On secret birthday plans, what we’re steeping in these days, and unburying hidden bones to chew on
April 16, 2020
Dear Eva,
Today is a special day in our house, as you know because you so thoughtfully sent a lovely card for Simon in honor of his 4th birthday! It is one of those times when one is particularly grateful that kids find joy in small and simple things. To him, a pandemic birthday mainly just means a birthday spent in the place he feels most comfortable, with the people with whom he feels most comfortable. Throw in some balloons, streamers, and a flimsy plastic tablecloth with characters from Disney’s Frozen, and the kid is over the moon. Jonah has been looking forward to this day almost as much as Simon. Yesterday, Jonah wrote us a letter we were supposed to read after they went to bed. It described his secret plan to sneak downstairs and play the happy birthday song on the piano at precisely 7:05 am, as Simon made his way down the stairs. When the morning came, I made the decision to forego any attempt to record the serenade, choosing instead to just be present and soak up the tender moment of sibling love.
Needless to say, it has been a good day so far, and it’s only noon!
It has also been a week full of tiny accomplishments. After hemming and hawing for many weeks, you and I made up our minds to compile an essay of excerpts of these letters and submit the work to a real-life magazine. And we put together a submission that we were truly proud of. We did a thing, and it felt good! Then, in family life, this week we conquered the goal we had to finally get Jonah riding a bike. At age 7, he was long past the time most of his peers had learned, and he had become convinced he would somehow be the one kid on earth who was literally incapable of learning to balance himself on a bike. There were times I must admit I wondered if he was right, but we stuck to it, and the pandemic gave us the kind of pause on everyday activities we needed to make it a consistent priority over the course of a few weeks. Yesterday, he was riding circles around the parking lot at his elementary school for the first time in his life, Simon calling out, “You’re doing it Jonah! You’re the best biker in the world!”
Needless to say, it has been a good week so far, and it’s only Thursday!
Like you, I have mostly withdrawn from the news these days. Instead, I have been steeping myself in Rebecca Solnit’s writing and interviews, almost like they were tea. I am finding that a steady diet of her words, a nibble here and there each day, is just what I need right now. Her ideas about how change happens in the world—through a million invisible changes of single minds over decades across the span of time—combine essential realism (we cannot win in the war against injustice and tragedy) with essential hope (we can win and have won many battles in the war) in ways that strike me as utterly profound and true, ever more relevant during this time of global crisis. In her Guardian piece last week, she wrote: “The outcome of disasters is not foreordained. It’s a conflict, one that takes place while things that were frozen, solid and locked up have become open and fluid – full of both the best and worst possibilities.” This wisdom—the acknowledgement that the future is uncertain and could/will be filled with both good and bad lessons learned from this catastrophe—strikes me as the antidote to the sort of resignation I wrote about way back in our very first letter exchange. We can take comfort in being inconsequential, while still believing we can have consequence.
There are books and ideas I want to devour quickly, to get to the end so I can fully understand the arguments, and there are books like her Hope in the Dark that are best consumed slowly as if to almost practice trying them on day in and day out, until the shift in how I see the world starts to stick and I can easily see the shapes that were there in the white space all along. Of course, there are many other kinds of books as well, like the bestselling novel I borrowed from a relative that feels like a slog. I tried forcing myself to read 10 pages a day, waiting until the moment I was swept up into the plot. I am 100 pages in, and it hasn’t happened. I am not sure I need to force down my fiction vegetables (like the comic vegetables of your youth), but I am mystified by my strange personal resistance to fiction! Why am I open to fictional stories on the screen but not on the page? It feels like the sort of personal quirk that must have some significance, the way having unusually deep grooves on my hand might tell the palm reader something about me. (Sidenote that I googled palm reading just now, and then started down a rabbit hole of analyzing my own palm. It is likely *that* says something more about me than my reading habits!)
Not to brag, but I would like to add a third accomplishment to this week’s list: finishing my letter on a Thursday! Boom.
I am looking forward to enjoying a Friday without worrying about how/when to finish my letter, and I am looking forward to reading about what is on your mind at the tail end of this week, which I imagine you can still technically consider part of your birthday week. It snowed today, but spring is supposed to arrive this weekend. Can you think of a year in recent memory where so many of us in the northern hemisphere have collectively awaited warm weather with the anticipation that we have right now? I hope both of us can relish going outdoors without a jacket and perhaps even digging our hands in some soil.
With love,
Sarah
Thursday April 16 and Friday April 17 2020
Dear Sarah,
I started some jottings for my letter to you yesterday and now it is Friday afternoon, evening really, but the sun is still fairly high in the sky and showing itself. My office-studio is west-facing and in the afternoons the light streams in. It is relaxing me today. The long sun is a reminder that the winter is over, even if it snowed last weekend and the temperature got down into the teens and we lit what was likely the last fire of the season. I’ll take a late-season snowstorm — I am happy to humor the earth — oh yes, go ahead and snow, the days are still getting longer and warmer and soon enough it will be summer! It’s cozy to have a snowstorm, knowing you are basically done with winter. It’s a treat, a last vestige of the cold season.
