The Isolation Journals - Day 91

Prompt:  Let us travel down the shaft of, as Milan Kundera puts it, the “infinitude hidden within all things.” Think of a motif: an obsession, a recurring theme within your own life. Something that repeats—maybe a gesture, like tucking your hair behind your ears, the argument you have over and over again with your spouse, or a question you come back to at different stages in your life. Begin to write about it, considering the question of whether you find meaning through repetition, or if the journey takes you farther away.

---

Somebody who probably wasn't Albert Einstein said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."  In these past 4 months, consider us all insane.  Every day more or less the same, repeating the same tasks, and for what?  Searching for a sense of meaning, normalcy, control?  Every day, rolling that boulder up the hill, only to wake and find it has rolled back to the bottom while we slept.

But maybe the repetition is the very point.  It keeps you stable, it keeps you humble, it marks time but doesn't rush it forward.  For me, these themes, these grounding rituals, are yoga and Duolingo.  I'm on day 912 of daily yoga and day 476 of Duolingo.  I am neither a yoga master nor fluent in Spanish, but cada dia estoy mejorando.  I'll never be perfect at either thing, but the absence of an end point makes it difficult to know when to stop.  I'm like Kramer in the test drive episode of Seinfeld, pushing the needle past zero 'til it snaps right off. I feel like I've made that reference before, but maybe that's another theme.  Everything I need to know about life can be extracted from a Seinfeld episode. 

Where's the needle?  "Oh, it broke off, baby"

The Isolation Journals - Day 90

Prompt:  Recall a conversation. Perhaps it is an inner dialogue you’ve had many times; perhaps it’s a real conversation, or one you imagine having with a loved one as soon as you can see them again. Think of how your aloneness has unfolded throughout quarantine. Can you remember the first time you added another voice? How has it been transformed by the addition of another voice, or its absence?
 
Now write. Record only the “responses.” Include the silences. Refine each line to its bare minimum, maintaining its integrity, before you add in the next. Perhaps one voice drops out completely—like Bach would do in a Fuga—and perspective shifts to follow the will of the accompaniment, taking you to a completely new place.

---

Wow, first, did you know that there are people who legitimately have no inner monologue?  To fully articulate a thought they pretty much have to say it out loud or write it down?  Isn't that wild?  Perhaps you are one of them, and I mean no disrespect but how do you live?  Do you ever shut up, or is the space between your ears just a swirling void?  How do you not constantly put your foot in your mouth - can you think about your words before you speak them aloud?  

No inner monologue.  That just seems excruciating.  Although, reportedly, people lacking an inner monologue think a constant stream of internal speech sounds exhausting.  But maybe they just blurted that out without thinking.  How does that work?  Can you self-censor when you have no inner monologue?  I have so many questions.

I feel like 90% of my life is inner monologue, and most of my interpersonal communication is me listening rather than talking.  Or just straight up eavesdropping on strangers, which I have sorely missed during this time of social distancing.  It's not at all difficult to imagine a one sided conversation, one where you are dying to know what the other person is saying, yet the not-knowing makes it all the more amusing.

Warning:  This is an A/B conversation, but maybe you can C your way into it.

A:  ...

B:  Yea, well, first of all, it wasn't my fault.  The other guy started it.

A:  ...

B:  No, that was just a coincidence.  I didn't know there were cameras, it was dark in that tunnel, and I thought I felt a spider crawl into my bra.  Don't even act like you wouldn't do the same thing!

A:  ...

B:  So there I am, dripping wet, holding my bra-

A:  ...

B:  Yea, I had to, to shake out the spider.  And then how the hell do you expect me to put the damn thing back on with the shoulder harness and everything.  It's impossible.  So there I am, like I said, just full on wet t-shirt contest status, and this random guy wearing like, a Titleist visor and pleated khaki shorts just out of nowhere grabs me by the hair and dumps a full solo cup full of Coors in my face.

A:  ...

B:  Trust me, I know my shitty beers.  I'm like a piss-water sommelier.

Syllabus #59

What is there to say, really?  We're here, and by we I mean the Royal We.  Just me.  Who knows, though.  Maybe you're here, too?  If you'd like to stay awhile, help yourself to this week's bounty. 

If I eat this, will I die or develop superpowers?

Not surprised that this hideous incident made national news, and heartened to see how seriously The Tennesseean is handling it.


Useful advice for anyone overwhelmed with that little bullet point on your to-do list that says "dismantle systemic racism" and you're like oh my god, I just learned that you occasionally have to clean the inside of your dishwasher and now this?  Is there a YouTube video for this?


I mean, can you blame them?  Who is the shithole now?  Spoiler alert - it us.


That is an example of true courage and generosity.


What a wonderfully pointless exercise - one that I could see myself undertaking.  If I were to do this in New Jersey, I would definitely walk the streets looking for houses that have that weird iron horse and carriage cutout on the storm door.  I don't think I've seen that on one single house in Nashville, and I spend an inordinate amount of time walking these streets.  Is that a Northeast thing?  A Philly area thing?  In the book Long Bright River by Liz Moore, set in Philadelphia, the narrator mentions that specific detail about a house, and it made me realize, yea, those shits were everywhere but I can't remember the last time I saw one.  Also, most houses here have front porches and thus no need for a storm door, so that might be part of it?  Somebody needs to get on that.  Report back.


