaving her reality with her shocking fantasy: ‘Oh, I can’t tell you how our rupture gushed.’
It’s this juxtaposition of intellectualism and raw sexual imagination which completely enthrals me each time I read it. Prompting my own investigation into the landscape of dreams.
“I dreamt of falling trees in a wild storm
I was between them as a desolate shore
Came to meet me and I ran, scared stiff,
There was a trap door but I could not lift
it, I have started an affair
with your son”
“From the perspective of Freud beginning to understand Anna, from her childhood, telling the memories of a woman to understand her episode ‘If I had not been familiar with the idealizing tendencies of our adult years, I should have believed that the patients early childhood held no tedious or unpleasant interludes, but consisted entirely of building castles of sand on the beach, and gliding along on her fathers yacht, under a blue sky, past the cliffs of the Black Sea coast; and that this happy state lasted interminably.’”
2. An Artwork
I was drawn to this work when I attended her walkabout. It was in a show called ‘Fecund’. I’m always deeply captivated by the way Grindrod discusses her body of work. She weaves a story by nodding to classical artworks. This particular show was exploring themes of fecundity and fertility, fallow times and death, and the layered meanings of abundance.’
This work of hers pulled me in; it was the first time I fell in love with a man post-divorce. My whole body is drawn into the orbit of another person. And I saw this painting of two lovers, gently holding each other in soft tones of pinks and blues, etched together.
I can’t resist art which evokes a deep emotional response from me, drawn in from the very first moment. It was even more thrilling going into the gallery’s office and placing a bid on the work behind closed doors.
3. A Quote/Poem
“Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow
Of crystal, wandering water,
Thou art an emblem of the glow
Of beauty - the unhidden heart -
The playful maziness of art
In old Alberto's daughter;
But when within thy wave she looks -
Which glistens then, and trembles -
Why, then, the prettiest of brooks
Her worshipper resembles;
For in my heart, as in thy stream,
Her image deeply lies -
The heart which trembles at the beam
Of her soul-searching eyes.”
- To the River, Edgar Allen Poe, 1829
4. An Audio
Song: Promessa d’Amore by Alessia Fontana, 2026
5. A Place
Kommetjie ocean path, Cape Town, South Africa
I’ve deeply connected to the little pathway along the ocean in Kommetjie. I drop the kids at school and run my legs along this little trail. Each morning, it looks different: the collection of clouds drifting in the sky, the angles of light drifting through them, the tide, high or low, the family of playful otters, locals dipping into the keyhole, the narrow pathway making it challenging to pass fellow path lovers.
This little path is my morning refuge.
6. A Film
TV Series: Rivals, by Elliot Hegarty, 2024
Two artfully impeccable seasons playing with the dark undertone of the competitive nature behind two of the UK’s independent television networks in the ‘80’s.
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Omg I’d be friends with me