ON A PROFESSIONAL RE-SITUATING, SINGING ALONG, AND SOME FORM OF SCHADENFREUDE
Monday (!) May 3 and Thursday May 6 2021
Dear Sarah,
Today after reading about a project by the artist Kija Lucas in which she references the racial taxonomy of Carl Linnaeus, I started reading an article in Sapiens Anthropology Magazine by Brittany Kenyon-Flatt, called “How Scientific Taxonomy Constructed the Myth of Race.”
As I read this article I felt a tingle of excitement, the tingle of the supposed “natural order of things” being upset, the tingle of learning that something that one might take for granted in this world was just a concept constructed by another human being. This kind of tingle is a positive one for me, though I imagine and know there are people who don’t like their foundations to be jiggled. As I read I thought to myself that I would like to start a magazine or a talk show or I don’t know what, and somehow the subject would be Unsettle Me! Come on my show or call me or send me a postcard and tell me something that is going to rock my world! Make me think about something I thought I “knew,” and break whatever solid ground I thought I was standing on, so I can rebuild atop something stronger and likely more interesting. It is some form of schadenfreude whose spotlight I’m comfortable to have turned upon myself.
This feeling struck me on Monday, and that was that, and now it’s Thursday, and I think I may be in much the same boat where you found yourself last week, writing your letter after a taxing day, digging around for the words. (Though I will not be turning on any ancient 90s music to get the juices flowing! But, to be honest, earlier in the day M and I — driving toward Grand Marais from where we’re staying 30 minutes west along the North Shore — we turned on the community radio station and they were kicking out Dave Matthews Band, so perhaps I am living an end-of-week experience that parallels yours of last week.)
We’re here along the North Shore as I’m taking a three-day bowl-turning class with Jess Hirsch at the North House Folk School (where M and I took a day-long pasta making class in September of 2019, and where I once pondered the possibilities of the casket-building class, back in Week 7 of our letters!) and M is doing a site visit for a building his firm is working on. Regarding the mushiness of my brain after a day spent turning a bowl on the lathe, and then starting a second bowl — during this three-day class we may make anywhere from three to eight or even 10 bowls, as one former student did — please see my letter from Week 70! I am tired out from the mental and physical shift of transitioning from sitting-indoors-at-a-computer-screen time to time standing (all day!) and absorbing in-person instruction, then applying a tool in technical ways to a block of wood in order to create a shapely object. Work both creative and technical done on the spot and (socially) together with others, instead of the work of writing (also both creative and technical) which happens largely alone and on the time schedule I set for it. It was a big day in other ways: in addition to taking a trip, and taking a class in person, M and I sat inside a restaurant and had a beer and ate dinner with one of his colleagues. My first indoor dining experience since early March of 2020! I’m just about a week out from my second vaccine, which is perhaps equivalent to being about seven-eighths vaccinated, but I felt pretty comfortable about it. It was all right! Big day out in the world, a world not entirely dissimilar from the one we used to know, with activities and acquaintances. It bodes well for the summer and here on out, even if there is still much to be done on the wider global front regarding the resolution of the pandemic.
I was very delighted to hear about your current experiment of getting up early for an hour of writing time before the house wakes up. Huzzah! I love to hear it! And I loved to hear of Beth Pickens’s description of what it means to be an artist: She says you are an artist if you need a creative outlet to feel whole. (I haven’t read the whole book yet!) We are artists! I knew it anyway, but I like a bit of definitional affirmation!
I was certain I was going to melt into a pile of brain goo before finishing my letter to you, but looky here! I chased my beer with a restorative dinner prepared by someone else, and I took a hot shower to get the wood chips and dust out of my hair and off my skin, and with a glass of red wine at my side I find myself buoyed through to the end of this letter to you. I look forward to reading your words tomorrow, and to talking next week! Happy weekend, my friend!
Until soon,
Yours,
Eva
May 7, 2021
Dear Eva,
I was inspired reading your words last week about the passing of the baton and turning of the tides in your work and life. I feel similarly relaxed and steady as I enter into a professional re-situating of my own. I celebrated a decade of time at Creative Commons this past week, and I was delighted and touched by some lovely gifts from my colleagues, including spending time in a staff meeting with everyone telling a story and saying something nice about me. (Can we start every meeting that way please?) I am resistant to the notion of a 10 year work anniversary being an accomplishment in itself, but it was really nice to be reminded of something I know to be true—I have deeply connected with so many wonderful and interesting people through that organization over the years (including you!) and that has enriched my life in so many ways. At the same time, I am also moving forward with plans to go part-time later this year with a more tightly defined role, opening up some time and space for the new. It all feels right.
Last week we sent off a letter to Jenny Odell telling her about this letter-writing project and its resonance with her concept of doing nothing. It was satisfying to write that letter and even more satisfying to hit send, checking a to-do box we have been eyeing for many moons. I have been thinking about our self consciousness with it—specifically a concern that she might think it was a form letter. This is somewhat fascinating in itself! We were concerned with giving the appearance of scale and automation, even when we had done it the old-fashioned way, word by word. It seems to me this concern might be rooted in the digital environment, that if we had written a letter with pen and paper and stuck it in an envelope, we would not have worried that Jenny might think we were mass-mailing. Not only do digital tools lead us toward scale and automation, they can unwittingly give the impression of it.
Completing the letter to Jenny Odell at long last was the first product of my new 6 AM writing habit I wrote about last week. By opting for a little project like that one, I am using the creative equivalent of the snowball method of paying back debt—the idea that you tackle the smallest debts (projects) to start in order to see progress and build momentum. I have continued the bleary-eyed thinking and writing sessions this week, so it seems this methodology is working so far!
I have been thinking a lot about your observation that a lot of news consumption is a form of digital grazing. I so agree. This feels like a lifetime ago, but remember that project we did together where we wrote summaries of the news stories we read? It was stunning to realize how different that practice made my own news consumption—among other things, I started consuming less, simply because knowing that I needed to read closely enough to distill a nugget or two back to you required a different energy level, a different form of attention. It is a little daunting to realize how much I take in at that cursory, grazing level alone, and not just with the news. I liken it to the way I can sing along to a song, but not be able to tell you what the lyrics are truly saying. How much of the world am I understanding at that level alone? Yikes! But there is so much to know and take in, we could spend every waking hour reading/listening/learning and we still could only scratch the surface. And yet there is also a duty to learn and know somewhere in there, too. You mentioned being a tad shamefaced in hearing my explanation to Jonah about our need to know about the problems we might change. I know what you mean, and I do think we have a civic obligation not to just opt out. But I also think we would all be better off if we didn’t equate knowledge with action. If we spend too much time gathering information, we will have nothing in the tank left for the doing. It feels clarifying to acknowledge that this means choosing some level of ignorance (we cannot know all the things), in order to instead consciously opt for a smaller few that we can know more intimately and address in whatever tiny ways we can.
This ties back at the end of the day to our precious and finite resources of energy and attention. Part of my learnings over the past two weeks between the early morning writing time and the petering out of my letter writing last Friday night, have been around the importance of acknowledging and honoring my own cycles of energy. All time of the day is not created equal! The post-kid-bedtime time of the night may indeed contain the ingredients of quiet and freedom, but that does not mean that I meet those hours with the attention and energy it takes to think and write. I would prefer to sing along with the song without noticing the lyrics in the late evenings, thank you very much!
You are off on what sounds to me like an exciting creative adventure this week, and I can’t wait to hear about it! Wishing you a wonderful weekend ahead.
Your friend,
Sarah