ON REVISITING PAST METAPHORS, (RE)BECOMING A SUPERFAN, AND STARTING AGAIN
Thursday April 4 and Friday April 5 2024
Dear Sarah,
I was thrilled to hear via last week’s letter that you have uncovered your deep love for a long vacation! I am goofing a little bit, of course — I assume we are in general agreement that vacations and time off are preferable to work or a j-o-b — but of course you were also talking about finding the period of time that is the sweet spot of being away from everything familiar! I love the sound of a hard reboot, and I am delighted and curious to hear more about your emergent clarity. Exciting! Your whole trip — in the snippets you shared in your letter — sounds like it was perfect, even down to the barf caught in cups! Barf is far better caught in cups than splashed all over oneself!
And I loved your words about lap swimming. The gumption it takes every time to plunge into the water! The way it is a shock to the body every single time: even though the body (mind) knows what is coming, the body (physical body) still has to feel the cold water on skin, has to recalibrate itself. There is something satisfying, if painful, about this. You see writers say that even after finishing a book, the next book, the act of writing, continues to be a new activity; there is no way to replicate precisely what came before in some more comfortable way; the newness persists. We are always starting again. I imagine it is possible to live a life unchallenged by regular new beginnings, but who would want to?
I am so glad we did write letters last week, because my head is in a completely different space this week. I could probably tell the tales I told in last week’s letter today, but they are not at the tip of my tongue or edge of my mind in quite the same way. I have been exhausted this week, totally drained. Just typing that actually makes me want to close my laptop and go right to bed! But not yet! It’s not that late, it’s only 830pm on Thursday. I might not last long tonight though.
I laughed aloud thinking again about how I used to copy my completed letters to you into a new document so you couldn’t see my path, couldn’t see how my brain was working. It’s funny for you to know it now and to be fascinated by it. From my current position in time and life, it really feels like it was a nutty kind of practice. I wonder if there was some element of checking myself so tightly as we shared things about ourselves “publicly” — and as I got used to the idea of letting myself be seen, even by you! I was working through what I wanted to put on the page, any page, in any kind of public way, and if there were things I was cutting out or working through in draft form, I really wanted them off the page. This is particularly funny to say because the google docs with my letters to you are ONLY ever seen by you — but it seems clear that some part of me didn’t want you to know what other words and ideas I had been thinking about. I am honestly baffled by myself. I think there are/were some deeper things at work there that I’ll have to keep unpacking. It could have been a carry-over from writing in google docs for professional work — perhaps the sense that I didn’t want colleagues to think I ever wrote anything that wasn’t strong or fully formed — another manifestation of the desire to seem put-together and composed at all times.
It’s funny to even imagine that I might have thought that you would have read my letters, then taken the time to look at precisely how I got there, to really pick apart my process. So that makes me think it had less to do with you specifically. Was I projecting? Maybe I wanted to pick apart your process, understand the precise machinery of your brain? But I don’t think I did this with your letters! I think this practice was some version of the end days of the cast, the statue I had built of myself and my life — doing what I could to keep it intact — padding it with layers of bubble wrap so that it would not crack — a single crack would have been the beginning of the end. And in a way, the letters themselves were the cracks emerging in the old me as I made my way slowly toward a new me.
It’s Friday and I am feeling better than I was last night — things are turning toward some new version of the future in more ways than one — and I have also eaten some chocolate. A fast and delicious fix! Reflecting on the events of the past couple of weeks, I found myself revisiting a couple of metaphors I have previously used to illustrate how I feel when things are changing, when I’m running out of energy for the old ways of doing things, when I am shedding coats but am still briefly clutching them before letting them fall away altogether. I would say I am scraping the bottom of the barrel, I would say I am a train grinding to a halt. These things are true again these days, when certain kinds of moments, decisions, opportunities roll around — and yet this time something feels different. I am scraping the bottom of the barrel — and I am preparing to discard the empty barrel altogether. The train is grinding to a halt — and this time, when it does come to a stop, I am going to exit the train, move on in my journey, find another train to hop onto, or simply walk away on my own two feet. I am not going to refill the barrel in the ways I might have in the past; I am not going to keep fueling the same train in hopes that it can limp on for a few more miles before again grinding to a halt. About certain things in my life, I find myself saying to myself, That’s not what I’m doing right now. There are things I’m not doing, that I don’t want to do — and where I’m still doing them in some capacity, I’m looking for real ways to extract myself and to move on. Jumping into the cold water, climbing out of the cold water, and knowing it is possible to do it again and again.
