ON SHEDDING DIGITAL WEIGHT, ANTICIPATION AS A TANGIBLE MASS, AND THE JOYS OF AN UNCLUTTERED HOME
Wednesday August 11 and Thursday August 12 2021
Dear Sarah,
It’s week 150 of our letters, a pleasantly round anniversary of a number!
Last week we were both realizing the importance of saying no; reading your letter after writing mine felt like we were echoing each other. I have a couple of distinct ways that I am in the process of saying no right now, ways that will manifest in the fall and in the new year, and I am already feeling the preliminary relaxation of saying the nos that I need and feeling my commitments ease slightly.
I’m reflecting on your letter of last week, thinking on a couple of points in particular. One, quoting from your letter: I was thinking about how you seem to rejoice in vacation even more than the average person. I laughed particularly upon rereading your next sentence: This sounds like something a robot would say, but I wonder why you like vacations so much?
I do rejoice! I think there are at least a couple of reasons I like vacations so much. One, I essentially never took vacations until I was an adult (the aforementioned Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp being the exception); mine wasn’t a family that vacationed. Being an adult and being able to plan my own time and afford my own vacations holds a distinct pleasure for me, an additional reward beyond the kind of reward that a vacation often stands for. Two, I really like to anticipate vacations. Vacation anticipation occupies a tangible mass for me that is something separate than just looking forward to the vacation; anticipation becomes an event in and of itself. (Separately: the flip side of positive anticipation, I have found, is anxiety — the tendency to worriedly anticipate the things that I am not looking forward to doing, giving them too much space in my mind and life before they actually require any space at all; I'm trying to shut out this form of anticipation in my life!) Three, I like to escape “regular” life. Maybe this is a hangover from a desire to escape elements of my life up to this time. Even though I find my life to be quite pleasant I love to leave everything behind, to be someone without obligations for a brief time. This may be how everyone feels about vacation, but escape is a meaningful feeling for me in particular. The concept of escape, the motion of moving away from is a driving force in my life; rather than being entirely excited about moving toward something, I am often excited to be moving away from something. Away from old jobs, places, responsibilities. Escape is a habit. Still, I look forward to returning home, and I look forward in particular to the future possibility of home, minus the j-o-b — a transformation of home into something new, the escape from the daily burden of work and the required making of money!
Now, to the second point in your letter upon which I became fixated: I have a horrible habit of completely ignoring certain essential activities that feel too mundane or trivial to spend any time on, but which are in fact part of a functioning ongoing life. Case in point: for days last week, I refused to stop and change the batteries in the automatic soap dispenser at our kitchen sink. Instead, I went to a different sink to wash my hands every time, even though it surely took more time and energy to do that than it would have to go to the closet and get new batteries. (Thank you for allowing me to long-quote you here!)
Since you brought it up, I have a confession to make, one that I hope will not tear our friendship apart: your battery-operated soap dispensers perplex me! Some might say that replacing the batteries on an automatic soap dispenser does not qualify as an essential activity, ever! Pump soap or bar soap would eliminate the need for the walk to retrieve batteries! (You would still need to retrieve new soap when you ran out, but you would also have to do that anyway with the battery-operated dispensers.) Batteries inject an extra step that doesn't need to be there. But perhaps the automatic dispenser satisfies a particular need you have in your household. Are you or B worried about the germs that may gather on the grimy pump of a hand-operated soap dispenser? Do you like a unified soap pump presentation (still, also achievable without batteries)? It may not take much time to replace batteries but it is also a particularly meaningless use of time! (And batteries!) Perhaps you are actually subconsciously resistant to this overwrought tool and that is why you refused to stop and change the batteries! Resist! Resist!
I am beginning to wind down my Michigan visit and my stay at J’s place in Hamtramck. WIRED magazine has a feature near its masthead detailing the snacks, bevs, games, songs, etcetera that helped bring the current issue to fruition; right now I would say this week’s letter is brought to you by Espiral Vinho Verde from Trader Joe’s, Yemen bread and fava bean stew, the container of mint chip ice cream that I found in J’s freezer last night and into which I will be dipping again shortly (scratch that; the ice cream has been eaten), J’s soft pink light comforter on her very comfortable bed, and my tentative contemplation of J’s lovely indoor plants whilst attempting not to give any of them an amount of water — whether too much or too little — that would surely kill them. You would appreciate these plants; I loved to hear last week about your unruly Boston fern, like the hairs of an old man’s eyebrows, and your joy in being surrounded by greens!
