My Sunday List
January 28, 2024
Words
Facing our inner divisions is the first step to knowing where we need to rejoin ourselves. You cannot set bone until you know where it is broken, and you cannot set upon the journey of individuation — of becoming a whole person — until you know where and how you are divided. —Mark Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen, pg. 44
And one more:
People who have a creative side and do not live it out are most disagreeable clients. They make a mountain out of a molehill, fuss about unnecessary things, are too passionately in love with somebody who is not worth so much attention, and so on. There is a kind of floating charge of energy in them which is not attached to its right object and therefore tends to apply exaggerated dynamism to the wrong situation. —Marie-Louise Von Franz
Song
Some Lessons by Melody Gardot.
Perfect.
I watched
The Capote Tapes on Prime Video. Of course, I can’t wait to start streaming Capote vs The Swans this week. I’m panting with excitement about seeing the costume design. That was my favorite part of Killers of the Flower Moon, too — the costume design was just exquisite. Check out those suits DiCaprio wears.
Book
I’m on page 61. I know — I’ve been going on about this book and I’m not even to page 100. There’s an art to slow reading, and everyone who does it has their own way, I suppose. When I want to comprehend and remember, as opposed to just enjoy and escape or grasp some quick information, I slow it way down. I underline. I take notes. I research things I want to know more about. I’ve always been a reader, as you know, but being in the center of deep reading, actually studying a text, is one of my most contented states.
I’ve also been enjoying The New Yorker again. I think this is the 3rd time I’ve subscribed. It comes weekly or bi-weekly, and it always deserves my time, though it doesn’t always get it. It’s a commitment (47 issues per year!) to subscribe, and I’ve vowed to stay true to my intentions of keeping that commitment and not let the issues pile up into a stack of unread guilt like they have the two previous times I’ve ambitiously subscribed to this unique and wonderful publication.
Thing
Airplanes. A miracle when they work properly. I said to my sister yesterday, as I sat at yet another departure gate, that one has to decide to surrender to the travel gods. Weather is what it is, and human beings are what they are. It’s all imperfect. But life is so relatively easy for us now — we can get anywhere we want to go pretty easily when it gets right down to it if we can afford the fare. We complain and feel assaulted when our schedules get thrown off, but we don’t celebrate when they don’t. Maybe we should. Maybe we should start celebrating when things go smoothly instead of feeling entitled to everything going our way all the time. Yep I’m talking to me.
airplane selfie ⬆️
What I’m wearing
Well, it hasn’t been that spectacular. The snow finally melted but the rain hasn’t stopped. That’s fine, I like rain. I also caught a cold, or my body started reflecting my stress back to me after all the cuckoo travel during the snow/ice storm two weekends ago. That’s all to say it’s been my usual winter cozy. I did have occasion to wear the Givenchy coat to a meeting on Monday, which I paired with a pair of ten-year-old Billy Reid pants in navy blue wool, a black, short-sleeved cashmere tee (probably more than 10 years old) over a denim pearl snap shirt (ancient, soft, a few holes where the pockets have strained), with my trusty brown suede, bought-on-sale, Gianvitto Rossi chunky heeled boots that are perfection.
This was not the meeting on Monday. ⬆️ This was from December. But this is the Givenchy coat.
One more clothes related thing: Can I tell y’all about an amazing tool? The fabric shaver. I got this one for about $25 and it’s my favorite thing because I cannot stand a pilled-up fabric or sweater. This keeps everything looking fresh. Be careful with it — you can shave a hole right into your thin knits.
What I’m cooking
I didn’t do a lot of cooking this week. I didn’t even go to the grocery store or get any delivered. Sometimes Hayes and I eat like college students when we don’t have children to feed and I am not in kitchen mode — cheese and crackers, cup of noodles (I am not kidding — I love them) with Trader Joe’s chili crunch and cilantro to dress it up, Amy’s Mac and Cheese (I call it my emergency food for when I can’t come up with anything else I can stomach), BUT! There are also big bowls of blueberries and at least one apple per day, as well as pecans (my favorite nut) and raw almonds. I’ve also eaten pizza two days in a row.
I guess it was all that cooking I did while we were snowed in. I get like that sometimes — I’ll nest like a cancer for a while, then the gemini shows up and says uh uh, you need a bit of variety, get yourself out of the kitchen, woman.
