i’ve been wondering for a while why i can’t seem to write anything non-academic. i think it’s because my preoccupations and preferences have changed so much: i feel like i’m stumbling around in the dark, tripping over things that were once useful, finding new things that i don’t expect. i don’t go on the internet anymore, not in the way i used to. the last novel by iris murdoch that i read frustrated me. recently, while embroidering, i found myself irritated by the sound and texture of the thread moving through the fabric. i imagine the day when i can finish my current round of commissions and stop making embroidery art for good.
i am not so curious about the things that i was once curious about. i think i am curious about new things, but i haven’t been able to pin them down — they emerge quietly and then fall away. they are only beginning to take form. in short, i am having perhaps a bit of an identity crisis, so here, as a kind of tentative probing exercise, are five things that i know i enjoy now, and why.
apologies for the fact that this is just a diary post. i’m trying to get myself to write!
Deadlifting
I like lifting as a whole. It underpins my weeks, a kind of surprisingly flexible metaphor that makes me feel a little more reasonable and more patient when I’m doing other kinds of work, or any necessary drudgery. I like the ability to isolate problems that are preventing me from achieving my goals and work on them until I’m stronger overall. I like the feeling that my body is learning, and that the body/mind division is a farce and a hindrance. I also like feeling proud of my lifts. Deadlifting is my favorite because, to do it properly, I have to take such a sturdy stance, which makes me feel like a more sturdy person. I think there is something to be said about different exercises modelling different psychological states. being a runner, a climber, a lifter — each, when repeated enough, makes me feel like a different person.
Middlemarch
This was the best book I read last year. Nothing has come close to it since. It is so funny and perceptive; it is hypnotic, using the rhythms of the characters’ lives to create a sense of immersive temporal setting that is, as far as I know, unmatched; it stages a series of ethical questions by presenting a group of characters that are all trying to ‘do good’ in the context of their community (whatever they think that means), and putting pressure on them; it is sensitive to the interiority of these characters in such a careful, compassionate way. I am afraid to read more George Eliot because I am not sure how any other book could touch this.
Reading about Napoleon
Please don’t laugh at me for putting this on the same list as deadlifting. I wouldn’t consider myself a Napoleon lover, but I’m finding that I can explore some points that I’m interested in through his career: the emergence of the modern state, and how this process interacted with the more varied administrative entities scattered around Europe; how something that seems dated to the contemporary mind (read: early modern artillery and the various ways that it can be deployed) once constituted ‘cutting edge military technology’; the problem of charisma, which has always haunted me; the performativity of war/war as theatre. I’m working on the Philoctetes this year, so I do feel that this last point is especially relevant to me. Maybe this is a long-winded way of saying that I’m enjoying reading history again, something that I have not done a lot lately.
Linocut
I love doing linocut! It is very cool that once you make a linocut, you can print on all sorts of things. The feeling of carving into the lino board is a substantial one; there is a sense of excavation, of real work being done. Reading this list over, maybe I value a sense of effort, slow but visible progress, and concreteness. In any case, here’s an ex libris plate i made. the lino board is a little bent, which is why it looks warped:
Not speaking unless I feel I have something load-bearing to say
Lately I’ve been feeling like I don’t know what conversation is for. Perhaps it’s a space of play; that’s fine, but I’d like it to be a more constructive one. I am trying to be a little bit more conversationally decisive, to not have conversations that just fall into the void. A conversation is a series of actions; what could it change?
Thanks for reading!
I love what you said about deadlifting. It seems as though different exercises model different psychological states because, well, they change your physical state — your power to meaningfully interact with your environment.
I notice a similar change with improving my running speeds. I feel more confident in expansive physical spaces. Looking around at an open space, or a long trail, seems less unfathomably vast and remote, since I know I could physically pass through that space with increasing swiftness. Looking across a river to the other side of a city looks less distant, less like a separate city, because I could easily envision how I could traverse it in a few hours if I needed to.
It's so strange to be pulled up short by the realization that one's preferences have changed. This is an evocative list and made me want to write my own.
1. Sound effects
I'm feeling an identity shift lately because I'm a mom now. Our son is six months old and he's flatteringly entertained by silly sounds, so I've been getting to dust off my elephant trumpeting and pig grunting and raspberry blowing. It's also fun to watch him bring out this behavior in everyone else, like his grandparents.
2. Singing
I've dabbled in folk music circles before, but having a kid has made singing more practically relevant to my life. It feels quite solemn and meaningful to be part of a tradition passing old songs down to another generation, and I hadn't experienced that feeling before. I've been learning songs and picking up a few ukulele chords to go with them.
3. Communal bathing
We went to a family-friendly Korean spa on a trip to New York and got naked in front of strangers and lounged in pools of various temperatures and it was joyous. It made me feel that my own culture is fallen and impoverished for not having any kind of communal bathing tradition.
4. Car Talk
I've been listening to back episodes of Car Talk while driving, and I can't really explain this one. I don't care very much about cars and the car advice is largely out of date anyway—I don't have a carburetor. I like their rapport and the windows into the lives of the callers through their car problems and the pervasive 90s feeling of a simpler time.
5. Lois McMaster Bujold
I've never been an author completionist until now. I intended to just reread The Vorkosigan Saga but I went from there to her fantasy series and now there are only some odds and ends I haven't read. It's been a nice companion in the early months of parenthood: she's pretty optimistic about humanity and her characters' ability to grow into the fullest versions of themselves.
What do you recommend for Napoleon reading?