Good evening friends. It’s been a long week of restless nights as my daughter fights off a fever, nothing too serious, most likely a reaction to the latest round of vaccinations. It’s hard to witness her discomfort. For example, feeling refreshed after a nursing session, she climbed onto the bed to gather her stuffed animals, then stopped midway, turning to look at me with a loud wah, to ask what is [this] pain, coming out of nowhere, unattached to a bump or a fall? Confusion, anger and annoyance cross her face, irritated that something is making it hard to move and play. I feel you girl. Being sick is no fun.
Ross Gay!
Later, in the bath, Maya splashes and plays with shells while I read from Ross Gay’s Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude. My antidote to tiredness has been to listen to interviews with this incredible writer and thinker as I drift through my day, letting his gentle voice direct my thoughts, as I have no energy to direct them myself. (Non-parents must be so tired of hearing me talk about being tired, but I do seriously question how I ever could have felt tired in those pre-child days, how little the grogginess at the start of a 9am workday resembles this exhaustion.)
I’m fascinated with the way Gay responds to questions by telling stories. He illustrates a feeling or a moment with the tiniest details, so that we can see exactly what was happening when he realized, for example, why it was so hard for him to be with his mother while she grieved his father (Commonplace podcast, Episode 25).
Of course that practice shows up in is work. His long poems draw you in with images of fruit trees and butterflies, meandering with you to somewhere unexpected, then gently guiding you home. Read, or listen to “Spoon”, to see what I mean. And of course, the title poem, “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude”.
My impulse, as with certain other poets (see Zeina Hashem Beck), is that I want to be his friend, want to be part of his community, even, as in Gay’s case, if that means moving to Indiana. He feels easy to be with, and so wise, an embodiment of the way of being he speaks about. I’m still pondering his comments about the relationship between joy and death, or “being in the process of dying,” as he puts it in the On Being podcast.
What I Love (today)
Rachel Zucker starts her conversation with Gay on Commonplace by inviting listeners to send her stories of what they love. The episode was recorded five years ago, but I felt inspired to share a short list of what came to mind here. (And look! The newsletter Lists of Note, just posted Lorraine Hansberry’s lists of likes and dislikes. If you want more.)
I love sitting in my friend K’s apartment, oozing with her energy, plants draped across the bookshelves and hanging from curtain rods, her essence infusing the
space like incense.
I love that I reflexively waved at the mailman when I drove past this afternoon, then reminded myself that although we talk most days we’re not actually friends and he probably wouldn’t recognize me away from our house. I love that he closes the gate after he delivers mail and that he smiles at Maya and that he brings packages all the way up the steps for us.
I love watching my daughter watch the squirrel outside the kitchen window, its bushy gray tail sweeping over the fence, in and out of sight. She turns to me with excitement, Did you see it too?, then tries to climb onto the counter so she can get to the window, presumably for a better view.
I love running into people I know when I’m out on foot, like the nanny from our music class or the mom and baby fitness instructor, and that they recognize Maya first
I love that when Ross Gay figures out that it took him about six months to write a certain poem, he qualifies it as “not that long.” I love thinking about the [often] inverted relationship between length of and time spent on a work
I love Fall in San Francisco, where because there’s no great color shift, those few examples are even more striking, like the Ginkgo biloba street trees and the firey Japanese maple in our backyard, the layers of red swallowing the green core. I love how the air turns cool and moist, making the city fragrant with the true smell of fertility—decomposition. I love that different flowers bloom each season, like the strategic late-blooming California fuchsia, a precious source of food for the birds and insects who have lingered this long.
I love being a mom, and getting a good haircut, and the smell of coffee.
I love anticipating a good night’s sleep, preparing for bed with the cheerful optimism of a child on Christmas Eve, certain that tonight is the night, that tomorrow I’ll wake up in the morning and all my deepest desires (sleep, sleep, sleep), will have come true. I love that this enthusiasm persists, no matter the outcome.
I love Ross Gay’s practice of writing an essay everyday for his 42nd year about something that delights him, which he publishes in his Book of Delights. He points out anew what I’ve known since seventh grade French class, that in French, essay means “to try”. I love this reminder of what I too want to do: to try, somewhat regularly, to write about how poetry, and motherhood, and life, delights me