Just in time for allergy season, a little opportunistic horseweed on the balcony. Nature is wise.
Now back at home from Casa Weeks, alone in my studio with the kitty and the inexplicable hum of 83, which has heretofore been mostly silent, the one thing I keep coming back to is nature.
I have the deepest urge to plant something. It’s a deeply hopeful act – shoving a tiny seed into wet, dark soil, believing that it will rise its face to the sun over weeks or months.
Meister Eckhart said, “What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action.”
This dovetails nicely with yesterday’s urge to slow down, be still, reflect.
So I will head to Falkenhan’s in Hampden to pick up some spinach and mixed greens, maybe radish, which I don’t love but which comes up very quickly and gives nearly instant gratification – a comfort always but especially right now.
What are you planting these days – literally or metaphorically?
I am perhaps more excited about this than I ought to be.
Just this morning I was writing my morning pages and berating myself for my lack of writing. A familiar trope that I revisit frequently: that I am never doing enough creative work, even when not social distancing and with ample time.
And then Khristian Weeks shared this Instagram post with me:
“Notes from my last residency in Ontario, Canada: A whole bunch of materials is waiting for its transformation into something we commonly call ‘works of art’. Not only these from Canada, but a lot of other findings from Italy (sea and forests) reside in my studio suspended in this motionless moment. On top of that, new projects and conceptual works reside in my mind for the warm season, and one could think right now, given the quarantine, an artist should have an abundance of time to dedicate to his/her practice. • What I want to say is that I just don’t feel like doing anything. I just prefer to spend my time deep into this crisis rather than distracting from it. • Suddenly my work has become something far from what I’m living, something off-topic from what I’m through right now. Everything feels useless or distant. And in the compulsive ways socials are pushing people to do, do, do (on-line courses, exhibitions, flash mobs, virtual gatherings and whatever may sound productive, which I don’t criticize), I want to allow myself just doing nothing. • It’s strange how death is the only certain thing in this life, jet it shocks and upsets us so deeply. • I hope and guess that my mood will change again soon as everything is changing fast and I will be going back to my art practice with a different attitude, but for now I’m living through my mood with the effort to not feel guilty about it and it feels good I’m succeeding in this.” @francesca.virginia.coppola
I alternately love it and hate it when someone beats me to a public expression of how I am feeling.
The idea that we (the big, U.S. of A “we”) are being pushed to be productive and busy at the same time this virus has forced us to slow down seems counterintuitive to me, and, for creative people, a direct contradiction to the quiet reflection that is necessary for deep work.
I am a big fan of the idea that creative work is more than just the production of stuff and encompasses the whole wide network of action that includes inaction as well. And that there is tremendous value in removing all of the distraction of busy-ness to sink into creative practice that may or may not have a final product.
People: you don’t need to organize your closets and deep clean your house. You don’t need to re-create your child’s school at home. You don’t need to go into high-speed production of your art, or learn a new skill, or attend a class.
You could, but this is not required.
Nothing is required of you at this moment in time except that you wash your hands, cough/sneeze into your elbow, and don’t touch your face.
Literally, that’s it.
Today, we are watching movies and working on a puzzle (‘shrooms, natch). It will be warm but cloudy, so maybe we will stretch our legs around the block, but maybe not.
Do you feel pressed to “do, do, do,” or are you letting this forced slowdown sink deeply into your bones?
Today Khristian Weeks and I went for a long walk at Lake Roland. Which was great, except it seemed that many other people had the same idea for a long walk before the rain comes tonight.
And then halfway through our walk it struck me that our bodies have become weaponized with this virus. I didn’t really want to be close to people out walking, and any time anyone sneezed it felt dangerous.
Another walker passing by commented that it sure is a shitty time to have allergies. #heard
But then there is the other side of this, the positive things that are beginning to emerge from this ongoing (and much longer than we think, IMVHO) crisis. The U.S. has figured out that yes, we can help everyone, from the poor to the elderly to the uninsured, if we put our mind (and our priorities) to it.
Maybe we are even beginning to appreciate some of the things we have taken for granted. Freedom of movement. Comfort. Toilet paper.
Calm the fuck down on that last one, people. Good lord.
Anyway.
Towards the end of our walk, I spied a little spiky plant next to the path – stinging nettle. Long reviled as an evil weed, this plant is arguably one of the most nutrient-dense plant foods available in the wild. Not only is stinging nettle delicious as food, cooked to remove the sting, but the root extract also helps to relieve allergy symptoms. There is not a ton of research on this, but some studies have been promising. Proceed with caution, as it can also, ironically, cause allergy symptoms.
So this little plant seems to sum up our current global crisis. Yes, there are barbs that must be dealt with, preferably gently and with great care, but in the end there may be innumerable benefits if we can just bring ourselves to look past the prickly outside (and since the virus itself looks spiky, this is also a skillful metaphor. I had the phrase “very skillful metaphor,” but decided it was more obvious than skillful and so eliminated the “very”).
And there we are. Today’s missive, literally from the field.
Wash your hands, don’t touch your face, and cough into your elbow. And take an allergy pill before you go for a walk.
How you know it’s serious: boxed wine stores are low at The Wine Source
It’s March 17th, St. Patrick’s Day if you care about that sort of thing. The sun is shining, mostly, and Khristian and I are practicing social distancing from everyone but each other.
I have taken the cat for a walk (which is funny), and we have gone to my house for a re-stock on books and supplies for gluten-free scones. I am about to crack a pineapple cider (Austin Eastciders) and maybe will continue to read aloud from Michael Pollan’s book A Place of My Own, dreaming of a day when Canada opens its borders back to people in the U.S. and we can start building our little shack.
It’s strange times, these, and I have to have some sort of plan for myself to keep anxiety at bay. So far I am not great at doing the right things (e.g., staying off social media and not compulsively checking the news), but I am writing this instead of doing those things. Perhaps I will do this daily, write a dispatch, so to speak, and send it into the void as everyone learns how to work at home and crowds onto the internet like the train platforms they used to stand on for their daily commute. I have a few recipes to work on from recent travels, and those will happen in the next week or so.
How will you spend this time of quietly reflected madness where we try not to peer too deeply into the darkness of what might be?
Wash your hands, don’t touch your face, and cough into your elbow.