We are putting parents of school-age children in an impossible position.  But really, we have been doing it for decades, ever since it became common/acceptable/necessary for women to work outside the home.

"Tell me how he mocks her — which is the only way he knows how to engage with opponents. Or, rather, tell me how he does so without seeming even more obscene than he already does and turning off everyone beyond the cultish segment of the electorate that will never abandon him."  

I can get on board with all these arguments for why Tammy Duckworth would make a fine running mate for Biden, EXCEPT FOR THIS ONE.  Also, no offense to anyone named Tammy, but you need to change your name.  Is Frank Bruni seriously implying that Duckworth's disability is what makes her the best choice because when Trump ultimately attacks and mocks her, doing so will dig his own grave with any voter who has a shred of decency?  I dunno man, first of all, you're not actually wrong in a world that operates according to an actual social contract, but that's still sort of sick and it cheapens all of her other accomplishments and traits to recommend her on that basis.  Plus, we don't live in a world that operates on any kind of predictable social contract as we used to know it.  You would think D.T.'s pussy-grabbing would have alienated all women and most decent men, but we saw how that went.  Not to mention a laundry list of racist and xenophobic statements he has made.  You really think ableism is going to be his downfall?  


Analog Reading:

Finished Amnesty by Aravind Adiga.  There was something about the prose that made me hurry through this book to be done with it.  I appreciated the story very much so I don't want to be overly critical, but this wasn't a favorite for me.

Devoured The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom.  I sped through this one for different reasons.  I gulped it down the way you do a milkshake on a hot day, when it has reached just the perfect consistency to suck it easily through a straw.  I was surprised to find myself so quickly at the bottom of the cup, inhaling air.  Just like a milkshake, it was at once delicious and sad.

Started Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker.  Really just a few pages in at this point, so I have no judgements, but it is an odd coincidence that I picked up two nonfiction books in a row about families with twelve children.

The Isolation Journals - Day 89

Prompt:  Observe your own imagination, as if traveling in a foreign land, taking in the sounds, sights and smells. Delight in the gap between experiencing and understanding. Become aware of the distance between your imagination and the real world. Now think of yourself as a translator, and begin to transpose whatever appeared in your imagination.
 
Perhaps your words today will look incomplete. Try to observe objectively, searching for the meaning behind the words, rather than judging their finality.

---

Traveling without moving.  Visiting, re-visiting, trying on different lives.

Cruising the wide, flat streets, bike tires whooshing at a lazy pace.  A humid, overcast day  when all the colors of the shotgun houses, the explosions of bougainvillea, are vivid, coming at you in 3D.

A quiet street, oak trees drip with Spanish moss.  The buoyant trumpets and fat burps of a Sousaphone drift on the breeze from another street, a Second Line parade.

Stop for a beer, cold, foamy, and perfect.  Some oysters, too.  Slurp straight from the shell, briny and formless.  Revived, back on the bike.  Pedal to nowhere in particular, cutting through air so thick your back tire leaves a wake.  Find a hammock strung in the shade of a towering magnolia, read a book until your eyes close. 

The Isolation Journals - Day 88

Prompt:  Complete the sentence: “If you really knew me...” You can write one or many of these statements. Then sit with them. Ask yourself: What would your life be like if people knew these things about you? How would your circle of friends change? What about your job?

---

If you really knew me, you would know that...

...I squander hours trying to oust that one rogue chin hair.

...I'm totally lying, that chin hair brought his friends.  There's like 7 of those bad boys.

...I don't give a rip about germs but a mess really stresses me out.

...I'm the Bizarro World version of the adult I planned to become - uptight, rigid, joyless, following arbitrary financial, lifestyle, and dietary rules that I set for myself, in bed by 10 and up by 6 for no earthly reason even in a friggin' pandemic.  Any attempt to appear chill or carefree is a poorly constructed facade. 

...I turn everything into a joke because if I've already made fun of myself I'm depriving you of the opportunity to say anything worse.

...I, an adult woman, have, in fact, shat myself while running.  I will not tell you the number of times, not because I am ashamed, but because I have legitimately lost count.  Lest you think I'm some kind of monster, I will say that it's likely somewhere north of 4 but definitely south of 8, and I am referring to a span of over 10 years, which seems like a pretty acceptable average if you're open to the idea that more than once in a lifetime is ever acceptable.  Also I run frequently and eat a lot of fiber and sometimes these things just happen, what do you want from me?
 

The Isolation Journals - Day 87

Prompt:  Wherever you feel creeping unease, where your scalp prickles or something inside of you contracts or hardens, breathe and write everything down that you are resisting saying. Do this for exactly 7 minutes straight. And then, don’t change anything. Resist your writer’s urge to skip back over your sentences with your eyes, cutting and chiseling here. If you like, read it aloud to yourself. Consider if this is something you would ever have the courage to say to someone else. Consider, too, whether it would be kindness or cruelty to say it.

