On peeling away the invisible film, entertainment from our younger days, and listening when the grey hairs come calling
December 10, 2020
Dear Eva,
I am delighted to be writing to you on this Thursday evening—my first day-early letter-writing in at least one moon or two. Today was a bizarre day, in that it hit 60 degrees and sunny. I found this almost disorienting. What season is it? What month? Why is the entire neighborhood out with their dogs and kids in the afternoon like we are in the midst of our late spring glory? Meanwhile, I was mostly inside tethered to my laptop on video calls, growing increasingly grumpy as the day wore on. Is it Friday yet? This week seems endless, partly probably because it began for me with a long board meeting on Sunday afternoon into the early evening. Word on the street is that our office will be closed for a full two weeks over the holiday, and I am contemplating making my own custom advent calendar because the countdown is ON. It has been a long fall, a long year, a long decade. I kid. Truth be told, despite the mountain of changes and pressure at work these past few months, I do very much feel like something has been peeled off of me over these last few months that I didn’t quite know was there. Some invisible film that was constraining me and making me feel like things were harder and more fraught than they really were. I don’t know how to explain it; I only know that it feels different now—that I feel different. It is a good feeling, and I will enjoy it while it lasts!
This past weekend we watched a film I think you would enjoy, called Dick Johnson is Dead. It is a documentary about the filmmaker’s father who is dying of dementia. Heavy stuff, yes. But the brilliant part is that the movie somehow manages to also be genuinely fun, exuberant even. She has her father stage several of his own shocking deaths, including one in the opening scene. She also stages a fake funeral for him, into which he bursts down the aisle to a standing ovation. There are scenes where I weeped, and scenes where I laughed heartily. It is odd and unexpected and lovely, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Oh, to be an artist who can turn such personal tragedy into creative triumph!
I want to be an artist, Eva! I know this is a controversial topic with you because you like to argue that I already am, but let’s be serious for a minute: I am a lawyer who does a bit of writing. But I dream of more! And I need to stop dreaming and do! And maybe part of the invisible film that was peeled off of me these past few months relates to this clarity and also this courage about knowing that whatever I manage to create will not be good but it will be enough. Channeling Jerry McGuire, this feels like a breakthrough. (These fish have manners. Please tell me you are a fan of this high-quality cinematic wonder from our younger days.)
The other half of my breakthrough is just being less afraid of the professional unknown. I give you a lot of credit for this one. You have demonstrated just how simple it can really be. Quit job, do a series of smaller jobs, repeat. Voila!
Tonight in the mirror I noticed just how serious my growing patch of grey hairs has become near my cowlic. I have always told myself that I will go grey without a fight, and watching it happen doesn’t change my stance. But seeing the silvery cluster tonight felt like it was calling out to me, like my body was taking it upon itself to urge me to do the things I think about doing and never do. I strangely feel a momentum as I write tonight, like I’m gathering steam until I talk myself into a dramatic announcement of my retirement at the end of this letter. Not just yet! But maybe not so far off either.
As a first step, let’s dust off some of our old abandoned project ideas and give one a whirl! The time is now! The wonders of modern science have given us a vaccine with mind blowing speed, Donald Trump is on the way out the White House door (can I get an amen?), and this godforsaken science fiction-esque year is coming to a close. It feels like a time to celebrate and seize the day. Or maybe I’m just giddy on this Thursday evening that feels like Friday.
In any case, I hope you have had a very pleasant week heading into a more-than-pleasant weekend. I missed our chat this week, and I look forward to your letter with extra anticipation.
Yours,
Sarah
Friday December 11 2020
Dear Sarah,
It’s the end of the day on Friday. M and I have just feasted on linguine with clam sauce with a side of red wine and I’m now feeling very peaceful and carbo-loaded for my letter to you... or a snooze on the couch. We went for a pre-dinner walk along a greenway nearby where many of the houses are decorated for the Christmas holiday, and visited a friend a few blocks away whom I’ve come to call Gnomio. We had a storm earlier this year that uprooted trees around our neighborhood, and one household saved a stump and its spreading roots and tipped it on its side, so that it looks a bit like a sunburst there in their yard, and they tucked a little gnome among the roots, and he just belongs there. I would not call myself a fan of garden gnomes generally — they are as variable as people, though I suppose I am a fan of people! — but this little Gnomio is the most charming of gnomes. His little hand reaches up to rest along his cheek and temple as he contemplates the world with a tender and thoughtful little smile on his bearded face. When I first saw the stump rescued as a yard sculpture earlier in the year, with the little gnome seated among its roots, I was so pleased, and I have not become any less pleased these days! The household has decorated the stump’s roots with lights and Gnomio sits and continues to kindly observe the world as we pass into a new season.
