My Love,
I miss the ocean. Why is it the whenever I am, I go somewhere else in my mind? I am unfamiliar to myself and at the same time closer than I have ever been. My heart beats as I write and question everything: the nature of reality, how much sleep I got, where I’m supposed to today and why and how. If you could only see the way I’m seeing, if you could only be here in my eyes. Jeff showed us around his garden last night. I tucked an asparagus behind my hear like a cigarette and then ate it raw later. It was delicious and it didn't make my pee smell like anything.
This piece I’m writing on whiteness has been challenging. I don’t think I quite have the tools to address the vastness and insidiousness of the topic yet, but I do want to try. I also think Megan Young’s piece is really getting at something about how whiteness is a mechanism an almost automatic triggered “state” rather than some kind of “intentional” stance. I also think that the responsible way to write about whiteness now is with more questions than answers and I have so many. I should ask around about more relevant scholarship being done right now on the topic. I‘ve been working with Claudia Rankine and my own feelings almost exclusively which is probably irresponsible, or just not totally thorough…
Went to the beach yesterday and came back a lobster (speaking of whiteness). I feel silly. And sticky. I have been nauseous on an off for a few days but chalking it up to heat and eating more hot dogs than usual. I’m glad to hear you’re working (and walking). I know you don't like to talk about it too much when it's happening, don't worry. Your description of the bullrushes makes me miss the lake. Cottonwood fills the air here this time of year (more whiteness) and when it lands on my skin I tell myself it’s good luck and make a wish.
I’m slowly starting to catch on to Jeff’s gardening aesthetic. I guess I’d call it “minimalist eccentrism” or “Richard Serra meets my Dad.” He’s got weathering steel plates hanging from his chain link and a shattered manhole cover from New York City reassembled in the driveway. You’d like it. I do. I bought 12 cans of seltzer yesterday at the Target for $3.69 and have finished almost all of them. The cottage is littered. You’d be appalled.
It’s the moments when I’m frustrated when I wish you were here—when I’m smelly and tired and sunburnt and out of ideas. That’s when I want to hold you, or just feel your breath on my shoulders for a minute or two. I go for walks and stuff, have another seltzer, do laundry in those moments. It’s not the same but…
Mary Oliver this time, for you from West Wind #2:
“There is life without love. It is not worth a bent penny, or a scuffed shoe.”
Interviewing Michelangelo Lovelace today at his studio and seeing Damien Jurado tonight. Hopefully museum on Weds with Doug. Will keep you posted on all of them. Sorry this is scattered.
Love,
K
P.S. Because you asked:
