On defragging the hard drive, seeing our boats through, and 44 souls silently waiting
November 19, 2021
Dear Eva,
It has been a perfectly pleasant day, but it is now nearing sundown and I am wondering where the time went. I often feel frustrated when I go too long without a pocket of time that feels open and expansive, and I would say I am reaching that point now. Let’s go down one more notch on that belt, shall we? It is a question I should only be asking myself, since I am wholly responsible for accepting the teaching role that is now taking up so much of my time.
Along those lines, I spent much of the last 24 hours grading and wow is it fascinating. I have never had this much insight into the way other people’s minds work as they approach new concepts and apply them to what they know. Further reinforcement that there are just so many darn ways to be in this world. I am admittedly loving every minute of that side of things. I cannot say the same about the Zoom sessions. Figuring out how to have an interactive class with 44 students online is quite a conundrum. Every week I am experimenting with different formats, and, I assume, will be iterating upon the right way to engineer discussions and assignments for as long as I do this. The one aspect that brings the most stress is the actual facilitation of those live sessions. It makes me realize how rarely I am crafting and holding spaces entirely on my own, and this particular kind of space is one in which 44 souls are silently waiting for my cues. It requires me to frame and build structures that people in that moment will rely upon. This is daunting and a bit foreign for me. Every time we form a thought we are building a tiny boat, and I think part of my challenge with “on the spot” communication is that I like to have a lot of time to consider my boats but that is not possible in those moments. We have to see the boat through, even if a few slabs of wood in, we can see it isn’t the boat that will carry us across the river. But might it hold us for a breath or two? I think perhaps that is the secret—we do not have to, perhaps even cannot, know what the final configuration will look like or where it will take us in the long run. We just have to believe it will get us a tiny step of the way. I am not sure if this analogy works for anyone other than me, but the point is that this is undoubtedly a growth experience even if it is preventing me from letting it all hang out on these four-day workweeks!
Today I have been thinking about how every week that I save letter writing to the final hour is one where I would probably never have taken the time to pause and reflect without the external obligation of this project. As I ponder my post-letter future, I need to find ways to account for this and build in new structures into my weeks so I preserve this practice. Maybe, I too, will write letters to myself after all!
I am thinking more about things being easy, and I started visualizing temporarily putting all of the people in my life clambering for things from me under a giant upside down glass. Suddenly, the noise from their voices is muffled and I can just see them motioning. Gradually, I zoom out until they are just tiny dots in the distance. This is the vantage point where I strive to sit for at least some portion of my weeks. Of course, it is the most realistic vantage point there is, and I think it is healthy to sit in it for at least some of our time awake and alive. It is good—comforting even, as you have pointed out—to remember we are inconsequential. It is not about feeling small (who do I think I am, thinking I have something to say and do on this earth) but about knowing I am small (I am a tiny speck in the ocean and yet all I have is the chance to say/do something during this short swim of life.) Or, as you so eloquently put it, what matters when nothing matters?
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It is now later in the evening, and as per usual, I am sitting with a belly full of nourishment as I close out this letter. Tonight B and I got dinner at a cozy local restaurant that we had heard many good things about but somehow never tried. It has only been in that spot a few miles from our home since 2004. Ha! It was the kind of spot where the owner, who knows at least half the tables in the packed restaurant, chats up everyone who comes through and even chases people outside in the cold if they leave before he gets a chance to say goodbye (us). They poured generous glasses of tasty red wine, brought out bubbling artichoke dip with crisp toasts for dipping, and even plated up a slice of luscious red velvet cake on the house despite me moaning with fullness after my delicious plate of manicotti. In other words, it was a true gem, and we will most certainly be back. Perhaps we could venture out into the snowy night to sneak a booth at this spot when you make the trek to visit this winter? The thought fills me with delight.
I hope you have a wonderful pre-holiday weekend without a shred of Sunday scaries given the short work week in our futures. I am glad we will get the chance to talk before the long holiday weekend!
Wishing you and yours a lovely evening, my friend!
[A different] Yours [from the one referenced above],
Sarah
Friday November 19 2021
Dear Sarah,
This afternoon I’m feeling a bit twitchy at my desk and I think it’s my body telling me it’s been a long week, energetically speaking, and it’s time to find my way into Friday evening! I searched our letter archive for the world “toddler” because I had the sense that I had written something about this feeling before… now I am reconsidering and thinking it might have had to do with a grumpy baby… grumpy? Grouchy? Anyway, perhaps you will be able to mentally surface a letter I wrote in which I clearly articulated this specific sense of feeling like a grumpy-grouchy baby who needs to be put down for a nap! (Search: nap?)
