I know from books that you love a bargain. Maybe it’s time to cut a deal. I’ve always wondered how you recognize a soul in need. If you see it, the glow of a hand covering a flashlight. If you feel it, everyone’s unique little storm approaching. If you smell it. Mine can’t have much of itself left, but maybe you want it. Maybe you’ll take better care of it than I have.
Not long ago, the photographs in my “recent photos” folder began drowning in screenshots or other images of text: tweets to show people who don’t tweet; sassy translations from Duolingo; albums I wanted to remember; addresses sent to me in emails; passages in library books I couldn’t underline; particularly expressive faces – the usual spice cupboard for the casual meme chef, but with some pragmata mixed in for credibility. But no longer the places or faces, the trees, the readymades of trash and blood and lost notes on city sidewalks, the messages on walls.
Photographs are elements of speech. Much of what I save explicitly serves this purpose – images to pair with a caption to elicit an emotional reaction, usually laughter. But so too are the places and faces, the trees and readymades, on their way to speech – a tangle of half-heart necklaces waiting for the right friendship. I post photos to elicit reactions. I send them to friends to start conversations. Without them, I see nothing but speech that isn’t mine, speech that’s already readable; there’s nothing, when I want to speak, for me to pleasurably turn into speech. Without that pleasure, I rarely speak.
This is an odd but not, I don’t think, a unique silence. I’m not the only person withdrawn from the world, our shared space that most photographs come from. I’m not the only person stuck in a different world – fragmented, disembodied – and whose “personal library” reflects that world of borrowed speech, of copied images. What I and what I’m sure others see is a timeline not of life but of life’s opposite: experiencelessness.
What I would ask Satan, in this particularly godless time, is how to re-embody myself in a way that welcomes speech. There’s a reason this is my first “monthly letter” of the year. So far in 2022, “embodiment” has meant little more than sickness and pain. Today is the 119th day of the year; I’ve been sick (long covid) for 118 of those days. In March, a car accident harvested a fresh crop of soft tissue injuries. Muscle spasms. Fatigue. Chronic pain. Coughing fits. Brain fog. Depression. As a person – as a soul – I’m diminished, and though the world is still beautiful, it’s hard to see it. To experience it. This creates a certain desperation, the kind devils are undoubtedly drawn to. Sometimes one’s soul is up for sale just to prove it’s still there.
At the beginning of 2022, I resolved to rebuild myself. I hadn’t planned on getting so sick, but that just means there’s more to rebuild. So I’m writing this. It’s something. If you’re reading it, that’s something more. What am I doing? I’m reading a lot. I’m trying to avoid social media. I’m looking for work – especially copyediting work. After losing touch with my body, I’m trying to exercise again. I’m going to the mountains in May. I finished a novel and I’m taking notes for another. I wrote an essay and put it in a drawer for later, then started a new one. Image Control became an audiobook. April is almost over. The earliest sorrel is climbing out of the dirt. I’ve been cooking a lot. Drinking a lot less. The kumquats on the trees next to my desk are ripe. Maybe I’ll take a picture. Maybe I’ll write again in June.
Thinking a lot about silence. I read this dispatch with eagerness, greedily devouring it like a luscious, rare treat. You inspired a flood of thoughts and feelings; I was thrilled to read an update from you. I worried how you’ve been. And then, I clicked the little heart, and started to close the page. I stopped. *That* silence didn’t feel right. It struck me how dependent I’ve gotten on using images and icons to speak for me. I wanted you to know how your writing always strikes such a chord, and triggers such a powerful emotional response for me. The little heart didn’t feel like enough. And so, I ramble. Hoping that you see how your writing ripples out into the world and gently nudges your readers into breaking their own silence and expressing a little appreciation and gratitude. Thank you for posting.
I've been beholden to my body and mind's concepts of doing the bare minimum for about five years now. I see my life these days as a series of erasures or elisions; I used to be cool, hot, filled with the breath of what's burbling up in the music scene and occasionally the art and lit scene, and now... I've become an absolute potato. I need to get a spark going, here, or I'm legitimately going to fade out.