---

It always seems to come back to Terry Gross.  The way she asks to understand, and seems to truly listen.  Her interview subjects often remark that no one has ever asked them such a question before.  They must walk away from their headset with a deeper understanding of their own self, or at least a more nuanced one.

The other night I was washing dishes and listening to Fresh Air after dinner, because I know how to party, or at least how to disassociate from mind-numbingly boring tasks through the magic of podcasts.  Same thing.  Anyway, Terry was interviewing Susan Burton, a producer on This American Life, who just published a memoir of her disordered eating, called Empty.  She is now in her 40s and, with a lot of therapy, is well into a recovery.  She shared that she told her therapist she could never seem to stop thinking about food and arranging her life around when and what she would eat.  Her therapist told her, point blank, that's because you don't eat enough.

And that was a holy shit moment. It was like Lucy from Peanuts shouting THAT'S IT!  Just like that, it all makes sense.

The Isolation Journals - Day 86

Prompt:  Pick five items from the list below.
 
popcorn * lettuce * iceberg * cotton candy * puffs * sugar cubes * dandelions * buttercups * pallbearer * clothesline * National Geographic * fire ants * watermelon * sunflowers * ticket stub * campfire * satellite * fish scales * baby powder * quilt * broach * barrette * tin can * bingo * Ferris wheel * frisbee * legumes * lima beans * caterpillar * earthworm * mockingbird * wagon * shaved ice * envelope * rotary phone * silk glove * single shoe * postcard * diner * cheese * houseplant * canoe * sharpened pencil * glue * lunch box
 
Then, write one memory associated with the item—or write associations you have of this item—in 200 words or less. Limit the use of “I.” Refrain from stating any emotions. Like dreamscapes, rely on images to convey feeling. Assemble these memory fragments into a collage-essay. Give it a one-word title.

---

SHARDS

watermelon

hiding in the dark playing cops and robbers before the fireworks.  how far can you spit the seeds?  they said if you swallowed them, you'd grow one in your belly.  see that guy over there?  not beer - watermelon.

buttercups

if only peanut butter cups grew so abundantly.  do you like butter, she asked, thrusting the golden petals under chins, searching for a yellow reflection.  there was always a yellow reflection.  anyone who doesn't like butter is lying.

diner

Colonial Diner, Route 45.  2002, 2003?  A bowl of clam chowder (WHY) after Warped Tour - accidental contact high or heat exhaustion?  

fire ants

1989.  Florida.  step out of the Bronco and into the gaping maw of hell.  a pile of sand - resist the siren song - a tiny volcano, dormant, waiting to spew forth 6-legged lava

canoe

or was it a rowboat?  does it matter?  what happened there did not stay there, on that lake.  what was so funny?  did it really warrant teenage pants-peeing?  sworn to secrecy, then couldn't resist - a badge of honor.  if peeing your pants is cool, consider us Miles Davis.

The Isolation Journals - Day 85

Prompt:  What monuments do you carry inside you that are engraved with harmful beliefs or represent damaging legacies? What would it take to dismantle them? What could you put in their place that is loving, kind, joyful, and true?

---

A face only a mother could love

Ugh.  I know I'll regret this later, but here we go.  I'm having a pity party this week for absolutely no rational reason, but that seems to be how these things work.

What monuments do I carry?   You mean aside from the 8-inch scale model of the Washington Monument I carry in my...never mind.  I know what you mean.  And it's just, you know, the super casual belief that I am a garbage human who contributes nothing to society and nobody likes me and I don't deserve to take up space in the world, physically or existentially.  Just your everyday internalized misogyny.  No big deal.  Don't worry about me.

What would it take to dismantle them?  You mean the one in my...oh you mean the metaphorical ones.  That's above my paygrade, but if I had to take a stab at it, I'd say overthrow the patriarchy, make decent therapy affordable, build a time machine so I could go back and take a Mulligan on my whole socially awkward life.  All totally low-hanging fruit.  Realistic, achievable stuff.  Simple.

What could I put in their place?  I dunno...zucchini...jade eggs, oh right, right, sorry.  How about one of those Ionic Breeze air purifier shits, but for my brain, to hoover up all the toxic thoughts?  

Yea but it's gotta be kind, joyful, and true.  Oh, ok.  How about kitties, and ice cream.  Maybe a kitty wearing a sailor hat, sharing a bowl of ice cream with a puppy and a pot-bellied piglet.  Just a food trough full of ice cream surrounded by fat baby animal friends.  Oh my god.  I don't even dare wish for that, it's too perfect.

The Isolation Journals - Day 84

Prompt:  Turn off anything that may be distracting you from your Self. Now listen to the sound of your own body. Do you need silence? Maybe. Maybe not. You might need some music; if so, honor that. When you feel compelled, sit down with a pen and paper and meditate on what you would look like if you were a simple line. Let go of fear. Let go of anything outside of the moment. Begin drawing. Follow the line and let it lead the way. 

---

I don't know what this is.  It's kind of hard to turn off distractions when my dog is currently chewing himself raw and my husband is on video meetings all day, shouting at his computer like he's making the very first transcontinental phone call.  It's slightly claustrophobic in this apartment today.

