Monday Miscellany: Doing nothing, abandoning obligations, pleasing no one
Notes from June 16 - 22
It’s been really difficult to focus today. News about war and death continues to be horrifying,1 our current heatwave has brought crippling climate panic back to the forefront of my mind, and on top of *gestures to everything* this morning I watched landscapers fully cut down a tree at the edge of our neighbor’s property, one that we rely on to shade our front yard, for seemingly no reason. I’m shedding tears as I type, grieving another living thing unnecessarily and heartbreakingly gone. My mind goes to a quote from the Jenn Shapland book that I’ll talk more about in a bit:
More than dread or panic, my feelings swing toward despair. A feeling of having been born into a disaster that everything I do, every breath I take, contributes to, accelerates, makes worse for other people and creatures. (140)
And yet, there are still many things to be grateful for, like today’s breakfast of chocolate waffles and coffee, the wildflowers in our yard, the two kittens who live in our house, a comfortable pair of shorts, the color blue, art in all its forms.
If you, too, are finding it hard to be alive right now, just know that I hear you and I see you and I’m with you. I came across an instagram post recently about grief and joy quietly coexisting this summer and it really resonated. Both, all the time.
Read this week
Though it’s been mere days since I finished We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds, it feels like a full lifetime. Sitting in a rocking chair on a porch overlooking a waterfall? With an ice cream cone and hardly a care? Who was she??
This is the perfect story to have read in such a place. It follows Avery, a biracial, pansexual teenager who moves with her parents from DC back to her mom’s small hometown in Georgia after learning that her maternal grandmother is dying. Though she feels out of place initially, she starts to find her footing when she befriends a couple of like-minded girls who live close by and go to her new school, and when the newly formed trio has things they need to talk about or figure out, they go to a secret spot by the river and make wishes on a particular tree. Settled into my reading spot next to the creek, I almost felt like I was there with them.
We Deserve Monuments is about queerness, family, long-held secrets, and finding safety and belonging even in hostile places. It’s a coming-of-age tale and a love story, full of curiosity, frustration, longing, and deep joy. The mystery of it kept me turning pages, but it’s the characters who will stick with me long-term.
Another thing I read last week that I’m going to be thinking about for quite a while is Jenn Shapland’s book of essays, Thin Skin. I’ve been holding onto this book for almost two years, knowing I would love it but waiting for what felt like the right time to give it my attention.
These pieces are incredibly smart and deeply felt, on topics ranging from environmental toxicity2 to overconsumption to bodily autonomy to art, decay, queerness, family,3 and a million other things. Shapland has such a curious mind, and the way she writes feels accurate to the French origins of the word “essay,” to try on—she’s pulling at the loose threads of individual thought, slowly unraveling the ways in which larger ideas are connected. Reading along, I didn’t always know where we would end up, but each step of the way made sense and by the conclusion of each essay I felt wiser, expanded, left with much to ponder.
I wrote down so many quotes. I cried at the beautiful ways Shapland puts words to feelings and experiences that I’ve never quite been able to articulate.
Embracing these ideas—doing nothing, abandoning obligations, pleasing no one—and practicing them has the result of making me more and more of a weirdo, less and less of a “healthy normal.” Less and less “well adjusted.” And I don’t want to have kids, I don’t want to have a career, I don’t want to proceed on some well-worn path toward accomplishment. (175)
Some of her writing about employment and creativity and attention and how we spend our time reminded me of Jenny Odell’s work,4 and other sections on queerness and family and the things society expects of women brought CJ Hauser to mind.5 I could go on! This collection is easily one of my favorites of the last few years and it has cemented Jenn Shapland as an auto-read author for me moving forward.
Why should I toughen when I know we are all tender, we are all sponges? (51)
After finishing Thin Skin on Saturday morning, I picked up The Art Thief by Michael Finkel and read the first thirty pages or so that night before bed. I then woke up Sunday morning, sat down with my coffee, and finished the entire thing in one go.
This is non-violent true crime of the best sort, an incredibly compelling account of Stéphane Breitwieser, one of the most prolific art thieves of all time. What I loved most about the reading experience was imagining myself in the situations that Finkel describes—like using each single moment devoid of guards or other museum guests to remove a screw from a display case, over and over, one at a time, until it’s possible to reach in, grab a small sculpture, tuck it into an overcoat, and calmly stroll out of the place, all in broad daylight. WILD. I could never.
