Dear Reader—a confession:
My mind is narrative-prone, unduly influenced by stories. Once they take over my brain, I can't stop thinking about them, and I start to live inside of stories instead of living my own life. Perhaps for this reason I am more comfortable than most people I know with acknowledging the controlling, even tyrannical aspect of stories.
What do I mean by that? A story gives us information, but it controls our perspective, what information we get, when and in what order. It takes a conscious effort of will to resist a story's perspective about who is the hero or villain or what matters and what doesn't. That's why, for instance, there's currently a cultural panic about The 1619 Project—because it challenges the narrative of white triumph and liberty as the founding story of the United States and replaces it with a story about the oppression and resilience of Black people. Folks can deal with you telling your own little story that can get shunted off to the side, but they don't want you messing with their story.
When I was young, I watched a lot of TV and movies. As in, there were days during the summer when I probably watched 8-10 hours of TV. (My parents can't entirely be blamed for this.) By the time I was 18, I stopped watching TV, and stopped regularly watching movies several years later. At this point, I watch TV and movies very sporadically and only read about one novel a year, and even try to do that as quickly as possible because I can't stop thinking about the story until I have finished it.
I'm not saying this because I don't think there is narrative art out there worth consuming. I know there are many films, shows, and books worthy of attention. But the form they take isn't compatible with my nervous system. If I watch a movie or TV show before bed, I will have trouble getting or staying asleep because it loops through my head. If I get deeply hooked into a show or movie, I will essentially become a piece of walking fanfiction for weeks, months, or years. Instead, I have to save my brain for my life, my work, my relationships, and for bearing witness to what's happening in the world.
Of course human beings are story-making creatures. Of course I make stories about myself and my life, because that's how I can give them shape and communicate them to myself and others. But reality is not a story. Story is just a lens through which we view reality. And I don't think I can be reminded too often to step back from the camera lens and just look at the world with my eyes.
My alternatives to audio-visual narrative:
poetry
non-fiction
making things with my hands
silence
psychedelics
exercise and meditation
listening to music
and sometimes consuming audio-visual narrative when I am exhausted, burned out, or depressed. It’s really OK.
THE SECRET POEM
The Stamp
The last time I said no to you
I drew my legs up to my chest
and kicked you off me against the wall
and screamed at you until you left.
I was twelve.
I came home twenty years later
to find a little red envelope
asking me to RSVP.
You had asked me to see you get married.
I thought of what to do
and took my pen to tell you no
stamped it and wedged it
up behind the mailbox
for the mailman to see.
Months went by
and one day I came home
to a crumpled dusty pink
envelope in front of my mailbox
unsent.
It had hidden itself
before the mailman could see
and warped with the rain and the heat
until it fell out at my feet.
Your wedding was long past by that day.
We both wasted a stamp either way.
Caring and Sharing
torrin a. greathouse: Wound from the Mouth of a Wound and “I Was Looking for Dick and All I Got Was This Lousy Poem”
I don’t want to look away from what is happening to the Wet’suwet’en land defenders.
I took Marlee Grace’s Newsletter Class and it was pretty great.