This time, as the year's last day scrapes up against its successor, I can't get past the word scrape, with its trail of blood and skin.
I have left both behind in 2018. And a lot more: my last birth, the last time I'll hold another being so gingerly, a degree or two of mental acuity, waves of regret.
I'm starting to feel my life closing up on me, which is what makes the exercise of bidding farewell to one year and greeting another so doleful this time around. I am reluctant to sum up my accomplishments, because I am afraid they are dwindling. I am reluctant to spell out my hopes, because I'm having trouble summoning them.
It has been alright, heretofore, to stagger from year to year under the weight of my responsibilities; now, I'm beginning to think I've been frittering my life away, and that I will waste, similarly, the decade or two I have left compos mentis.
(Autocorrect insists upon "composure mantis," which I'm sure I'll become soon enough.)
The person I want to talk to about this is my father, and he is, for that purpose and many other purposes, gone.
2019: Maybe it's the year to ask for nothing, to demand nothing of myself or the world. To observe as I can, remember what I can, be as I have to be.
Monday, December 31, 2018
Saturday, December 22, 2018
Dwindle
Never having been pretty, I am not finding my recession into the invisibility of middle age to be particularly troubling. I have wrinkles- so what? I've had other imperfections longer. People look past me- so what? They always did.
But my mind is also dimming, and I am struggling with this decline even more than I imagined I might. Smarts have been the bedrock of who I am. And I hadn't even realized the extent to which my intelligence gifted me with competence and confidence. For years, I have believed that I could do almost anything I put my mind to- from working as a feature writer on zero experience, to penning a romance novel, to leading workshops. I have believed I could do anything because, in large part, I could.
I have read that the brain changes of Alzheimer's begin in one's thirties. I feel them.
When I was running meetings at the coop in my twenties, calling on individuals in the order in which they had raised their hands, I used to be able to track a mental roll of twenty or more names. Now I'm lucky if I can remember three digits in a row. I can't recall the name of that eighth reindeer (Google reveals that it's Comet), or whether or not my good friend discovered the sex of her baby in advance the first time around, or the name of the acquaintance who recently committed suicide. I fish for words when I write, and when I go back to edit, I discover humiliation: missing articles, bungled verbs, iffy comparisons.
This Christmas, I mailed my in-laws' presents to myself.
In short, I can no longer be relied upon. And I have always, always been able to rely on myself.
I accept this because I must, because there is no other option than acceptance.
But it is painful. Who am I without my intelligence? No one I particularly care for. I suppose the challenge will lie in coming to do so.
But my mind is also dimming, and I am struggling with this decline even more than I imagined I might. Smarts have been the bedrock of who I am. And I hadn't even realized the extent to which my intelligence gifted me with competence and confidence. For years, I have believed that I could do almost anything I put my mind to- from working as a feature writer on zero experience, to penning a romance novel, to leading workshops. I have believed I could do anything because, in large part, I could.
I have read that the brain changes of Alzheimer's begin in one's thirties. I feel them.
When I was running meetings at the coop in my twenties, calling on individuals in the order in which they had raised their hands, I used to be able to track a mental roll of twenty or more names. Now I'm lucky if I can remember three digits in a row. I can't recall the name of that eighth reindeer (Google reveals that it's Comet), or whether or not my good friend discovered the sex of her baby in advance the first time around, or the name of the acquaintance who recently committed suicide. I fish for words when I write, and when I go back to edit, I discover humiliation: missing articles, bungled verbs, iffy comparisons.
This Christmas, I mailed my in-laws' presents to myself.
In short, I can no longer be relied upon. And I have always, always been able to rely on myself.
I accept this because I must, because there is no other option than acceptance.
But it is painful. Who am I without my intelligence? No one I particularly care for. I suppose the challenge will lie in coming to do so.
Wednesday, December 12, 2018
2018 in BOOKS!
This was the year I ducked Proust.
Ducking Proust makes one only slightly less insufferable than reading Proust, so I suppose my dodge falls somewhere between a black mark and a minor point of pride.
I did intend to read Proust. I had a fabulous plan, undertaken in 2016, of marching through one volume In Search of Lost Time per year, thus gilding my slog into middle age with a snail's trail of self-satisfaction.
I did try. I tend to turn to Proust on airplanes: his sumptuous spirals of self-indulgence pair well with airline peanuts. But I didn't fly as much this year. And when I did, there were so many other things to read!