I could write and talk about Gnomio all night but I also made some notes to myself this week on your letter of last week! First off, congratulations for your photo finish of a Friday night post! I don’t think these letters themselves are time-stamped in any way but I was impressed to see your midnight text come through letting me know that the letters were up! How were you even able to last until midnight? Bravo!
I’ve been spending more and more of my days here in front of my computer screen lately; I think in the absence of a variety of things to do outside the house it’s easy to default to the things I know I have to do, easy to default to work, and to just keep plugging along into the evening. I’ve had my fair share of post-dinner nights these past few weeks where I’ve just poked along at my to-do list until 8:30 or 9PM. I’m not overly concerned about this bad habit at the moment, because I’m in that time of the year where I’m jamming on work projects for ten or so more days and then I am going to step away from work for a stretch and hopefully just lounge around melting minty chocolates in my mouth, reading books, petting my in-laws’ cat (fingers crossed!), and drinking some of that bourbony eggnog, the recipe for which you’ve shared with me and whose thirty days of aging are ticking down in the refrigerator at this very moment! If I’m being honest with you, the wine and the linguine with clam sauce are nudging open the door to my holiday relaxation stretch. I can’t wait!
I’m thinking about your latest letter — I have a particular affinity for Rudolph because I’ve always had a ruddy complexion with a nose that is prone to reddening, and I am finding that it is happening more and more these days. I get red from caffeine and from certain alcohols (which wines cause the reddest of faces I’ll never firmly pin down), and also just from active thought. After phone calls or a bout of intense writing and thought my ears and my cheeks will be red and hot, evidence (I think?) of the blood circling in my brain! It can be a little much on a video call — though no one has yet shunned me as they shunned Rudolph — but I am always curious why I get so red and how others can continue on in active conversation and thought and keep their cool. I don’t really mind; perhaps I should just get a brooch that reads something like, I’m not embarrassed, I’m just thinking really hard.
I am so very curious about your dad and his attachment to the normal! In this respect I may be the opposite of your father. If I crack open a novel or start a film and it seems particularly normal, I am almost bored, ready to scrap it. I wonder if this is a little bit generational. I am glad to hear that the non-normal stories hook him despite their oddities — it sounds to me like he is wrestling with his ingrained inclination toward normalcy! I like things that start out weird. That’s how I know I want more of whatever it is! Frankly, these days, if something starts out normal, even that takes on a tone of weirdness. I wonder if normal is finished. Can anything be normal any more? Is there any such thing? A movie that starts out normal makes me wonder when we will be introduced to the Stepford wives or the artificial intelligences or the realization that the scene we are experiencing is but a memory viewed from an apocalyptic future. Normal seems like a throwback now, an outdated lesson from the past about how one should be. I was thinking the other day about a show I used to watch on network television when I was younger, Seventh Heaven, about a pastor and his wife and their family of seven children. Seven children! Why was there a show on television about such a large family, as if that was a normal way to be? The media’s portrayal of what is normal lags behind the reality of any moment… even as it is helping to shape future moments. Maybe a family of seven children seemed to have good storytelling potential — clusters of characters logically contained within the walls of the family home; hardly any need to interact with the outside world, though there were certainly dramas and love interests. How many people pined for a family of seven children after watching that show, I wonder? Not I!
My nose is red and I’m digesting a volume of linguine! I’m ready to stretch out on the couch and relax into this weekend. I’m looking forward to reading your letter, which appeared in my inbox last night! A heroic accomplishment! I hope there are only pleasant times ahead for you and yours this weekend!
Until soon,
Eva