I am excited to read your words later this evening and to talk with you next week! I miss the sound of your voice! I hope you might get your (safely protected) eyes on the eclipse this Monday!
Until soon, yours,
Eva
P.S. THIS DOCUMENT IS AN ORIGINAL LETTER DRAFT, NOT CLEANLY PASTED IN FROM ANOTHER DOC! Ogle my process, whatever it may be, to your heart’s content! YOU PROCESS-OGLER!
April 5, 2024
Dear Eva,
I was in love with your letter last week! It filled me with joy to imagine you on stage with giant clown-like scissors being silly and, at once, doing something as downright serious as conquering a fear. I suspect it is virtually inevitable that getting a group of humans together to sincerely create and share in any form results in some kind of magic. It sounds like that was the case for both your astrology workshop and the theater space. I’m so glad you took the leap, and that you then followed it through to push into new ways of being in the world. I cannot think of a more alive way of living. It’s inspiring!
I have been doing my own bee-bopping lately (or, let’s be honest, my entire life). As my poetry class nears the finish, I signed up for an online course designed to help people determine a more meaningful career path. Another flower full of pollen for me to scoop up as I buzz around this life. Very curious what I’ll discover in that process! I do love a good soul-searching.
Today is a very big day in our house, and my phone keeps buzzing with texts from my former high school basketball teammates because of it. The University of Iowa women’s basketball team is playing in the Final Four tonight. I know you’ve been limiting news intake and were never much of a sports fan as far as I know, so I’m assuming this is not on your radar. Women’s basketball is having a moment, experiencing record-breaking viewership, and I am crazy for it. As in, there will be a temporary void in my life on Monday when the season ends. The games have changed the texture of my weeks these past few months. I obsessively read and watch every bit of news and highlights I can get my hands on before and after the games. J and I discuss and dissect every game like it was an important surgery. The most popular college basketball player happens to be from Des Moines and plays at Iowa, so my obsession is matched by nearly all of my family and neighbors. It’s in the air here at this point.
I have so many feels about this because, when I was a young ball player myself, I never would have dreamed women’s basketball would get this much attention in my lifetime. I have surprised myself at how emotional I feel about the sea change, and at how readily I have snapped back to being a superfan after more than a decade of not paying much attention to sports of any kind. We Can Do Hard Things recently had an episode about the embarrassing psychology behind sports fandom, and it gave me a whole different way of thinking about this new/old hobby of mine. They talked about the rarity of witnessing humans earnestly trying their hardest at something, and the way in which that level of vulnerability naturally captivates. This feels like a throughline between The Sports and your recent creative experiences. Sincerity! Conquering fears! Belonging! I have always thought of the arts and sports as being two ends of a spectrum, but I wonder if they actually manifest from the same yearnings within us.
How are you feeling as your sabbatical comes to a close? I wonder if it has been invigorating or the opposite to engage in work projects again. Does it make the hours of the day feel different in any way? Does it feel familiar, or did the rebook alter the way you show up as your work self? I am sabbatical-curious, of course, so tell me how it feels!
I have been waning a bit in my poetry-writing enthusiasm lately. I think a big part of it relates to my aforementioned buzzing to new topics, but I am also finding that my limited repertoire as a reader of poetry poses a real challenge. It still feels as if I don’t have a good grounding in what all a poem can look like or be, so a weekly assignment to write a poem relating to a particular set of parameters can feel truly daunting. I can fairly quickly generate ideas for poems, but putting words into poetry-shaped forms still feels like a mystery. But the course has lit a soft little pilot light on a burner in the recesses of my mind somewhere, and I have no doubt I’ll return to add a pot with some stew some day down the road.
You texted a bit ago to say you sent your letter, and the call of a snack dinner beckons. I hope you have the most weekend of weekends! (Will weekends feel juicier now that you are back in the work grind?) I look forward to reading your words and catching up on the phone next week!
Until then,
Your friend,
Sarah