ISSUE #232 / APRIL 2023
What do you see as the purpose of The Red Hand Files? What’s their point? | ANDREA, HAMBURG, GERMANY
My hubby Tim has been gradually reading me the historical Red Hand Files. We were late to this even though both of us have always loved and followed you. Unfortunately, I am on palliative care and will no doubt shake off this mortal coil soon.
These questions are so wonderfully answered, they throw me directly into your arms.
I wish I had a good question to ask, alas not.
You have and do fill my world with joy, amongst these four walls.
I have shed tears for you and Susie and laughed with you too.
I have a beautiful signed copy of Idiot Prayer on one wall along with other lovely memorabilia that Tim brings to me. I listen to your audible books with delight.
I hope the future Nick and Susie find all the joy of life that you can draw from each other. Love to you both. PS. Love to Tim for writing this for me. He is my rock.
ALISON, DENNY, SCOTLAND
Dear Andrea, Alison, and Tim,
After reading your question, Andrea, I jotted some words in my notebook, I wrote – ‘People unburden themselves with a kind of energy where each is elevated by the vitality of the exchange itself. Because something is required of each other, some measure of truth, of respect, of regard emerges. That we are heard, each of us, is the thing. The act of listening is perhaps the best we can do for each other.’ It was my first rough attempt to answer your question, but I decided to return to it later as I had been feeling out of sorts for a few days and was tired.
That evening, when I went back to look at the questions, as fate would have it, the first letter I read was yours, Alison and Tim, and it answered Andrea’s question better than I ever could. As I read it, all the disquiet and annoyance that I had been holding in my body for the last couple of days drained from me. The beautiful truth of your letter, its clarity, its humour, its dignity, and its gratitude to the world, brought me back to myself. I felt your faith in the loveliness of life itself, and I heard, with both sadness and admiration, the voice of someone dying deep inside life, rather than away from it, with her husband by her side. How affecting it is to read something so spiritually eloquent, open-hearted and uncynical. I hold nothing but the highest regard for you both and I feel your love for each other, bright and alive, emanating from your words. I feel your love for me too and, well, that means something and I return that love with my whole heart. To witness the quiet courage you display in this life is a great privilege to us all. We are all deeply indebted. Please stay in touch.
Love, Nick
ISSUE #271 / FEBRUARY 2024
Holy shit, Nick, I just read Mark’s question and your response. (Issue #270) It was devastating. It appears that answering to people’s grief is somewhat cathartic for you. The pouring of emotions, and open dialogue of such agonizing life experiences is not something that comes easy to most. Is it cathartic?
MILE, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
Have you not been through enough personal trauma to actually want to read the recurring theme of suffering and despair from all of us? Is it therapeutic or inspirational in anyway?
CAROLINE, MULHOUSE, FRANCE
What do you think of the other ‘Nick Cave’ the Chicago born artist? Do you like his sound suits? Are you a fan?
DANNY, MONTREAL, CANADA
Dear Mile, Caroline and Danny,
Some of the letters sent to The Red Hand Files are so raw, and their details so affecting, that they can indeed take their toll, and so I try to exert a certain self-protective remove when answering them. I suppose I do this by practising compassion rather than empathy – being moved by someone’s suffering and wanting to help, rather than putting myself in their position and feeling their pain. Standing a step away and seeking to assist someone in need, rather than being disabled by their despair, seems to be the way to manage these things. I have found this works, as Bob Dylan poignantly sang, ‘most of the time.’
I don’t find the process of replying to these letters cathartic or therapeutic, although it may well have been when I started The Red Hand Files. Neither do I find writing my replies inspirational, in the sense that it does not inspire me, for example, to write a song. Mostly I see what I do as a human duty, I feel I am playing my part in what has become an ever-expanding and robustly vulnerable community of soul-barers. In this space I have come face to face with a kind of truth – a truth that has embedded itself in my life, and which demands something of me, whether I like it or not. I don’t mean that it is some kind of burden, it is anything but, for duty is often the very thing that ultimately bears the greatest rewards. To act dutifully is to acknowledge that things matter, that things have value and are worth caring for.
The Red Hand Files have become a quietly instructive influence over the way I try to live my life, which is openly and with curiosity. They are a kind of existential condition, a means by which to navigate the world, a way to be. They have also, perplexingly, brought to light a kind of ministering impulse that I am both proud of and somewhat embarrassed by. Whatever it is that is going on here at The Red Hand Files, it is a true privilege to be a part of it and I thank you all for that. It is never more than I can handle.
Danny, I have admired the work of the American artist, Nick Cave, for many years. In creating his soundsuits he famously and audaciously turned the rage, grief and helplessness he experienced after the LAPD’s beating of Rodney King into deeply joyful, even rapturous art. The soundsuits became a kind of ecstatic armour. Perhaps, in their quiet, faltering way, The Red Hand Files are not dissimilar in their intent – an attempt to transmute suffering into a kind of knowing and shielding joy. Joy as armour. Love as shelter. I don’t know. I hope so.
Love, Nick
