This Month’s Everything is Interesting
April 2025
hello
We’re somewhere new! A new void. I’m on the internet less these days (for better or worse.) Here are the few things I found worth touching that aren’t made of grass:
A poem for the daughters
Now that David Lynch is dead, we all have to be more earnest
“The novelist is concerned with the intersection between individual and historical destiny.”
WHEN I PRAY, I PRAY TO THE VOID: IN WHICH I CONSIDER BECOMING A MOTHER
My friend Hannah comes to see me with her two-month-old baby. She tells me becoming a parent makes us more of who we really are. I’m deeply interested in being more of who I am. I think constantly of the Wallace Stevens line “let be be finale of seem.” To try and seem is the first step of being.
Before Hannah comes over, I’m standing outside watching the sunrise from my porch, which, for what it’s worth, I believe I manifested by thinking about watching the sun rise on my porch for several years prior to actually having a porch. As I’m standing with my coffee - like I’m Diane Keaton on the coast watching the ocean, though no sweater for me, instead wearing my trademark Guinness sweatshirt - a friend pulls up, a friend who Ben will spend the day skiing with. I wave and point to the sky as I am often doing (pointing to the sky). He gets out and asks if I’d seen the moon. I have, in fact, seen in the moon. I am delighted to share this moment with him, and I’m delighted to be caught as myself in this moment, to be perceived as someone who looks at the sky. It’s true, I am that! I want to be that! Someone who stands outside in the morning and looks at the sunrise from their porch! That.
Several years ago, I learned that, among other reasons, my parents didn’t have any kids after me because having their hearts outside their body in one human and mortal vessel felt like enough. They weren’t scared of not being able to love another baby. They were scared of having that love alive in the World of Harm.
At the start of this year, I wanted to be made of love. ‘To be made of love, I have to be made of love,’ I wrote to myself on a scrap of paper. To be made of love, I have to understand what love is made of: dogs that shed, friends that swing by, babies that sleep through brunch, babies that melt after 6pm, sisters I’ve inherited through cosmic spirals, my neighbor who I kiss, my boyfriend who calls me buff.
To be made of love, I have to understand what love isn’t made of. I imagine an emptiness. A void. I imagine everything is love, and if everything is love, what love isn’t made of must be the opposite of everything. Nothingness, which is also not a black hole, black holes are full of stuff that we don’t really understand.
I consult my Dictionary of Word Origins, which has changed my life (Thank you Samantha Hunt.) “Void: see vacuum.” “Vacuum: see vessel. Vacuum was popularly replaced by a form vocitum which became void, to empty out, avoid.” If love’s synonym is understand, the opposite of love must be to avoid. I pray to the void for the opposite of avoid, which might be indulge. Or eye contact.
I make eye contact with the question of whether or not to have babies. I make a list of the people I feel most inspired by. I do think having a child is the most punk act of hope fathomable. I am always trying to be a hopeful punk. I also am scared (like you) of failure, pain, not doing it right, losing myself, losing my body, etc. I make a list of all the mothers who inspire me and weep. My own mother tells me if she’d known how much fun it was, she’d do it again 10 times over. I make a list of baby names. Instagram shows me a hundred ways to be a mother, all of them somehow incorrect. I consider the world might be ending. I call a friend and talk to her daughter, who makes me certain the world is simply not ending.
Everyone tells me that love expands, and I believe them. I’ve actually never not believed them, I’ve never been worried that my love for my parents, or my dog, or my Ben would shrink if I had a kid.
When I was a kid, I had a strong theory that only girls were allowed to say actually. I look up actually in the Dictionary of Word Origins. No dice. Actual: see exact.
I reject what I am: yes I ski, no I’m not a skier. Yes, I write. No, I’m not a writer. Yes, I love. Yes, I am a lover. Yes, I run. No, I’m not a runner. The title that fits best? Daughter. I am a daughter. I do not have to try to be a daughter. I do not seem to be a daughter. I am a daughter. “Let be be finale of seem.” The first gift I received was being called daughter. The second was my name. The third was love.
When I pray, I pray to the void. What do I pray for? Clarity (see: time), health (see: time), intuition (see: trust), time (see: all in good, see tide, see tidy, see prosperity, see patience). Oh, I pray to be. I pray for being. For all beings to be happy. For all living thing to be happy, but for all living thing to takes their time. I pray for creation. I pray to create. To as in: in order. To as in: that I will.
By Wallace Stevens
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.