Goodreads tells me I read 50 books I'll admit to this year (and counting). I hated a greater share than usual, but I loved more of them, too. Winnowing the 50 to a handful was unexpectedly painful, like returning your tray table to its upright and locked position. You've been flying! Then, all in a rush, the clouds retract and the sky slinks back into itself; the earth slaps your ass and your cell phone wails.
But never mind; here are the books!
Surprise!
In I am, I am, I am, Maggie O'Farrelll chronicles her 17 brushes with death. I expected snorey literary navel gazing. I got something utterly alien yet wildly convincing, like a curse word you didn't know you needed.
Short fiction is ALIVE!
A zombie shuffling from its grave, short fiction devoured me this year. I really do hate short fiction. It's like being served half a can of tomato juice when you know nobody else will drink the other half. But two of my very favorite books this year were short story collections, Lauren Groff's stunning Florida and Curtis Sittenfeld's You Think It, I'll Say It. These are full cans of juice, my friends. FULL CANS OF JUICE.
Soulmates!
I didn't know I had a soulmate! He is Jay Fitger, professional Crabby Old Man (English professor) and the hero (villain) of Julie Schumacher's epistolary novel Dear Committee Members, which is told entirely through letters of recommendation. For sheer pleasure, this one took (was?) the cake.
Work!
So I read two really excellent novels about work this year. One was Aja Gabel's string quartet novel, The Ensemble, which I almost didn't read because I work in music, and working in a field tends to inure you to its beauty, or at least to its poetry. You need ignorance for poetry, and nothing burns off the ineffable faster than filing a Schedule C. The writing about music in this one wasn't as bad as writing about music usually is, and the novel's treatment of time- more specifically the evolution and devolution of working and romantic relationships over time- feels bang-on. I also loved Allegra Goodman's The Chalk Artist, which concerns itself deeply with interplay between work and identity, and is much better than I just made it sound.
You must read this!
If you haven't read Rachel Cusk's A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother, you should. Right now. Trust me, Proust will wait.
Ducking Proust makes one only slightly less insufferable than reading Proust, so I suppose my dodge falls somewhere between a black mark and a minor point of pride.
I did intend to read Proust. I had a fabulous plan, undertaken in 2016, of marching through one volume In Search of Lost Time per year, thus gilding my slog into middle age with a snail's trail of self-satisfaction.
I did try. I tend to turn to Proust on airplanes: his sumptuous spirals of self-indulgence pair well with airline peanuts. But I didn't fly as much this year. And when I did, there were so many other things to read!
Goodreads tells me I read 50 books I'll admit to this year (and counting). I hated a greater share than usual, but I loved more of them, too. Winnowing the 50 to a handful was unexpectedly painful, like returning your tray table to its upright and locked position. You've been flying! Then, all in a rush, the clouds retract and the sky slinks back into itself; the earth slaps your ass and your cell phone wails.
But never mind; here are the books!
Surprise!
In I am, I am, I am, Maggie O'Farrelll chronicles her 17 brushes with death. I expected snorey literary navel gazing. I got something utterly alien yet wildly convincing, like a curse word you didn't know you needed.
Short fiction is ALIVE!
A zombie shuffling from its grave, short fiction devoured me this year. I really do hate short fiction. It's like being served half a can of tomato juice when you know nobody else will drink the other half. But two of my very favorite books this year were short story collections, Lauren Groff's stunning Florida and Curtis Sittenfeld's You Think It, I'll Say It. These are full cans of juice, my friends. FULL CANS OF JUICE.
Soulmates!
I didn't know I had a soulmate! He is Jay Fitger, professional Crabby Old Man (English professor) and the hero (villain) of Julie Schumacher's epistolary novel Dear Committee Members, which is told entirely through letters of recommendation. For sheer pleasure, this one took (was?) the cake.
Work!
So I read two really excellent novels about work this year. One was Aja Gabel's string quartet novel, The Ensemble, which I almost didn't read because I work in music, and working in a field tends to inure you to its beauty, or at least to its poetry. You need ignorance for poetry, and nothing burns off the ineffable faster than filing a Schedule C. The writing about music in this one wasn't as bad as writing about music usually is, and the novel's treatment of time- more specifically the evolution and devolution of working and romantic relationships over time- feels bang-on. I also loved Allegra Goodman's The Chalk Artist, which concerns itself deeply with interplay between work and identity, and is much better than I just made it sound.
You must read this!
If you haven't read Rachel Cusk's A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother, you should. Right now. Trust me, Proust will wait.
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