The Isolation Journals - Day 83

Prompt:  Listening attentively lives at the ebb and flow of the boundary, the together and separate. Write about the last time you felt someone was truly listening to you. What was it like—emotionally, physically, and energetically—to be heard?

---

Is this thing on?  Testing, one, two.

Do you ever feel like you're shouting into the void, on a microphone screeching with feedback?  And the void actually has the audacity to interrupt you?

My dream is to do something, anything, notable enough that Terry Gross interviews me on Fresh Air.  She's the ultimate listener.  She could extract an interesting anecdote from someone whose job is watching paint dry.

She's the queen of insightful questions and thoughtful follow-ups.  Is she that way all the time, in her personal life, too?  Or is active listening so exhausting that she just pets her cat and mmhmms her way through dinner conversations with her husband?

Syllabus #58

Well hello there.  The summer solstice was yesterday, which means we rode out an entire season holed up in our homes.  We went straight from sweaters to just being sweaty.  Maybe I'll get to wear my spring-ish clothes in the 72 hours between summer and winter that will come in late October or early November.  

Speaking of summer, do I bother doing a Docket of Shit to Do for Summer 2020?  Is it worth it?  What's the point?

Here are some words my eyeballs consumed in the past week:

Carvell Wallace on being a parent to black teenagers.

Fighting with rocks and sticks?  Is this 2020 B.C.?  What the hell, dudes? 


This is so important.  I want to be available for these kinds of conversations when school resumes, but I have so much to learn. 

I friggin' love the Nashville Public Library.

Came for the Samantha Irby, stayed for the rest.  This whole collection of mini-essays was a treat.

Coronavirus is like hot chicken - anything that doesn't put you in the hospital is considered "mild."

Analog Reading:

Finished Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan.  This was pure escapism.  I wouldn't call it a hate-read, because I generally enjoyed the book and respected the craft and pacing of the story, but BOY HOWDY did I hate 97% of the characters.  Also, it's a series, and the book ended on a semi-cliffhanger so I guess now I'm going to have to keep reading.

About halfway through Amnesty by Aravind Adiga.  It's about a moral dilemma that a Sri Lankan man living illegally in Australia faces when he has information about a murder but fears what will happen if he goes to the police.  Despite the setting half a world away, it's very relevant to things happening now in this country re: certain segments of our population having adverse experiences with the police on a regular basis, immigration status, etc.

The Isolation Journals - Day 82

It's Father's Day.  You know what they say.  "Father's are like assholes - everyone's got one, but some of us have never seen ours."  (And some of us wish we hadn't)

Prompt:  Imagine that your father—or your father figure—left you a suitcase, either real or metaphorical. What would it contain? Words of wisdom? A check to cover therapy? Precious family heirlooms or nostalgic tchotchkes? All of the above? Tell the story of what you'd find inside.

---

I'm going to cheat at this one and republish an essay I wrote earlier this year from a prompt in my creative writing class.

Life Lessons With Larry: A Cautionary Tale

The ideal parent leads by example, demonstrating good habits and unimpeachable strategies for navigating life and relationships.  Good parents, as in most of them, try their best but have their faults. “Do as I say, not as I do,” is often their modus operandi.

And then there’s my dad.  Larry led by example, alright.  He was a walking, talking example of every page you should skip in the Choose Your Own Adventure book of Life.  Did he have his share of demons? Absolutely, yes. Was he, himself, a monster? No. At least his legions of friends didn’t think so.  Problem was, he met all his buddies through their mutual friends, Johnny Walker, Jack Daniels, and even, in leaner times, Evan Williams.

I know, I know, name dropping is so gauche.  I only tell you this so you understand that my dad had a lot of friends, and some of them were powerful figures.  With friends like those, demanding so much of your time and your money, too, you don’t have a lot of either left over for your family.

But it’s fine, it’s totally fine.  When he wasn’t disappearing for days a time and reappearing with stitches in his face sustained in a little tumble on a Las Vegas casino escalator, he did manage to impart some solid fatherly wisdom.  Larry was a man of few words, though. He was kind of cryptic, a cipher, an enigma wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in mystery and reeking of scotch. He wasn’t religious or even spiritual. He called himself a realist.  I believe he fell somewhere between pessimism and nihilism.

Take his go-to words of comfort, meant to be a salve to any misfortune or complaint.  “Life sucks and then you die.” Uplifting, no? I doubt he ever read any Hobbes, unless, wait, did Hobbes have a column in Playboy?  But he really bought into the whole, “life is nasty, brutish, and short” mentality. Not exactly the kind of parental platitude that you’d embroider on a pillow or weave into the theme of a didactic children’s book, but that’s what’s so refreshing about it.  Instead of catastrophizing every scraped knee, bombed test, failed marriage, or incarcerated child, just dismiss your struggles as yet another meaningless non-event in your meaningless non-existence.

Because variety is the spice of life (even a nasty, brutish one) sometimes he would switch things up and pepper conversations with a dash of, “You’ll have that.”  Among his friends, of both the bottled and corporeal variety, I’m sure he coarsened this to “Shit happens,” but the sentiment was the same. Setbacks are a part of life and there’s no sense in sugar-coating it.  You’ve heard of helicopter parents, who micromanage their children’s affairs? And bulldozer parents, who clear a smooth path, demolishing any obstacles that stand in their child’s way? Let’s say he was more of a Mad Max War Rig, barreling down the highway of life focused on his own mission while occasionally tossing debris in my path.  Also, frequently driving off-road, at least until that resulted in a suspended license. 

Where the aforementioned phrases paint a picture of Larry’s philosophical leanings, his most frequently used bon mot truly encapsulates his essence.  “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em,” is not something you see on many, or any, tombstones, but I’m still kicking myself over that missed opportunity.  What a way to live! Nihilism and hedonism often go hand in hand, because everything is nothing and nothing matters, and any one of us could drop dead at any moment.  You can’t take it with you, so get your meaningless kicks while you can. If there is pleasure to be seized, no matter how temporary, seize it now. Remember how much life sucked just 5 minutes ago?  So go ahead, smoke that cigarette. Hell, chain-smoke 3, in the car, with the windows up and your child in the passenger seat. Are you thirsty? Here, scotch is basically water, and friends don’t let friends drive dehydrated.  

All that sounds like a horror show.  That wasn’t a saccharine ode to my dear old dad who molded me into the well-adjusted, stable adult I am today.  It’s all there in the title, though. This was a cautionary tale. Don’t be like Larry. I know it, now you know it.  I resisted the influence, and thankfully, my optimist mom gets all the credit for warping me into the delightful human I am today.  But yea, shit’s dark, and maybe I’ve bummed you out, but you’ll have that.

The Isolation Journals - Day 81

Prompt:  Write a letter from a burning building. You are trapped and will not be able to escape. No rescue. You know this is the last thing you will ever write. Who will you write to? What will you say?

---

First, I have some questions.  Am I alone in the burning building?  How is this letter surviving the blaze?  Is this an email situation, is there a carrier pigeon, is this magical realism?  Let's just go with it.  Let's go for broke and lay it all out there.
--
Dear Andy, 

I know you always worry that I'll die first because you don't know how to access our accounts or pay the bills.  Good news.  I changed the usernames and passwords on all our accounts to something easy to remember:  NeverGonnaGiveYouUp / NeverGonnaLetYouD0wn*

That's right.  You've been Rick-rolled by your dead wife.  I hope you can find love again, but you better not ever forget me (or the new password).

Love,
Katie
--
Dear Mom, 

I'm still sorry about that time I peed the bed on purpose.  You've been a wonderful mother.  I don't believe in an afterlife, but I'll see what I can do about haunting you.  That would be pretty neat, wouldn't it?  Not like a scary ghost, I know you wouldn't be into that.  A helpful ghost.  The kind that unplugs the iron when you forget, finds your glasses when you misplace them, and scrawls positive affirmations in the shower steam on your bathroom mirror.  Just don't be alarmed if that starts happening, is what I'm saying.

Love,
Katie

The Isolation Journals - Day 80

Prompt:  How did you learn (or how are you learning) to balance work and play?

---

How to balance work and play?  That has me feeling some Home Alone vibes like Kevin McCallister.

This is a skill that maybe doesn't need to be explicitly taught, but I'm still struggling to learn it.  The past few months have NOT helped.  I'm going to have to seriously re-learn some semblance of routine and work ethic when our school system eventually reopens.

The distinction between work and play is a gray area for me.  I feel like I've been so lazy all this time, but in reality, I have stuck to a pretty rigid routine, and have even written a 15-page short story (what do I do next?  How do I get in on that sweet sweet rejection letter action?).  Every day, without fail, it's walk the dog, eat breakfast, write in the journal, practice Spanish, yoga, exercise, read, take the dog out, make dinner, clean up, walk the dog.  

That sounds like living the dream, honestly, but the Groundhog Day-ness of it has made even the more enjoyable parts feel like work.  When you force yourself to do what you would normally enjoy, does that make it work?  Does it count as work if you're not being paid?  What about emotional and physical labor within the home?  Not to accuse men across the board of slacking on that front, but I think we women know plenty about unpaid work in the home.  Where do we draw the line?

I have to cut this short because I'm going to do some (unpaid) work outside the home.  That's another question.  Volunteering - is it work or play or something in between?  Is this a binary system or a work/play spectrum?

The Isolation Journals - Day 79

Prompt:  Think about the memorable messages—either positive or negative—you received during your formative years about sharing your intimate feelings and grief with others. Where did the messages come from, and what made them memorable? Do you still carry them with you today? If not, what precipitated the shift? In the cacophony of raw emotions emerging in this current climate, what are you learning about yourself, your intimate circle, and the people beyond it?

---

I was 6 or 7 when my great-grandfather died.  It was right after Christmas and I remember the morning we found out, I saw my grandmother walking down the upstairs hall, rounding the banister to descend the stairs with a look of stoic determination on her face.  I remember thinking, "But her dad just died, why doesn't she look sad?  Why isn't she crying?"

I had been bracing myself for the discomfort of seeing a grownup cry, but this lack of emotion was more confusing than it was a relief.  Years later, I would come to understand that she was probably just tired.  Weary.  And maybe a little relieved herself. 

The man was a tyrant all his life, and stubbornly lived alone into his 90s.  Beyond that, my grandmother had, in her adult life, already endured the death of two siblings, her mother, and more recently and in rapid succession, her husband, her horse, and her dog.  Not to be callous, but it's easy to imagine being all grieved out by that point.  What's one more?

It was an accidental lesson, but it stuck.  To this day, I feel really uncomfortable displaying my emotions publicly.  When an adult does cry though, hoo boy.  It sends me over the edge.  I cannot keep it together.  Which is probably the healthier, more human response, but it feels at once cathartic and wrong, like farting in a pair of control top pantyhose.

The Isolation Journals - Day 78

Prompt:  Write about a time when you interacted with someone in a moment when both of you were vulnerable. How did you react to your own vulnerability and that of the other? What went acknowledged and what remained silent? Would you have handled the situation differently in retrospect? How did it change you?

---

Woof.  Why is this one so hard for me?  It's not that I don't want to admit to vulnerability, or maybe it is?  

I'm having a hard time thinking of human interactions that were a) interesting enough to share and b) wouldn't violate the other person's privacy or trust.  We're talking about the other person's vulnerability as much as my own, and it wouldn't seem fair to lay all their goodies out there without their knowledge or consent.

So instead, I'll write about my dog, who, at this very moment, is licking his own junk and could not be less concerned about privacy or dignity.  We have many moments of shared vulnerability in our daily lives.  

See, Charlie is a sensitive boy.  He has some very real anxiety issues stemming from, we assume, abuse he experienced as a puppy before we adopted him.  All we know is that he and his brother came from a farm in rural Utah, and we got him from the Humane Society when he was around 4 or 5 months old.

He's afraid of or triggered by a laundry list of mundane horrors:  Bags, vacuums, hairdryers, small children, runners, loud vehicles, doorbells, dogs he can't sniff, dogs that give him the stinkeye, unfamiliar cats minding their own business, and any other people or dogs using the stairwell at the same time as us.  As you might infer, he is an utter delight when it comes time for his thrice-daily outings from our 5th floor apartment, where we have been avoiding the elevators for months because COVID.  

Before you ask, yes.  Yes, we have tried all the things.  Training.  Love.  Treats.  More love.  Medication.  The only thing that has even a marginal impact is good old fashioned drugs.  Doggy Prozac is a miracle but only in comparison to his unmedicated behavior.  His life has improved dramatically but he still has lots of meltdowns.  

I don't know that anything I do actually helps at all, but I've been trying to unconditionally love his anxiety away.  I know it doesn't work that way, for dogs or humans, but I just look at his sweet little face and want to give him a happy life.  And he stares back at me like, "mom, why is the world so scary?"  And I'm just like I don't know, my dude, I don't know.

Hold me

The Isolation Journals - Day 77

Prompt:  Think of someone whose work you admire. A great writer. An artist. An actor or musician. Even a politician. Someone you don't imagine you could ever get close to, or who would ever take notice of you and your concerns under normal circumstances. Write to that person, explaining what it is exactly you admire, and why you'd love to meet them.

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Dear David Sedaris,

I hope this letter finds you and Hugh in good health, still able to tolerate one another after months of confinement.  I haven't read any reports of your demise, so I trust you became more proficient at food hoarding since your March New Yorker essay, and have not starved to death, at least.

I'm a tremendous fan of your work (who isn't though, really?) and I respect your time, so I'll cut to the chase.  You're familiar with the "celebrity dinner party" as a hypothetical thought exercise?  If you could invite a handful of famous people, living or dead, to dinner, who would they be?  Life is so uncertain, and so short, that I'm going out on a limb and making my dream a reality.

I've compiled a guest list that I think you will find irresistible.  Don't worry, no deceased people made the cut (I'm a vegetarian, so I can't be having any dead flesh at my table).  You're the guest of honor, of course, and rounding out the list are Terry Gross, Oprah, and Rick Steves.  I've already lied to those poor schmucks and promised each of them that the others said yes, so they're all on board.  Can we count you in?

Your new friend,
Katie

The Isolation Journals - Day 76

Prompt:  Write about a time when you were NOT impeccable with your word.

The context:  In 1997, Don Miguel Ruiz published a book called The Four Agreements. Derived from ancient Toltec wisdom, it outlines four rules for a happier, more expansive, more abundant life. The first of these four agreements, the one that all the others build upon: Be impeccable with your word.

To be impeccable is to be without fault, to abide by the highest standards. To do this with your word means speaking with integrity, calling things by their right name, only making promises you can keep, avoiding deception or gossip—in short, ensuring everything you say is above reproach.

This concept is at the deepest core of the great wisdom traditions. How often have we heard that honesty is the best policy? Or that you shall not bear false witness? Or that the truth shall set you free? In yogic practice, it’s called satya; in Buddhism, right speech. Your word has power, and you must use that power, as Ruiz advises, “in the direction of truth and love.”
---

 I'm a proud Native New Jerseyan who has lived in the South for the last 7 years.  That's fixin' to be a full 20% of my life.  Over the years, the sideways vocabulary of the South has sidled into my vernacular, but I am here today to say that will not stand.

In the Northeast, if you have a problem, you name it loudly and directly.  If you think someone has a problem with you, there's no pussyfooting around.  "You talkin' to me?" we demand at the slightest provocation.  Some may find that aggressive, but I think it's clear and efficient.

In the South, there's an insidious veil over our speech.  There's a sugar-coating of unpleasant truths; there are noncommittal, indirect phrases.  I've written about this before, but it's a pet peeve of mine.  I thought I spoke American English, but Southern is its own mysterious dialect, and after 7 years of immersion, I'm merely conversant, but here's a bit of what I understand:

Bless your/his/her heart = What a dumb SOB
Fixin' to = Maybe will eventually [become/do] on an unspecified timeline
Might could = Technically possible but highly unlikely
I reckon = I lack the confidence or knowledge to fully assert my beliefs or opinions
Isn't that precious = (Interchangeable with Bless your heart when referring to a person) What a stupid person/thing/behavior

I reckon I might could learn to speak Southern fluently, and I'm fixin' to try, but bless my heart, it ain't easy, y'all.

Syllabus #57

Did we forget to agree on a safe word for 2020?

We are in some heavy times.  Here are some lows and some highs from the past week:


"This is not the social justice Coachella. This is not systemic racism Woodstock. This has to be a forever commitment, even after protest eventually subsides."

Maybe you have no soul, but you're a numbers person.  The numbers here don't lie - systemic racism has had a substantial, measurable impact on the financial well-being of black households.  How do we stop this?  And get right out of here with your whataboutism - What about Beyonce, or my poor white cousin Billy Ray?  Those are exceptions that prove the rule, and these numbers are averages. 

Have you watched Dave Chappelle's 8:46?  I haven't yet, but I think it's happening tonight.  I know it's going to cut deep and probably be uncomfortable, but necessary.  I don't agree with everything he says (I absolutely hate the jokes he makes about trans people) but he always has a powerful point to make about racism.  

Speaking of highs, do I have any parent friends who want their kid(s) to get an educational gift from Weird Aunt Katie?  

This is powerful.  Listen to this man speak from the heart.   

Bad boys, bad boys.

This NBF statue is trash, both in terms of what it represents and aesthetically.  It's a monument to inbred stupidity.

Oh thank GOD!  If you, like me, suffer from chronic overabundance of sorrel, LOOK NO FURTHER.  (If you are like me, you probably actually had to google what sorrel even was just now.)

I feel like there's a reason her name is Marie Kondo - her practices are designed to declutter a small living space.  What if you just like to be surrounded by a lot of crap?  I dunno how I feel about this.  When we purged a good 2/3 of our belongings two years ago, I felt so free and light and I never want to accumulate a bunch of crap ever again, but also, that might be an elitist viewpoint when I could, in a pinch, afford to replace anything I got rid of if I really needed to. 

Analog Reading:

Finished The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel.  I loved it.  I loved that at the surface, the book is about a Ponzi scheme, but it didn't center the villain/fraudster.  It wove together the strands of the lives the schemer unraveled in a very beautiful and compelling story.

Read White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo.  I found myself nodding and thinking "yes, of course," to a lot of what she lays out, even though I may not have consciously considered a lot of her points before, they all felt familiar and accurate.  She frames the problem of racism as a systemic problem in which even well-meaning white people who claim not to be racist participate, and from which we benefit.  Being not racist isn't simply not saying the n-word or waving at your black neighbors.  Being anti-racist is a lifelong process of examining the ways in which we as white people have benefited from a racist system, trying to disrupt that system in any way we can, searching out the biases and prejudices that we have absorbed, listening to black people/POC and accepting criticism, sincerely apologizing when we screw up, and making an effort to always do better.

Started Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan.  I'm reading it for my book club.  It's frivolous and fluffy but at the same time it's a window into a culture and lifestyle that I really don't know a lot about so I keep telling myself it's like the black bean brownies I make when I want to indulge but still feel smug about it.  

The Isolation Journals - Day 75

Prompt:  Write your own commencement speech for whoever needs it—whether it’s your own graduate, family, or community. Your change making could start here, with your own words.

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Hello, Graduates of the Class of 2020!  You may be graduating from High School or Higher Education, a job training program, or the School of Life.  Who would have thought when the ball dropped on December 31st and Barbara Walters accurately proclaimed, "This is twenty twenty," that six months later we would find ourselves here?  

It's been a wild ride, but not in a good way.  In the way where you get off the ride covered in someone else's vomit and you all file a class action lawsuit against the amusement park, but you lose the lawsuit and have to pay Six Flags' legal fees.  I mean I'm assuming it's a Six Flags in this metaphor because that kind of shit would not fly at Dollywood.

Wow, this speech is going a little off the rails, but that's the nature of the times we're living in.  We'd better get used to uncomfortable digressions and bizarre tangents.

Speaking of discomfort - here's where I'm going to say something sincere - discomfort is where growth and change happen.  We aren't going to change the grotesque injustices that occur in this country along racial lines as well as along gender, sexual orientation, and class lines, unless we are willing to do the difficult and uncomfortable work.  The system is a mess, some of it needs to be torn down and hauled to the dump, and it's going to take some young, energetic people to commit to the work of cleaning it up.

You are graduating from something so you've proven that you know how to study and learn.  Never stop educating yourself.  Stay curious, stay open.  Seek out information that challenges what you think you already believe.  Don't live your life with your head in the sand, peeking out only for the safe information that confirms your beliefs and biases.  Listen to others' perspectives.  

Drink plenty of water, eat your vegetables, and take the time to rest when you need to.  Living a good and decent life takes effort, but it will be worth it.  You are worth it.  We all are worth it.

In closing, I will leave you with a few life pro tips.  If you've made it to age 25 without learning how to fry an egg, scrub a toilet, or do your own taxes, you're doing it wrong.  Also, it's totally fine if you don't separate your laundry as long as you use cold water.

Congratulations and good luck!  

The Isolation Journals - Day 74

Prompt:  Think about a day where you felt a range of emotions—things like joy, frustration, boredom, contentment. Summarize your day through the lens of one of these emotions. Then, choose another emotion, and summarize the same day again.

---

I took these two pictures in the window of a flower shop when we were in Paris in 2016

A snapshot of your day.  The way we see anything in life is a matter of where we place our focus.  Even from the same angle, your view can change dramatically if you let in more or less light, shift your focus from the foreground to the background.

Book Fair.

Ask any straight-talking school librarian and they will tell you - Book Fair is the bane of our existence.  That meme about the Scholastic Book Fair being the best week of the year?  I call BS.  It's my bi-annual nervous breakdown.  It's the week when I truly understand why a teacher once told my class we drove him to drink.

I'm in the business of putting books in kids' hands for free!  I don't want their money.  No seriously, I don't want to touch it.  It's almost always sticky or damp, or it's $9.37 worth of pennies in a sock (I wish that was a joke).

And then there are the tears.  So many tantrums, so much soul-crushing disappointment when the kids whose families can't afford to let them shop watch their classmates spend money like it's burning a hole in their pocket, or their sock, as the case may be.  And the sales tax.  Don't get me started on the sales tax that we are legally required to charge.  Have you ever tried explaining the concept to a 7-year-old?  Good friggin' luck.

But let's twist the lens a little, shift the focus.  Flatten the depth of field so we see the whole picture.  Now there's the Dr. Jekyll to my Hyde.  Kids lose their ever-loving MINDS over the Book Fair.  They love it so much that some cry when it's over (I cry too, but they are tears of joy).  

Sure, some kids waste their money on those g.d. spy pens and the diaries with locks that break immediately.  But the majority of kids are buying books!  Books to read!  Books to share with friends!  They are so excited about reading and building their home libraries.  Plus, it's a chance for them to practice real-world skills such as budgeting, counting money, and so much more.

I know all this.  I do.  So I put on a brave face, I count those pennies like a boss, and then on Friday I bathe in a vat of hand sanitizer and get rip-roaring drunk.*

*have like 2-3 glasses of wine, slip into a deep South Jersey accent, and scream-tell Andy all the horror stories from the past week

The Isolation Journals - Day 73

Prompt:  (re: writing correspondence to an incarcerated person)  In his seminal essay “On Ways of Seeing,” the critic John Berger writes, “To look is an act of choice.” In his essay “The Life of Images,” the poet Charles Simic writes, “the attentive eye turns the world mysterious.” Decide to look at things that you find beautiful or mysterious and write to someone about what you see, about why they are beautiful, sublime. Give them some joy. Be as particular as you can.

Send your letter to:

California Medical Facility
Attn: David Maldonado, CRM
1600 California Dr.
Vacaville, CA 95687

Our contact will distribute the letters to incarcerated persons in the prison’s hospice, medical wings, and other areas of need. If you’re open to a two-way correspondence, you can include your name and return address with the letter.

---

Hello,

It feels funny to be writing to someone whose name I don't know, but we have not yet been introduced.  My name is Katie and I live in Nashville.  I'm writing you on a sunny Friday morning in June.  I just came in from walking my dog and it's still so early that there's a damp chill in the air.  The kind of dampness that tells you, just wait a few hours, it will feel like walking through a wet washcloth.  The heat gets sweltering, but I don't mind it.  It forces people to slow down.

Now I am back inside, admiring the way my cat has a gift for finding comfort in the strangest places.  She is the most unbothered, blatantly selfish creature I have ever encountered.  Traits that I would resent in a human, but I find delightful in this cat.  She's laying on her back, spread-eagle, on top of a footstool that is, for the moment, in a sunbeam.  How can I resist going over there to pet her velvet white belly?  Hold on.  Ok.  I'm back.  You know how they have therapy dogs that visit hospitals and such?  Dogs are cool and all, but a cat is the ultimate symbol of the magic of just calming down and taking time to rest.  Why don't we have therapy cats?

Is it hot where you are?  Do you get to spend time in the fresh air?  How do you fill your hours each day?  Do you like to read?  I am a librarian, so I would rather read than just about anything else.  In this time when our country has been shut inside our homes for months, reading has been a great escape.  I hope it gives you the same gift.  

That's all I have time to write this morning, but I hope this letter finds you in peace and I hope to hear back from you.

Your friend,

Katie