• Girlhood under Quarantine:A Zoom Call with Gabrielle Civil
• Aisha Sabatini Sloan (bio)

When quarantine first started, I thought I would get lost in time just like I did as a teenager, when I would sit at the drafting table in my bright yellow bedroom. Back then, I would make collages, listen to Nina Simone, and watch documentaries about jazz musicians. Though I did make a diorama of Jane Goodall looking plaintively toward a chimpanzee amid a backdrop of barren trees and smoke, my fantasies of creative exploration of late have gone largely unrealized. The early days of quarantine were, instead, lost to reruns of Top Chef, and many anxious middle-of-the-night hours spent reading the news. But the memory of how I spent my girlhood felt especially near to me when I sat down for a zoom chat with writer and performance artist, Gabrielle Civil, author of the memoirs Swallow the Fish (2017) and most recently, Experiments in Joy (2019), which was longlisted for this year's Believer Nonfiction award.

In a performance event called, Girls in their Bedrooms, orchestrated by Civil and Ellen Marie Hinchcliffe, art goers were ushered into a series of bedrooms. In one bedroom, audience-member Sarah Hollows recalls, "blank pages were hanging… waiting to be filled, containers for lost and forgotten memories." In another room, the art goer might find a "red balloon, the ceramic bust of a young black girl, a bottle wrapped in sequins." In Gabrielle's room, "a bright abstract floral quilt haphazardly made the bed; a stack of books piled high from the floor," and "colored pencils stood in an unopened box." There was, too, an article posted on the wall: "Nigeria: dozens of girls kidnapped," as if to emphasize the degree to which girlhood encompasses a state of innocence, as well as the keen awareness of an impending edge. As Hollows writes, "in the body of a bedroom, the closet beats."

My talk with Gabrielle was more playdate than discourse. We talked about nail polish and time travel. Things got astral. Gabrielle recalls feeling, during our chat, a bit like Bjork during that interview where the popstar sits behind a TV with the back cover removed, describing the inner workings of the machine like some secret world.

I forgot how to know how to be prepared for a conversation.

You were born ready

But you've done it.

You mean this? [Holds up computer to show that she is surrounded by a nest of books].

And that dress!

I have not worn a wristwatch, or set an alarm in the morning, or really worn a brassiere in months, but I still get up and try to put on something just to make me feel. I've started painting my nails. I bought all these discontinued Crayola shades off eBay, it's very girlhood. In fact, maybe I should grab a few to show you since it's connected to what we're doing here. [Shows selection of MANY nail polishes].

Whoa.

I got into a place where I needed color. It was like a Nella Larsen moment. Like Helga Crane. A dream of leisure time, and play, and dress up and femininity and trying things on, and color that's about trying to be a girl, not even trying to be a woman, but something about what girls are supposed to do, oh you paint your nails, you play. To me these polishes are instruments of play. And they're also connected to writing because I'm writing a new thing, and while typing, I wanted to be able to look at my fingers and see certain colors to help me get to a certain mode or pitch.

How often do you paint your nails? How do you orchestrate the influence of a certain color on your creative process? Do you think ahead a lot or is it improvisational?

It's more improvisational. And this is unusual that I'm only wearing one color [holds up hands, wearing hot pink nail polish]. Usually I have at least two, so there will be at least three nails one...

• 隔离检疫下的少女时代：Gabrielle Civil的宣传电话
• 艾莎·萨巴蒂尼·斯隆（Aisha Sabatini Sloan）

隔离刚开始的时候，我想我会像十几岁的少年一样迷失在时间上，那时候我会坐在明亮的黄色卧室里的绘图台上。那时，我会做拼贴画，听妮娜·西蒙妮（Nina Simone）的话，并观看有关爵士音乐家的纪录片。尽管我确实让简·古道尔（Jane Goodall）的立体模型在一片贫瘠的树木和烟雾笼罩下，朝着黑猩猩微微地望着，但我近来进行创造性探索的幻想基本上没有实现。相反，隔离的前几天却丢失了“顶级厨师”的重办，而且许多焦虑的半夜都花在阅读新闻上。但是，当我坐下来与回忆录《燕子鱼》的作者兼表演艺术家加布里埃尔·卡里尔（Gabrielle Civil）进行即时聊天时，对我度过童年的记忆特别贴近我（2017年），以及最近的《欢乐实验（2019年）》，该奖项入围了今年的“非暴力小说奖”。

在一场名为“卧室里的女孩”的表演活动中在Civil和Ellen Marie Hinchcliffe的精心策划下，艺术爱好者被带入了一系列卧室。观众成员莎拉·霍洛斯（Sarah Hollows）在一间卧室里回忆说：“空白页悬挂着……等待装满，是那些丢失和被遗忘的回忆的容器。” 在另一个房间里，艺人可能会发现“一个红色的气球，一个年轻的黑人女孩的陶瓷胸像，一个用亮片包裹的瓶子”。在加布里埃尔的房间里，“一张鲜艳的抽象花卉被子随意摆在床上；一堆书从地板上高高地堆着，”和“彩色铅笔站在一个未打开的盒子里。” 墙上还贴了一篇文章：“尼日利亚：数十名女孩被绑架”，似乎在强调少女时代包含纯真状态的敏锐程度，以及对即将到来的优势的敏锐认识。正如Hollows所说：

我与Gabrielle的谈话更多是玩乐时间，而不是话语时间。我们谈到了指甲油和时间旅行。事情变得星体。Gabrielle回忆说，在我们的聊天中，这感觉有点像Bjork，在那次采访中，这位流行歌星坐在一台电视机后面，卸下了后盖，将机器的内部运转描述为一个秘密世界。

我忘记了如何知道如何为谈话做准备。

你天生就准备好了

但是，您已经做到了。

你是这个意思？[举起电脑显示她被一堆书包围了]。

那件衣服！

我没有戴手表，早上也没有闹钟，或者几个月都没有戴胸罩，但是我仍然起身并尝试穿上一些东西，以使自己感到自己。我已经开始画指甲了。我在eBay上购买了所有这些已停产的Crayola阴影，那真是少女时代。实际上，由于它与我们在这里所做的事情有关，所以也许我应该向您展示一些内容。[显示了许多指甲油的选择]。

哇

我进入需要色彩的地方。就像内拉·拉森（Nella Larsen）的那一刻。就像Helga Crane一样。梦见闲暇，娱乐，打扮，女性化，试穿以及肤色，这是要成为一个女孩，甚至不是想成为一个女人，而是关于女孩应该做什么的事，哦，你画你的指甲，你玩。在我看来，这些抛光剂是一种游戏工具。而且他们还与写作联系在一起，因为我正在写新东西，并且在打字时，我希望能够看着自己的手指并看到某些颜色，以帮助我达到特定的模式或音调。

您多久涂一次指甲？您如何协调某种颜色对创作过程的影响？您是否认为很多事还是临时的？

更即兴。而且我只穿一种颜色，这很不寻常[举起手，穿着粉红色的指甲油]。通常我至少有两个，所以至少会有三个钉子...