This is reminding me that while I visited with L this past weekend we happened to chat about this letter exchange, and she was curious if we were going to do something with the letters once this period of creating them each week has drawn to a close, and I continue to think doing something would be a good idea. I can’t stop thinking of it as a possible book! Maybe we want to do a bit of exploratory research with an editor (possibly a developmental editor?) to see if they might have any initial suggestions? Could we package it right up as a book? Do we want to? Do we want to pore over the letters for a stretch of time and generate some other kind of writing about it? Do we want to revisit the exhibition format we discussed recently-ish? Lots of possibilities for the letter archive in the new year and beyond! Sometime after we’ve drawn the letters to a close we will need to look back at them to round up the next-move ideas we’ve nestled within the letters themselves.
In your letter last week you mentioned the concept of wintering and the book on the same topic — I will be curious to see if it meets your gifting standards! I think I bumped into that book at another friend’s home in August but, as you can imagine, the moment wasn’t right for wintering! Now, we are but days away from the first possible dip into our aged bourbony nogs!
This week (as ever) has felt much different again than last week did, and this time around I think I am starting to have some meaningful “epiphanies” about what I want out of life and work and how I spend my time. These things haven’t resolved all at once (le sigh), but I feel as though my game board were suddenly rearranged, my hard drive defragged — what felt tangled and disorderly now feels better organized and like it makes a bit more sense.
Speaking of tangled, I just spent a few minutes attempting to understand the details of my medical insurance plan and how it might intersect with a particular procedure my dermatologist suggested. I do *not* suggest spending time with your health insurance plan at the end of the day on a Friday, unless you want to add to your Friday emotional mix a sense of overwhelm at the unnecessary complexity of healthcare as we’ve designed it in this country. It shouldn’t be this way!
I am reminded of a podcast on a different topic that I listened to on my drive to Wisconsin last weekend: Tressie McMillan Cottom speaking with sociologist Louise Seamster, an assistant professor at the University of Iowa (I know you know Tressie; do you know Louise? Like, in an Iowa way?) on the Ezra Klein show, under the title “The Life-Altering Differences Between White and Black Debt”; they were speaking on student debt, the possibility of debt forgiveness, and the fact that some students feel that by taking on debt they are being good citizens. At one point Louise said, “We could make higher education free, and then view our tax afterwards on your earnings and pay it forward. But to call it a debt is creating a completely different structure and a completely different relationship between you and the state, one in which the state does not owe you anything, but you owe the state.”
It’s not a precise parallel to the healthcare situation, but it’s all part and parcel of our deep-seated wealth and capitalism problems, and who owes whom in our society. I’m not doing justice to the depth and focus of the podcast in this brief mention — definitely check it out if you haven’t yet, it was eye-opening.
In other news, I’m signed up to get a vaccine booster on December 1 but now it looks like they’re available to all, and I may see about popping into a nearby clinic in the next few days. Glad that it’s going to be possible for folks to get boosted before the holidays kick off in full force!
Did you impose an arbitrary bedtime for the kiddos again this Friday evening? I was in awe of your pure power in your letter last week! Though I was not surprised to see in your words moments later that they got the last laugh! Kids rule, grown-ups drool! Happy Friday and happy Thanksgiving week, my friend! Talk with you soon and read your words sooner!
Yours,
Eva
P.S. I just spent a goodly amount of time reviewing our Thanksgiving recipe plan and seeing if it’s all possible in the actual amount of hours that Thanksgiving and the day prior allow. Fun and yum! Among other things (i.e. cocktails, cheese) we’re looking at creating a mushroom Wellington, cheesy hasselback potatoes, pumpkin pie with a gingerbread crust, and creamed spinach with jalapenos!
P.P.S. In addition to reviewing my health insurance plan I also finally cancelled the Hulu account that I recently opened in an attempt to watch a specific show but then never utilized, and the very helpful customer service rep helped me get the recent charges refunded since I hadn’t been watching anything anyway. (Thanks, Caitlin!) A very administrative Friday evening over here!