Dear Today,
I have another trio of songs for you. My DJ played them in just this order some time ago, and I have been planning to give them to you here. They constitute a marvelous totality which I know you will enjoy!
PS
Maybe you can't get enough, maybe? Of Go Home? Here are six more; if you only allow yourself one further, take the last one, and write me and tell me you were not overcome by the beauty of those voices.
Dear Friends,
Today I shall be sharing my secret recipe for Identity Pie. It's a no recipe recipe, I guess, but as I said before, I want you to enjoy making yours, so feel free to measure exactly, or find another recipe for it. In any case, this pie will only feed one, so you will have to get together with more folks if you want to make a dinner party out of it. If it doesn't seem like much more than a list of things, that's because I am trying to include all the things that I did not when I was asked to make it before.
sitting around with a cup of coffee
watching birds, animals, plants, the sea
sewing things like clothes, pillows, stuffed mice
other needlework like knitting, crocheting, quilting, embroidering, weaving
baking bread each week
making fermented hot sauce
being in open spaces
buying lipstick
loving shoes and clothes and temporary tattoos
singing and playing guitar
speaking Spanish & French
writing
drawing
painting
taking photos
shopping
baking
cooking
looking up words
playing solitary games
watching junky, old, television, with questionable white, male protagonists
liking chrome
hating cleaning
liking wine
smoking
considering
apologizing
cutting my hair
appearing knowledgeable
appearing interested
appearing polite
appearing
Dear Muttering,
Why do you or I matter? Well, in geologic scale, we don't. It's okay to say that. No, it's actually quite good to say that. Why? As insurance against being used. I don't want, in my desire to matter, to do a heap of unnecessary emotional labor, or to go around working for The Man, our Robot Overlords, Capitalism and godknowswhat all garbage. Just exactly why would I try to 'matter' in some ill-defined way which is controlled by the human construct of 'civilization.' What, I say, might matter to a rabbit? To a beetle? A poppy? A child? A lightening strike? A puddle of mud?
Yes, yes, I know, it sounds too romantic for our world of contemporary knowledge; it's just another way for you to put your head in the sand, you say. But, I do feel that a map, a guideline, a test, is a very handy item to have as we travel through the seasons and years.
One thing I am going to use to shape my meaning and my mattering, is this mantra: I will not be told to clean things. I have a coffee table filled with magazines that tell me what to do, and most of the admonitions revolve around cleaning. Declutter, degrease, simplify. Exfoliate, shed, let go of. Organize, dust, deep clean. Store, fold, be mindful.
These actions do give a nice sense of being in charge, and they seem to need doing, so that's a nice feeling. A feeling of mattering, a feeling of having control over dust, objects, wilted leaves. But, mightn't it cause me to focus only on the dead and dying? Are you simply, in life, making a mess or cleaning a mess? That seems a bit thin, doesn't it?
Here I am at the end, again, and I still have not given a list of things that I like to think (pretend?) make me who I am. Up next, the fourth and final episode in this discussion: baking an Identity Pie.
Dear Reader,
Recall our last discussion- on what we should do, and by extension, what we should not. I am going to put some space here, in which you should consider the question, let it sink in; selah, in the musical pause sense.
Ready? I will go first; I think we should try to do what we like, even though that will mean a certain amount of secrecy. I would also add that I want to work to be less secret. What does that mean, you ask? I am not sure, but I think it means that I will tell you what I am thinking and feeling without filtering it so much that I mediate myself into your acceptance. Hmm, that makes it sound like I am spoiling for a fight! Maybe I am.
Okay, you next. What should we do?
Recall also my pathetic wheel of identity, as I tried to craft a persona that said "I matter and this is why." This topic will be broadened in our next meeting, titled, Mattering.
Dear Betty,
I never knew, as a youth, while enjoying cooking and baking, that I was a part of the gender role wars. I just liked it, and I didn't concern myself with the notion that I might be enslaving women with my pleasure in cooking. I have asked myself many times since "what have I done?!" And I have seen also that being good at something can often make you an object of envy and hatred. And so, so what? So I only cook for a very few people, and I keep it a dark secret that I enjoy it. I don't go quite so far as to complain about cooking, but when pals start to talk about cooking, I don't join in the conversation, and I don't let on how much I know about reduction sauces, pâte à choux, or making tortillas.
Recently, I was asked to use a little paper wheel with spaces to fill in the things that made up my 'identity.' Well, like anyone would, I crafted this thing oh so carefully! I kept out anything that might make me look house-wifey, or home-makery, or crafty; everyone hates Martha Stewart Perfection, and creative, expressive women who are doing the 'real' work, women who are 'leaning in' do not have time for such things. Consequently, this wheel was missing a lot of the things I like to do on it. I picked only the most boyish and intellectual of the things I spend my time on. I avoided anything that smacked of excess or obsession, and tried to stay inside the tidy lines of 'passion.' I am not proud of my fabricated self as detailed in the identity wheel exercise, and looking at it, I didn't even like this safe, careful person I had built of six safe, careful hobbies.
And so, again. I am enjoying (from a comfortable, safe distance, and behind my blind of anonymity), the shifting sands around cooking these days. I hope you will read this article by Laura Shapiro about Sam Sifton's cookbook and popularity. Shapiro has excellent criticisms, and worthwhile issues to consider. I also sympathize with Sifton, and I enjoy his relentless positivity and cajoling. He reminds me of these pages, in fact. And so, I hope that I haven't, in my enthusiasm, produced a case of the 'shoulds' in you. As in, you should cook without (or with) a recipe, or you should read the article mentioned above.
Watch for more on my favorite topic of Not Doing soon!
ECHO: Psychical Continuity Is Not a Given but Something Constructed
Acrylic on canvas, 95 x 99.5 inches, 2021.
Dear Listener,
Today, on Radio Dodo, a trio of songs on the theme of fading: into and away. I bring these songs to you with great affection, and I imagine you out there, waiting to hear them. But, maybe I am more like Marta Beckett, in my opera house, painting my audience on the wall.
To fade, away or into, has me recalling those times, which might be the best times, when your skin seems inseparable from the rain and air; or when you look out into the distance, and the landscape dissolves and expands through the space to meet you.
Don't you forget now, my love is bigger than a Cadillac.
Dear Simpatico,
Today I got an eyeful in my inbox! Perspicacity was the name of the day. One of the things that (as they say in journalism) 'landed' there was this word of the day, "myology" from one of my favorite internet things, AWAD.
I know you also will appreciate it. This is your re-direct of the day; should it be a regular feature?