The part of my letter to you that I had started to write yesterday included some notes about the rhythm of my life these days, but in fact I don’t think I’ll bother sharing that bit! I will share that I’ve integrated some daily word puzzling into my life. This has soothed me while also challenging me and occasionally irritating me, but in a different way than I have felt challenged and irritated lately, so it’s all right. The New York Times offers a puzzle called Spelling Bee that I used to only occasionally play, as it appeared in the weekend magazine, and I only occasionally pick(ed) up a weekend paper. Recently I decided it was time to subscribe to the puzzles — technically I am subscribing to the crossword, though I have no interest in doing the crossword, and do not really like crossword puzzles — and now I can do the Spelling Bee daily. This is a significant increase in my Spelling Bee activity! I don’t know if you’ve played this puzzle before. There is a set of seven letters presented in a circle of tiled hexagon shapes with one letter at the center; you must make as many words as you can, and you must use the center letter in every word, and your words have to be at least four letters long. If you make a word that uses all seven letters you have achieved the pangram, an honor. The puzzle keeps track of the words you have found and the next day you can check your results and see what you missed. Some days I have found many of the words and some days not many at all. Some days I open the puzzle and I can see the pangram instantly — it just shows itself to me. Other days I cannot see it no matter how hard I try. (The other day the pangram solution was the word footboard, which I did not get, even though I had spent minutes bemoaning the fact that the puzzle did not recognize boardfoot as a word, a board foot being a measure of wood. In fact it is two words, so that is why it didn’t count. Still — so very close!) I have also been sharing Spelling Bee with M. I will sometimes find as many words as I can and then pass it to him and he will find good words I didn’t see. Or sometimes I will only find a couple of words and then pass it to him and he will find some, and then I will find some others. Somehow it is a pleasant collaborative game even though we are not precisely playing the game together.
I’ve been doing some work lately that I would call technical writing, which I’ve found that I enjoy more than I would have anticipated. This week I wondered to myself what exactly it is that I enjoy about this work, and I found as I thought about it that there is an element of the puzzle about it — figuring out how to communicate a specific idea in the clearest and most precise words in order to illuminate something that can otherwise be a bit confusing. Then I realized that what I enjoy doing, in general, and what keeps my attention in work or creative practice, is this aspect of solving puzzles or problems. The type of writing I spend much of my time doing has me solving for how to present ideas as clearly as possible, or to make a case in the most compelling manner, or to communicate something complex in a limited number of words, or sometimes all of the above. This is a fun puzzle for me. There are so many ways to arrange words and some ways are clearer than others and some ways are both clear and delightful. I also enjoy opportunities to help other people solve their problems. I like to think about frustrating or confusing things and find a clear path through. Sometimes the path is hard but it is still often there and can be sorted out through conversation and brainstorming and just taking it step by step. This also sometimes means that I accidentally convert general situations into problems to be solved, which is not always the case of a thing — sometimes a person has a problem, or merely a situation or an observation, and doesn’t need it solved, wants only to share it, to voice it. When I hear what sounds like a problem my ears perk up and I want to get going on it. Today I thought about this and described it to myself as being like a dog with a bone. Then I recalled that I was born in a Year of the Dog and I spent some time learning about the qualities of a (human) Dog. I don’t particularly connect with animal dogs, actual dogs, but perhaps this is because I am a human Dog, and we are wary around each other, animal dogs and human Dog.
Here are some things I learned about human Dogs according to this Chinese New Year website: The Dog is associated with the hours of 7–9 in the evening (I am firmly located in that range right now, writing to you). Everyone needs a Dog friend for advice and help. They are also good at helping others find and fix their bad habits. (See above! This made me laugh because this is a characteristic I possess, but guess what? People do not often like it when you help them find their bad habits and try to fix them.) For my birth year I am a Dog associated with the element of Water, and among other things this means that I work hard, but should create bigger goals in order to use my full potential. Intriguing! What big goal should I set next? Is it a good time to set a big goal? Do I already have a big goal, and am I just hiding it from myself, like a dog buries a bone to find later? My Directions of Auspiciousness are north and northwest — I face north in my office, and look out the window to the northwest. Dogs judge everyone before deciding if the person is trustworthy. This makes them a good candidate for careers such as referees, lawyers, and interviewers. Perhaps I shall explore refereeing! I won’t give you my whole Dog-scope but I am feeling my Dog self today. The next time I see you and your family I shall try to present myself more fully as a true Dog and see how that lands with Marlowe!
Last week I savored your birthday weekend suggestions, particularly the idea that I might peer out of a little-noticed window in my home. I spent a good amount of time identifying the windows that are less noticed in my home! I also savored the tales of Simon and Jonah making a world together. This sounds like the most fabulous use of homeschooling time that I can think of. And I am excited for your amorphous project that is a solid start to a thing because you say it is. I agree and am going to carry your example onward! A solid start to a thing — I think it’s possible I’ve got one (maybe more than one?) too! I must unbury it from the various possible things I have started, uncover a single bone and really chew on it.
I’m looking to the northwest and the sun is still above the trees and I am pleased to be sending this in your digital direction! I hope you are well and that you have a very happy weekend!
Yours,
Eva-Dog