Let the half-wit out for a walk
simple pleasures for summer
A photo for where I’m at: finding my way through the weeds, perhaps a little lost. Not sharing as much with the internet - still here, but with my back turned, trying to stay on my own path. I’ve been drawing, writing and living my life through moments un-postable and private. In that spirit, some things we might pay attention to this summer instead of our phones:
Learn the names of things
I’ve been switching out social media time with the Merlin Bird ID app. In the morning I take my coffee outside, press record and see who is hanging out nearby. At the height of spring, the yard feels and sounds like a proper jungle, and there are so many more species around than I thought. More names and friends to commit to memory: ruby-crowned kinglet, brown creeper, red-breasted nuthatch, house finch, magnolia warbler. (Still waiting to see a Wilson’s warbler, this newsletter’s namesake!) If you want to understand the place you live better, it’s good to learn the names of things that are there. (I wrote more about all of that here).
In times of feeling stuck, I have to paint these little moments and not worry too much about a piece having to sell or to mean something. I am thinking about Fraktur, a form of folk art associated with 18th-19th century Pennsylvania German settlers, among whom were some of my ancestors. Fraktur was about decorating things for personal, private pleasure rather than display. People painted flowers on their furniture chests and embellished birth and marriage certificates with decorative patterns and birds. What if it was this simple, and we could make beautiful things just for the sake of beauty, as a nice way to spend a little of our time - a kind of private devotion? There’s something of this spirit in me. I like to use my art to point out simple stuff and say, “isn’t this interesting, isn’t this nice.”
How nice it is
I am reading Sheila Heti’s Alphabetical Diaries. On the surface the book is so sparse and simple, but it took Heti more than ten years of editing to get there, distilling 500,000 words of diary entries into this crystallised thing. In alphabetized form, the sentences reveal a cyclical self, returning over and over to the same themes and preoccupations. We contradict ourselves, obsess, have sudden clear insights, and sometimes we just enjoy things: “How much pleasure there is in just sitting around, writing, eating and reading,” Heti writes in chapter H. And then, a list of sentences beginning with “How nice it is to _____.” Reading the book made me want to write my own such lists of nice things.
When in doubt, go out
Most of my art comes from memories of my life, so things can get tough once I’m sitting at the desk all day, hoping inspiration will come from being alone in a beige room. My counsellor gave me a phrase to repeat for the foreseeable future: when in doubt, go out. It does not particularly matter what for: a brief chat with a neighbour, a trip to buy tomatoes, a coffee with a friend for a whole morning, anything to get out of my own head. There are limits to introspection, and the homework is to go towards contact with my backyard, strangers, friends, a world outside of my own control - even when I least feel like it.
“Let the half-wit out for a walk”
Do you spend time with mindless or silly things that make you laugh? For me lately it’s Chelsea Peretti’s unhinged podcast and the brilliant Abbott Elementary. I want to look at visual art that has a sense of humour too:
I don’t think humour is extraneous; it’s part of survival. We need a sweet escape that lets us shut off overthinking for a while. “Everyone who concentrates all day, in the evening needs to let the half-wit out for a walk,” wrote Donald Hall (on why he watches baseball every evening). Currently, playoff hockey satisfies this need for me:
Assorted nice things:
A book about food and reading, two top-tier joys of being alive: Dwight Garner’s The Upstairs Delicatessen. (It’s also a book that directs you outward to hundreds of other books; I checked out a big stack from the library afterwards).
Always inspired by Billie wearing her heart on her sleeve and doing music exactly how she wants:
Sarah Leavitt on joyful persistence in our creative endeavours (discovered via Austin Kleon’s newsletter).
I loved Tommy Orange’s new book Wandering Stars, and this heartwarming story of teenage readers connecting to his work.
Prince George-adjacent pals: many folks have been directed here through Darrin Rigo and Andrew Kurjata, whose local-interest newsletters are both well worth checking out. Thanks you two.
As always, thanks for reading. If there’s anything you’d like to hear about in a future newsletter, please send me a reply. If you’re new here, you can visit my website to learn more about me and my work.
A poem to end:
The Good Life, by Mark Strand
(From The Collected Poems of Mark Strand (2014).)
You stand at the window.
There is a glass cloud in the shape of a heart.
There are the wind’s sighs that are like caves in your speech.
You are the ghost in the tree outside.The street is quiet.
The weather, like tomorrow, like your life,
is partially here, partially up in the air.
There is nothing that you can do.The good life gives no warning.
It weathers the climates of despair
and appears, on foot, unrecognized, offering nothing,
and you are there.
Thank you for making my whole weekend with this Merlin Bird ID app!!! I ran all over our backyard and then plopped in the hammock in our grove just listening to all the birds—7 different types so far! I can’t stop beaming about this app to my husband and am already thinking about everything I want to research regarding birds now. 🥰