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CHAPTER 6 Subjunctive Moods and Imperative Reminders Post-its. The TV in the living room is on, showing a film on Kinoxit. A plate with small cakes and a sliced apple is on the table. Emil is making coffee. His mother comes in to say hello. She is wearing a lilac track suit and is on her way to the bulvar for a run. The table is next to a bricked-up fireplace. On one side, windows face the yard, and on the far side, a small shelving unit displays tea sets and pictures. The windows are open because Emil’s mother likes fresh air in the morning. Several of her religious artifacts lie around, including a small Bible. In Emil’s room, furniture has been stacked up. Along one wall, a large set of shelves takes up most of the space. The only obviously personal item in the room is his passport, which lies on one of the shelves. Emil is doing some repairs and improvements in the apartment, which he works on now and then—installing a new window, mending a door frame, painting a wall. He’s the man of the house. His brother in Moscow usually sends them money for materials for the repair work, but he has financial problems and hasn’t been able to send any for some time. We sit at the small table in the living room. Next to us, above the fireplace , small Post-it notes are stuck here and there. They feature English words that Emil wants to memorize. At the moment he is practicing irregular verbs. Maybe the notes fall down sometimes. Maybe days or weeks pass before he looks at them or replaces them with new ones. But they are there; they are not removed deliberately. He explains that he began putting them up when I last left Batumi because he didn’t have anyone to practice with. They remind him that he has to continue. In Chapter 4, Gosha at times talked about the future as if it had already happened and at other times he fell deeper and deeper into depression SubjunCtIve MoodS and IMperatIve reMInderS • 125 because he felt that he was longing for a future that might never become reality . at stake here was one relatively clear idea of what the future would— or rather had to—be. this made it fragile because the alternatives to the fulfilment of Gosha’s one dream were bleak. In Chapter 5 armen and Magu also had dreams about the future and they, unlike Gosha, tried to make these into present reality by doing things little by little, always staying active rather than merely waiting. the present chapter explores a different way of being in relation to the future, viewing it not as “dreams” or “hopes” but as a plethora of potentialities that in different ways shape or haunt the present. these potentialities are at times more unchangeable, more potentially real. In what follows, I recount a series of occurrences that played out in the lives of my informants , focusing particularly on Muni and emil. My aim is to describe how potential—the future—resides in the ordinary, even if only as a bodily, social , or material reminder—a hint of something or, in the words of Kathleen Stewart, a layering of the ordinary (Stewart 2007a: 21). For many of my informants in batumi, everyday life was marked by a series of absences: opportunities; education; money; people; and work that my informants had lost, been unable to get, or deliberately turned away from. In some cases, particular kinds of absences continued to hold a connection to what might lie ahead. I refer to these hints or absences as subjunctive reminders: reminders of what life would or could be like if such and such were to happen or were to come into being—that is, the sense either that something new is about to happen that will influence one’s present situation (see bourdieu 2000; Louw 2010; Stewart 2007b; Whyte 2002) or that something is happening to others that might also happen to oneself . For instance, thoughts of fatherhood or impending fatherhood caused a great deal of reflection, not just for those who already were or were about to become fathers, but also for those who had friends about to become fathers: What did it entail, to become a father? How did it change others— for good and bad? and how might it change one’s own life? How...

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