As we coast into the last days of summer I wish you all the best for a garage sale that will make your family rich beyond your wildest dreams, and the joys of an uncluttered home!
Until soon!
Your friend,
Eva
August 12, 2021; August 13, 2021
Dear Eva,
I am peering at notes that I wrote for this letter yesterday, which begin, I am tired!, and go on to explain that I mean this not only in the usual sleep-deprived sense but also in the burnout sense. And this during a vacation from work! 24 hours later, I can safely say that feeling has largely burned off, and I am starting to feel more renewed. Nonetheless, it is worth considering for a minute how I temporarily reached that state of mind during a staycation. I think it has been building for a while, and our letters last week serve as evidence. We both seem to be feeling pulled in too many directions! And for me, it is heightened by the looming end of summer, which feels like a deadline for all of the many [unrealistic] things I had hoped to complete during this season of life. I am sure it helped that the kids and I decided to forge ahead on pulling off a massive garage sale this week during my staycation, a plan that was devised back from the safe distance at which such things seem like good ideas. In a way, though, the garage sale has been/is scratching this particular itch I seem to have right now. It allows me to purge. And holy moly am I purging! This week I have sifted through ancient bins of cosmetics purchased years ago. I have sorted my underwear drawer. I have organized the bathroom cabinet. I have slapped tiny prices on hundreds—and I do mean hundreds—of toys, kid clothes, games, baby supplies.
This physical purge has only been one layer of what I shall now call The Great August Purge. I have also made the overdue decision to shed digital weight, too. I spent some time thinking about the media I try to consume (i.e. the dozens of substacks I subscribe to and don’t read, the leaning tower of New Yorkers in our bathroom that go unread, more), and then thinking about what I realistically do or even could consume. I settled on a very small smattering of dedicated news sources that I will read and listen to consistently—the New York Times, the Iowa Capitol Dispatch, and On the Media. And I will put money where my mouth (eyes/ears) is (are), and subscribe or donate. I will remain on the lists of just a small handful of the dozens of email newsletters I currently get, and I will catch the occasional miscellaneous podcast or article from varied sources that makes its way into my days. In all other cases, I am unsubscribing, including, at long last, from the New Yorker. It gives me both a pang of failure and a jolt of joy to contemplate this far more limited, and more manageable, media consumption. I think both of those emotions are understandable. It really is about accepting my limitations, coming to terms with all that I cannot ever take in, and then being deliberate about what it is I do find time for. (Sidenote for Krista: being awash in the infinite waters of information and creativity of humankind is yet another good lesson in what it means to be human. I am a tiny flea trying to drink the ocean, yet what little I manage to gulp can reverberate. Mind-boggling!)
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It is now Friday, nearing 9 PM, and I am in a completely different state of mind. This evening I caught a news report about the recent UN Climate Report. If you did not read/hear about this report, the news is that we face unequivocal planetary ruin if we do not take immediate collective action. None of that news is new, but I guess it is starting to finally sink in for me in a palpable way. Of course, this brings a good dose of fear and dread, but there is also a way in which it brings me clarity. Every once in awhile the fog of daily life clears and it becomes obvious that the delusional among us are the ones that the masses call “normal”—the ones who think their day jobs matter, the ones who spend energy feeling stress about self-imposed commitments (ahem, August 12th Version of Sarah), the ones who keep consuming and accumulating more more more because that is what people do. For fuck’s sake, no more normal please. (I am talking to myself here.)
Please pardon the echoes from my last similarly dark closing sentiments, but it is probably safe to assume there will be many more climate-change-fueled thoughts exchanged among us in our future. With that, I will wrap this note and go enjoy the rest of my evening. You might not be able to tell, but I am actually in a cheery, clear-eyed mood! I have a full but fun weekend ahead and I plan to enjoy it. I will keep you posted on the outcome of our garage sale experiment. (Will they come? Will they buy? The suspense!) Safe travels home, my friend.
Yours,
Sarah