election – Little Stories

Kirkstone Pass — Zooming through the Lake District this past June.

The weather turns just a few degrees and instantly my thoughts turn to cashmere.

♦

I just finished the exciting, bizarre, and beautiful Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon, a Heian-era (circa 1000 AD!) courtesan with a sophisticated ear for poetry. She’s kind of like the ancient Japanese version of Lydia Davis, if you ask me. Micro-fiction-like fragments and lots of mundane things that get on her nerves. She is an utter delight and the perfect distraction from this miserable election. A sampling:

16: Things That Make One’s Heart Beat Faster

Sparrows feeding their young. To pass a place where babies are playing. To sleep in a room where some fine incense has been burnt. To notice that one’s elegant Chinese mirror has become a little cloudy. To see a gentleman stop his carriage before one’s gate and instruct his attendants to announce his arrival. To wash one’s hair, make one’s toilet, and put on scented robes; even if not a soul sees one, these preparations still produce an inner pleasure.

It is night and one is expecting a visitor. Suddenly one is startled by the sound of rain-drops, which the wind blows against the shutters.

♦

And so, in homage:

Things that are unpleasant

Meeting someone in person whom you only “know” online and having to start a conversation with him/her. Stepping in something wet while wearing socks. Donald Trump saying, “No one respects women more than I do.” Watching Christians contort themselves to try to defend Trump. Christians defending Trump at all. A whiff of spoiled milk. The way a dying spider’s legs curl into its body after it has been stepped on.

♦

I cut my hair extremely short (for me), as a celebratory gesture, and I think I like it. It felt risky. It changes my behavior. It makes me feel like I have to comport myself differently now.

One of the few things that makes me look forward to child-rearing is reading to my (hypothetical) children. I am going to read them everything. I think about my beloved Great Aunt Lib, who was my pen pal for many years. She raised these two brilliant children, and family lore holds that she spent a year reading aloud to them from War and Peace when they were still small.

I hope to have children who want to read so much that I cannot keep up with them. That I have to turn them loose in the library, as my mother did, and say, “Good luck, Godspeed, see you in a few hours.”

♦

How many of you have parents who are voting for Trump? Or, how many of you have parents who are not voting at all? How scared should we all be right now?

♦

It’s taking just about all of my willpower to resist the urge to turn this into a political screed. But I am tired. The election is on my mind all day, every day. Before I fall asleep, I turn to Guion and say often, “Guion, fix it,” à la Zuzu to George Bailey. As if he could somehow harness that white maleness, wave a wand, and make it all go away. We are just about a month away from the election, and I feel a plain sense of terror. Mixed also with sadness. How did things get this bad?

♦

At least we still have Lydia Davis. And Goodreads. And Solange Knowles. And dogs.

We know we are very special. Yet we keep trying to find out in what way: not this way, not that way, then what way?

— Lydia Davis, “Special”

Tag: election

Even if not a soul sees one

We know we are very special