Lives

This weekend I visited an awesome papermaking/letterpress studio some dear friends have set up near Ithaca.  I traveled there to collaborate on an art book.  I wrote the poem.  I think this is the first time I’ve collaborated with this many people on an idea of my own. We looked very seriously at every choice–turning it from ‘mine’ to ours.  Joe did the illustrations. Laura knows letter press and layout. Nate had ideas about binding and materials. Kevin is a brilliant editor. Eli is working on the design of the cover and epigraph.  Everyone made paper.

Each was reading something I wanted to read.  There were so many references in conversation that I didn’t get.  They all know lots of things I don’t know. But I can ask, and they’ll explain.  I can’t read everything or know everything, which can sometimes bum me out. But having friends who live lives I can’t live, who I can ask honestly about their experiences and trust to tell me the truth expands me.  Some communities are built around particulars held in common, and there’s a value to creating safe spaces like that for certain kinds of conversations.  But part of that value is that they prepare us to share ourselves with a broader, more diverse audience; prepare us to welcome in thoughts and ideas that differ from our own. To have enough confidence in ourselves to admit when we don’t know. It can feel scary to admit that I don’t know, or to ask a question that might expose my ignorance or somehow offend someone–or might prove that I’m not worthy of the friendship or admiration or love they are offering me.  But I reached, and they reached back.  Again and again.  

Also: we played this game where you throw a hammer into the air so it somersaults and then catch it and try to hit a nail into a stump (all of this is literal: actual hammer, nails, stump). I was not as bad at it as you might think. AND I finally got the “Wagon Wheel” singalong that I have been wanting for so long (because I can’t play the guitar, but Kevin can), and it was as amazing as I hoped it would be.*   

Our prompt this week comes from Jee Leong Koh’s collection of poetry, “Steep Tea.”  We’ve been going around the room in groups, reading the poem five or six times before stopping to talk about it.  By doing so we create the mundane that the poem refers to.  Then the prompt is to open with, “I think, I am going to get out of bed, and I…” And somewhere in the writing include “I watch myself…” It can be just once, or a repetition.  Whatever you need.  20 minutes, loves.  Watch yourself.  If you don’t like what you see, make some changes.

  
PS: last week someone who’d left the hospital a while ago–maybe a year and a half–reached out.  Just sent an email saying they weren’t doing so well, and we started to figure out ways forward.  I don’t know everyone everywhere, but I probably know someone who knows someone.  All you have to do is reach out.  I’ll reach back.  I promise.  I told this person, and I’m telling you, if you need it: No one can save you.  You’ll have to save yourself.  But even if you can’t see us, there’s a community rooting for you, we’ll help however we can.  

*despite my enthusiasm, “Hold On” by Wilson Philips was not as successful.