Um, this is sort of embarrasing to write down. Someone needs to clean up her diet regardless of the time spent in the kitchen. Noted.
Favorite Photo I Took This Week
I want to try painting this.
Where I went
My favorite outing was to The Country Music Hall of Fame. I had several appointments otherwise, and managed to sneak in some time with my sister, a few friends, and now I’m happily with my boy on this grey Sunday morning. There is travel planned for the coming week too. Forever your jetsetter. That Gemini cusp thing is very real (my birthday is June 21 — the summer solstice as well — so complicated). I’ve never known if I wanted to stay or go. I really want to do both. Ha.
What I did
I can’t even really remember past a few things if I don’t look at my calendar. But I’ll tell you what I’m going to do tomorrow, which is go to the studio and continue work on the Saint Seven tunes with Kenny. I know I keep teasing. It’s coming together.
What I made
I worked on a capelet, which I’ll show you soon. I sketched quite a bit. This one, for a commission for Toni B., has my eye right now. I’ll start figuring out how to paint it tomorrow. This is from a photo she sent. How fun it is to realize you can learn to do something you always wanted to be able to do? I’ve wanted to make visual art since I was a child. The eye-brain-hand connection had to come together.
Something wonderful I noticed
Kindness is contagious.
What brought me joy
Being in the pursuit of learning and growing.
I was frustrated by my brain for a long time. Anxiety affects how well we learn, of course, and when I think about what I carried to school with me everyday when I was a child, it overwhelms me even now. Of course, I dissociated from my body — to stay sane! Of course, I was attracted to order and calm — I needed some! I loved school, but had to learn with a brain that was only looking for a way to get everything sorted, collecting references I could go back to when I needed them, putting pieces together on my own because no one really explained anything to me at home. My brain was looking for a way to survive, not thrive.
When I was in my early forties, I started to feel like I could think. Grief affects the brain tremendously, and I was in a significant amount of grief for a few decades. All my blood flow went to the emotional and fear storage parts. It has taken a long time, but I am beginning to feel better in the noggin, thanks to my village of mental health professionals. I feel at a stable baseline now. That doesn’t mean I don’t have bad days or dips, I certainly do, but the difference is, when I have one now, I know it won’t last forever. I’m increasing the patience I have with myself for being human. I am much calmer and feel like I’m starting to inhabit my own existence instead of being outside myself all the time.
Better living through chemistry? So be it.
Prayer
Thank you, Great Spirit, for giving me the strength to let go of everything I cannot control, which is everything outside of myself.
Intention for the week to come
May I be present before I am concerned with being anything else.
May I meet others with kindness and acceptance and still keep my boundaries.
May I feel confident enough in those boundaries to be flexible in my actions.
May I use my words for good.
May I be grateful for my blessings.
May I be open to the opportunities that show themselves to me.
May I conquer my fear.
Something I’m thinking about
The difference in being nice and being kind.
I like this article, which I think explains the difference very well. A very kind friend told me, and I quote, I read this thing once that said niceness is rooted in being liked, kindness is rooted in love.
Well said.
I’d like to be nice and kind. But I’d like my actions to speak louder than my words, always.
I’d love to know your ideas about this one — please leave them in the comments.
Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. — Buddha
Habit
Yoga. Yoga. Yoga. I’m going to be 52 this year — what used to be about more than a little bit of vanity is now about flexibility, strength, stamina — in both the body and the mind. I use the Down Dog app — it keeps track of everything.
Best Word or Term
Dracula Sneeze: covering one’s mouth with the crook of the elbow when sneezing, so as to limit germ transmission.
Wishes
That I recognize every opportunity to feel joy, and that I take each one.
That my fellow creatures do that too.
That you all are content and well.
That you will forward this to one person you think might like it.
Have a wonderful, peaceful, joyous week. And thank you for supporting my work here at The Autotelic.
Peace. Love.
Allison
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In our cystic fibrosis community we are all accustomed to Dracula sneezing and coughing to avoid spreading upper respiratory infections. We also avoid shaking hands but shake pinkies or bump elbows instead. That’s kindness too I think. So is masking in public when you know you have a bug that you don’t want to share. 😊
I have also been thinking about the difference between being nice and being kind. I tell myself that I wasn't put on earth to be nice but to be kind.