Crying for Everything
feeling unsettled, antsy, terrified
The gift of making new friends is that you get to work on your story telling abilities. They’ve never heard your stories—you get a chance to tell them with new fervor and attitude and maybe slightly adjust the facts to make them easier to tell. (My best friend taught me that.) I’ve been remembering sweet moments that I haven’t thought of in a long, long time. For example, when I was 5 years old I began piano lessons and at my second lesson and I was so moved by the fact that I had played a melody that I started crying. I blamed my tears on my teacher’s bright lamp, embarrassed by my emotion, and at my third piano lesson the light had been replaced. (No facts changed.)
I’ve always had the capacity to carry a lot of emotions at once and this sometimes enhances the others. To feel deep darkness for violence in our world, a collective burden that is spreading onto the world’s shoulders, and to also feel spring shudder her mossy spine as the sweet, warm wind drifts into our valley… they both penetrate until it’s a mess of holding hands, bloody hands. The fact that I have a bedroom at all. The fact that a ten year old I know is scared of being drafted into the war. The fact that he has more resources than most, and he would easily be given an out, but his fear is a reality for some.
I’ve been ridiculously antsy lately. I have almost gotten in two car accidents, I am so spaced out that I have four parking tickets (two of them were for the same violation written up within two minutes by some dickhead cop), it’s impossible for me to return phone calls and I talk to Adelaide for about five minutes on the phone before I tell them that I can’t pay attention and we hang up, promising we’ll try again later. Meditation seems selfish, writing this newsletter seems weird, writing at all feels like a luxury I don’t deserve.
I’ve been walking a lot because that’s what feels good right now. I like to walk up my hilly neighborhood and wander into the trees where blackberries and plums are waiting to burst. This is where I meditate, where I write books in my head, where I go to make sense of things.
When I was a child I remember my parents talking about the ways that human life had changed. And I wondered, as a pretty introspective kid, when those things would unfold in my own life. I think it’s happening before my eyes now. I don’t remember ever being scared of the future, but I think some kids are scared. Children are learning so much on TikTok that they barely have time to play, other children are fighting wars, some children are lost in school because they don’t have the resources to catch up after being out of school for so long. A mother just told me that all the kids at her daughter’s fourth birthday party had never been to one before. Children are fighting wars.
Everything is changing.
I’ve been documenting everything in my own personal journal, which used to feel really silly to me, but now it is comforting. There are so many things on social media. When I say things I mean people selling products, people selling information, people selling their own life. It feels nice to keep parts of my life a secret.
People are fascinating and I often wish I had taken more sociology classes in undergrad. I want to watch a documentary where they dissect humans as much as they do some mind blowing species. “Look at these humans, after this devastating tsunami, put each other back together again. Look how they carry food to each other and wrap their bleeding bellies and lift the littlest ones in their arms. Those little ones are most precious to the humans.”
I watched a TikTok video (on Instagram… I’m about ready to delete everything) of a there year old impressively skiing down a black diamond. What the fuck?! Guys we are literally evolving in front of our eyes. Twenty years ago, when I was 3, my family ate cheerios around the table and sometimes I dropped one and my dog would leap into the room, absolutely delighted. Impressively magic. Maybe I’ve always been attune to ordinary things. I’m not sure if I’m happy for that baby skiing down a hill or if I am absolutely terrified.
Anyway, here are some things I did this week that were nice.
I rearranged my art collection.
I watched the documentary Fantastic Fungi
I ate birthday cake.
Some friends and I debated over which Queen song is best (some are in favor of Lover Boy, others say Cool Cat). I think Purple Heather by Van Morrison is better than both, but Van Morrison is not Queen so my vote is kinda floating around, absently.
I’m not sure where this newsletter went. I think I often wrap these up in a nice little way, but things don’t feel like they can be wrapped up right now, so I’ll just give myself to you, completely unsettled. Maybe if I write about being unsettled we can all hold each other up in that emotion—if you’re feeling that way, too. I miss my friends a lot, all my wonderful friends who are scattered around. I’m thinking of you and I’m sorry if I missed your phone call. Don't give up on me.
Here’s a picture of the sky at night in Lincoln. Don’t forget to look up.
Love,
Jo
