ON DIAMONDS, IMPATIENCE FOR PUZZLES, BEING STINGY WITH TIME
Thursday April 23 and Friday April 24 2020
Dear Sarah,
I’m starting my letter to you on this Thursday evening. It’s not quite the same as last week’s serene joy of writing my letter to you on a Friday evening as the sun set, but it is still very nice! I feel quiet and peaceful today, getting a few things done, tending to my health — what feels like the business of these days.
I’m thinking back on your letter of two weeks ago, in which you were recognizing how much our world-constructs only matter because we say they do. I have been contemplating stacks of old and older magazines on the floor of my office in these past couple of weeks — I moved them from various stacks on shelves and around my house to the floor, perhaps to force myself to see them and deal with them, though I am pretty comfortable walking around them, these new landmarks in my interior landscape, and letting them gather dust there on the floor. I love magazine subscriptions, and I have a hard time getting rid of anything in print — a bad combination. I start to page through something I’ve read in part or not at all, and things catch my eye, and I think, I can’t get rid of this, it’s time I read this! And then I feel that way about magazine after magazine and I’m back where I started, staring down stacks of publications I haven’t read but vaguely want to read, yet don’t quite want to read badly enough to actually sit down and read. The mere look of words on a page is a siren song to me. I hate to get rid of words! But I piled up these magazines to make myself look at them, and the other day I was going through some old New Yorker magazines to transition to the recycling, and I came across an article I really did want to read sooner rather than later, from the February 3 issue of this year (millenia ago), about diamonds and diamond hunting and a woman-led company that is finding some of the biggest gems in history.
The diamond article is fascinating. I am drawn to diamonds, or perhaps I should say I am drawn to the idea of diamonds. I have scraps of a poem-essay in progress drifting through my digital files, words about diamonds. I am struck by the fact that humans would mine and extract the billions-of-years-old substances out of which the earth is made. It is not my trade, or the specific way I think about the world. My birthstone is a diamond — what even is a birthstone? An investigation for another letter, perhaps — and I do not own any birthstone jewelry! I was struck by the spot-on statement that Diamonds have little innate value… Although the diamond market appears to be a paradox — an abundant resource that relies on the illusion of scarcity — it depends on a deep truth about human desire. We prize diamonds because others prize them. The article discussed how in the late 1930s De Beers hired an advertising agency to sell more diamonds in the U.S., and they came up with the slogan “A Diamond Is Forever.” The marketing around diamonds told a story that has resonated. The diamond article seems to have everything to do with how our relationships with each other and with the world are all about stories, stories about how things are and how they might be. The stories that we tell can free people or keep them captive, keep us afloat or send us down. For a story to work it has to touch us in some way. Our feelings can be tugged, manipulated, shaped, guided, but that is because they are our common human feelings, and other humans know that we want to belong, to be appreciated, to be seen, to be cared for.
I’m thinking also of your letter of last week and the bestselling novel that is a slog. I hope you put down the book (any book!) that didn’t sweep you up! There are so many books out there, as we both know, and no need to waste time with one that isn’t singing to you. I am intrigued by your resistance to fiction on the page. I would like to suss out the significance of this. I’ve been reading mostly graphic novels and Agatha Christies and other light essays lately, not digging deep into literary fiction, but I think what I enjoy most is any kind of good writing voice. I am not bound to fiction or nonfiction. Nonfiction can be a fiction (who is telling what stories?) and fiction can tell truths; for me, it’s about the writer’s approach. A book I read in the last handful of years is coming to mind, and an essay I read even longer ago: the book Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster, by Svetlana Alexievich, filled with true stories and voices that are hard to believe in their devastating reality. I have been compelled by the Chernobyl disaster since I was young and first came across a book about it in the library, feeling that it was the kind of happening that seemed too horrible to be true and yet it was true. I am also thinking about an article by David Foster Wallace on the tennis player Roger Federer — touched on in a letter to you many weeks ago — and, to quote myself, the article made me think that maybe deep down I was a sports fan, but really I am a fan of good writing. (For the record, I won’t claim to have read much other work by David Foster Wallace.) I am also thinking back on the stories of Joy Williams that I described in another letter to you.
I assume this so-called best-seller isn’t the first fiction you’ve felt that you’re tucking away like your necessary vegetables, but still I somehow don’t want you to turn away from fiction! Keep trying! M doesn’t read a lot of fiction, either. What does it mean? Maybe it has to do with a desire to learn something, really learn something from what you’re reading? One might learn something about the human condition from fiction but you might also find yourself reading a story that’s been told a million times, in which case you wouldn’t be learning so much as replaying a known kind of reality wrapped in a new costume. There are stories and books of fiction I crack open and my eyes sense that they are running over a template of sorts, a certain way of telling a story, that makes me put it right back down and move onto something else. Some words are good for me and some words are not as good! There it is. And still they can be best-sellers! I wonder what your best-selling doorstop is, you can tell me later. I’ve run through a couple of my favorite Agathas and am considering re-purchasing some oldies I used to own but don’t anymore. I just might do it! Last year around this time I discussed my propensity for Agatha, though I don’t often read her these days. Her books come in handy in particular when I'm seeking a bit of comfort. That time is now! Update: I just purchased one new-old Agatha, a Tommy and Tuppence joint called N or M? that will be at my door in a week or two. These days we wait! Glad that I won’t have to wait long now to read your words!
