MWD6 - On Time and the Making of It
There are nights when the fridge is plenty stocked, but it all takes effort, and wouldn’t pizza be really nice right now? But here comes another day, and you can only reheat leftovers so long, so, let’s see what’s edible, shall we?
======
If you ever wanted proof that writing is an odd business, look to this amazing piece from author Karen Russell (Swamplandia!, Orange World), published on Wealthsimple, a financial services company. I would love to find out how this gig came to be. Yes, Russell is writing about the financial exigencies surrounding writing as a career, but she is also – of course – writing about so much more: motherhood, art, class, privilege, and time. Completely in my wheelhouse, but is that true for the average visitor to the website of an investment firm? I’m having trouble connecting the dots.
However it came to be, the whole piece is brilliant, but two elements stood out. First, the term breadwinner. She writes,
At the moment I am our family’s “breadwinner,” to use a compound noun that evokes the Brothers Grimm, and also a lottery held during a famine. Writing has always been a matter of survival for me; becoming a mother has not changed that. But a book in utero feels dangerous to me in a new way now: it’s a hungry ghost on the desktop, a succubus draining security and attention from my real babies. An unfinished book — yawning, open, blank — is still the mouth I want to feed.
A lottery held during a famine. Not exactly the image we want at the moment, but a fascinating alignment with the concept of writing and earning from writing as equal but distinct forms of survival, both vital.
This kind of wordplay, the uncoupling and recoupling of a compound word, is not uncommon, of course, but the great thrill is when the play is also bound up in the meaning-making, deepening and complicating the ideas. It is what I am here for.
Second, Russell deftly juggles the competing interests of the article, just as she must the competing interests of her life, but touching every aspect is the issue of time. I counted 105 references to time, weaving into every weighty discussion. Overriding all is this glaring truth: our relationship with time depends on our relative wealth. She describes her changing understanding of time:
“Perhaps the most revelatory gift of the MacArthur fellowship was discovering how expansive time becomes when you feel that you can afford to take a breath. During those early months with my newborn son, I got to experience time as it so rarely moves in our economy — unmetered hours, untethered to profit.”
Time untethered to profit. Can you imagine? It would take a dramatic restructuring of our culture, our understanding of wealth, but it would change the very fabric of our humanity. To be clear, I would not want time untethered from work. Work is a great, good thing, so long as the work is purposeful and chosen. Only by replacing the value of one’s work with its profitability do we destroy it.
Perhaps my favorite part is this long bit:
One of the reasons I’m a reader is because books give access to this deep, still time, where years can unfold in a quarter-hour, where the fossils of thoughts are suspended in amber, where people fall in love and die and flowers flower at the speed of your reading, the whole cosmos moving only as fast as your own eyes across the paper.
One of the reasons I love being a mother is because my son is teaching me how to live in time again. I love the days I spend at home with him. In the winter, the rainy green light makes our living room feel like a submarine. In the summer, time moves like water across a floodplain, the sunshine spilling endlessly onward. When I think about losing a day with him, my throat closes. Simultaneously, I crave writing time like oxygen. I know there are other amphibians like me out there, alternating lungs and gills, navigating the murky liminal zone between “work” and “home.”
Near the end, Russell asks, “Who gets to live a spacious hour?” And I’m going to keep thinking about that for some time.
======
I really want to get my hands on this picture book: I Go Quiet by David Ouimet. Click here for a short video of Ouimet working on the book in his studio.
======
Update on the proposed TN legislation regarding parental oversight boards:
The word is that the House bill has been killed in subcommittee, which should mean the Senate bill will follow suit. Not a done deal, but good news for Library advocates.
======
Do you follow the Tournament of Books put on by the Morning News? I don’t always give it full attention since I rarely read all the buzz-worthy books, but this opening round judged by Helen Rosner is maybe my favorite thing I read this week.
======
Unexpected Joy Department:
A new to me name for a thing I’ve been doing for years: a Commonplace Book. I tried more formal bullet-journaling for awhile, tried lots of planners over the years, but in the end, what works for me is something much less structured, much less beautiful, but chock-full with quotes, ideas, thoughts, and notes.
The Unexpected Joy comes from finding the exceptionally-named Commonplace Books which has a positively gorgeous website. It makes me want to schedule a trip to OKC. Well, at some point in the future, maybe.
======
Related Reading:
Look, y’all, we might all have some extra time on our hands, so watch some mindless TV if you want. Or read what you’ve been wishing you had more time for. Or find crazy-good pieces hidden on financial services websites. But if you do, send them to me, ok?
And check out what went up on the site this week:
Jenny Offill’s Weather
Rebecca Stead’s The List of Things That Will Not Change
A brilliant graphic novel / biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Debbie Levy and Whitney Gardner
This absolutely stunning debut: A Many Feathered Thing by Lisa Gerlits (watch for an interview with Lisa next week)
Pam Muñoz Ryan’s Mañanaland