At first, we are told, Stéphane steals for the love of art. He doesn’t attempt to sell his spoils or use them as currency, but keeps them, decorating the small attic in his mother’s house where he lives. But as things progress, he goes further and further off the rails, and by the end I wanted to shake him and shout, my brother in Christ, WHAT are you doing?!
I highly enjoyed this one and cannot wait for the discussion episode of The Stacks on Wednesday. I’ve had Finkel’s earlier book, The Stranger in the Woods, on my list for years and now I’m thinking I need to bump it up in priority!
If you purchase a book through the bookshop.org affiliate links in this post, I may earn a small percentage commission. This is an easy way to support my work at no additional cost, and I appreciate it very much—thank you! ♥︎
Currently listening
Straight up, I am still on Wild and Clear and Blue by I’m With Her and I shan’t apologize. Listening on walks, listening in the shower, listening in my headphones as I attack the tiny ants that keep trying to infest our pantry.
We were singing about paradise “What’s that,” I asked, and my mama said “That was everywhere when I was a kid” I hear the fiddle and bow still playing long after the show and love runs like the Brazos through me, wild and clear and blue
“Wild and Clear and Blue” is my favorite track, but I can’t get enough of the harmonies in “Standing on the Fault Line” and “Mother Eagle (Sing Me Alive),” and these lyrics from “Find My Way to You” have been looping in my head for days.
In the wonder and the noise second-guessing every choice A familiar voice, I’ll find my way to you Go ahead, try to hide but I’ve got a nose like a dog in the woods and love like a mountain laurel
What can I say? Shit is hard, but I’m finding some peace in mandolin and fiddle, thoughts of cool shade and fierce love, and the way these three women’s voices absolutely soar.
Haiku round-up
Haiku is a poetic form that originated in Japan, containing seventeen syllables in a five-seven-five pattern. At the beginning of 2024, I started writing one every day, and while traditional examples include thematic reference to the seasons, mine tend to be a bit more all over the place. Here are this week’s efforts—enjoy!
Monday, June 16
Grieving for the ways this sacred place has suffered, new scars on display
Tuesday, June 17
Maybe we extend imagination beyond what we’ve always known
Wednesday, June 18
Blue Ridge in the mist, silent earth-formed guardians of all that’s holy
Thursday, June 19
The eternal task of adjusting to what comes without derailing
Friday, June 20
An enclave of time This hour a vast, green meadow where my mind frolics
Saturday, June 21
The sun burns above but, canopied, I read on in the leafy shade
Sunday, June 22
When I’m out of sorts Your voice, calming, runs through me wild and clear and blue
Until next time
Even though I’ve returned to “real life,” I’m desperately clinging to the relaxed pace of my time in Montreat—cool mornings, happy voices carrying across the water of Lake Susan, an afternoon thunderstorm or two, and no obligations beyond showing up at the dining hall for three meals a day. “People keep asking her what she plans to do next,” Jenn Shapland writes, “as thought existing weren’t enough.”6 What if existing were enough? What if, my needs covered by part-time hours at the coffee shop and online art sales, I set myself free to simply take care of my body, be with the people I love, and turn my attention to the quiet world of the community around me? “Even in a slow, small place it’s easy to get caught up in a certain perfunctory busyness,” and yet I feel a push to resist. Existing is enough. It is.
See you next Monday, and until then, there’s no such thing as figuring it all out!
♥︎ Emily
And absolutely crazy-making. I’m not the first one to note that it feels like we’re back in 2003, our leaders having learning nothing at all.
The first essay is all about uranium enrichment and nuclear waste and cancer and the government’s lies about “acceptable levels” of poisons in our earth, water, and air. It’s a lot, but it’s so necessary to acknowledge and think about.
“Perhaps family is as simple as saying to another living creature: I support your existence. I will go on supporting it as long as I live.” Well, goodness.
If you’re interested in these topics, I highly recommend Odell’s How to Do Nothing.
For real for real, you have to read The Crane Wife! I raved about it in a recent newsletter and haven’t stop thinking about it since.
Both quotes in this paragraph are from the essay “Crystal Vortex,” page 176 in Thin Skin.
I really needed this reminder today - thank you!
Thank you Emily. Existing really is enough and I believe it thoroughly even as I struggle to make that evident in my own life and the way I am organized around work. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a mentor who is 70 now, and how the gift that she is is a product of choosing an incredible slowness.