Until soon,
Your friend,
Eva
April 24, 2020
Dear Eva,
I just received the ping from Google Docs with your letter in my inbox. Don’t worry, I did not peek at the letter! Just read the warm wishes in your cover note, hoping my week is drawing to a pleasant close. By nearly every objective measure, I am on track for a perfectly pleasant end to the week, but I must admit I did not wake up with a TGIF kind of feeling today. I have been noticing a bit of a trend where my mindset starts out strong and positive as I head into Mondays with a fully-stocked pantry, menus planned, work and personal goals charted, kid schedules created, and then it gradually wanes into a feeling of IS IT THE WEEKEND YET over the course of the week. I tried to fight it this morning by taking the kids out for an “alphabet hike” during our morning learning time. We donned colorful sunglasses, armed ourselves with a clipboard and a magnifying glass, and headed out into the neighborhood in search of items starting with every letter in the alphabet. Jonah’s fervor for a to-do list was in full effect as he zealously filled out the worksheet with a blank space for each letter, and Simon and I were just happy to be out and about on a cool, sunny morning. It was a good way to start the day, but I didn’t start to feel subjectively good until I sat down in my office with my coffee to write this letter. The cold hard truth is I sometimes (often?) just need to be alone to feel good. (Noting that I don’t particularly like the way that sounds as I reread the words, but it is the truth so I think I’ll let it stay on the page.)
This week I caught one of Tracy K. Smith’s short podcast episodes where she gives a little context and then reads a single poem. She talked about how during Pandemic Time, she feels like all of her many selves are squished into one while she has no choice but to do her job, her parenting, her partnering, all at home. All of life on a single stage. I have been thinking about that comment as it compares to something I heard Mary Ruefle say in the same interview I quoted a few letters ago. She said life becomes less compartmentalized as you age; you grow comfortable being your different selves with everyone. Surely part of the unification of life/selves comes from wisdom, shedding unwanted coats; but Smith’s words made me wonder whether some of the de-compartmentalization also comes from the inevitable shrinking of our worlds as we age. Most of us naturally start to find our people, our places (geographic and metaphorical). This means we start to find ourselves on fewer stages, start to trend toward all of life on a single stage, even outside of Pandemic Time. Surely that also makes it easier to feel and be ourselves throughout our days.
I chuckled at your letter from last week again when I reread it before writing this one. Eva Dog! And your chewy bones in the form of problems to be solved, bad habits of others to identify and remedy! When I hear what sounds like a problem my ears perk up and I want to get going on it, you wrote. I definitely do appreciate when you sink your teeth into one of my problems. I can’t say I recall you ever correcting one of my bad habits, but maybe you do it so subtly and masterfully that I don’t even realize you are doing it? I have certainly discovered things about myself that I wanted to and started to change over the course of my conversations and correspondence with you, but I chalk that up to what happens when you find a friend that stretches you.
Your thoughts on the challenge of solving problems and puzzles, including through your writing, resonates with me. Whether it is figuring out what I think, or just figuring out how to piece together the right words to communicate an idea (or maybe those two things are often one in the same?), writing is the ultimate puzzle. I think I have less patience than you though. (In general, but here I am speaking specifically about patience with puzzles, including but not limited to, the many puzzles of writing.) I am certain that makes me a less polished writer than I could be, the fact that I eventually (and sometimes even quickly) lose patience with the puzzle, especially once I have figured out for myself what I think and am left with just the puzzle of fitting it into the perfect words. Come to think of it, my impatience is probably also connected to my aforementioned resistance to novels. Reading takes longer than watching, and I often don’t have the patience to spend too many minutes on fiction. Even fiction on screens becomes a problem for me if a movie is more than two hours long. Same goes for puzzles like the pangram you described last week; I would never have the patience for it. Let’s face it — I am obnoxiously stingy about how I spend my precious time! This connects back to the start of this letter, and my mention of how I sometimes need solitude to find contentment. I think this is less about the importance of actually being physically alone, and more about the importance of being able to decide for myself how to spend my minutes. It seems that other humans have their own opinions about what to talk about, look at, and think on at any given moment! Is the lure of solitude mostly about control? There is a puzzle for you to solve, my friend!
Happy Friday to you and yours! I can’t wait to now open your google doc and read your words.
Yours,
Sarah