In the thick of summer, arguments against a singular self.
Hello, dearest.
We are here, in the thick of the summer, and all I can think about is the family farm where I spent 13 years of my life. There is something about the way life swells there, so thick it'll burst: the whir of cicadas, the rustling of trees as a breeze cuts through, the sound of semis careening down Route 20, carried across the flat fields, landing as the faintest roar. The droning of mowers and the loud, incessant beeping of farm equipment dot the auditory landscape like some slow, earthly Morse code.
The complete sensory immersion prompts the process of recall, and is in itself a perpetual clamber back to memory. Let me meditate on that word for a second: clamber. Part climb, part crawl, part breathless scramble. That's the way summer feels for me.
This is where I enter a game of conflicting narratives: the self that wanted out all those years ago longs for that place now. This is arguably the same self -- the woman I am now is still the same woman as then, but the context has changed. The truth is though we are all in varying processes of breaking ourselves apart and putting ourselves together again. We are contradictions.
Joan Didion, one of the patron saints of my writerly soul and arguably a poster child for concepts of distance and an aloof eye, focused on the separateness of the self. She writes in her essay "On Keeping a Notebook":
“I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.”
That is one of the most-quoted passages from that essay, but when isolated in the "best hits" top 10 lists, the subsequent sentences are usually left off, which I think make a compelling argument toward regular revisiting of our collective selves:
"We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were."
Part of the reason I grip this season of the farm so tightly is because I feel a deep sense of self there. The self I created, the selves I was -- they all converge in this very place. That's nothing short of magical. I used to go back to the farm feeling a sense of unease, occasionally a sense of frustration, for obvious reasons: I didn't feel as connected to the surrounding community anymore, several of my friends have also moved away, it wasn't as easy to go to a store or a bar and run into someone I knew. There's also the slowness of that space and time, something that was absolutely maddening to me when I lived there. It felt like there was nothing to do. After moving to Dayton, I'd return home only to be stymied by the slowness -- I felt unproductive.
That particular feeling has changed a lot in the last two years, over the last two summers. I view it as a place to rest. A place to spend time with family and the closest of friends. A place to drink coffee outside and just think, and be -- without checking my phone. I am less distracted by the minutiae of everyday and a constant WiFi signal. It may be one of the only times in my life I've been glad for shitty cell reception. I'm more inspired in this place than in anywhere else. I get some of my best ideas for writing here -- I jot down notes, I work on sentences, I catalog observances that may have whizzed past me years ago but that I catch now. I am grateful for this second chance, for this new appreciation, for this new season of self.
The type of art I gravitate toward -- both experiencing and making -- is art that defies a traditional narrative. I distrust a linear narrative, yet I find myself trying to fit the strange, disparate threads of my life into one. It is a situation in which my consciousness says one thing, and my natural mental alignment says another.
An artist I find myself coming back to over and over again is Van Gogh, because the evolution of self -- or what some might argue was the disintegration of self -- in his work is so striking. In 2014 I was in Paris, and saw this exhibit at the Musee d'Orsay that featured several of Van Gogh's self portraits side-by-side. It was fascinating, and without trying to add my own editorializing, a bit terrifying: you could see the perspective of the self shifting, or the self giving way.
It's relatively common knowledge that Van Gogh struggled with mental illness, and that knowledge can cloud the perception of his work on varying levels. But years later, I find myself thinking back to that moment, walking alongside those portraits in Paris, watching an artist's stripping away of the self, and the challenging of what a self is, and feeling so deeply moved. As a writer and more specifically an essayist, the accurate reflection of the self on the page makes the work. But I don't want to confuse "accurate" with "singular." We are a compendium of selves, with self-reflection and self-perception changing by the day, the week, the month. And these selves are all something true, even if they say more about what we fear than what we are. Aren't they?
I think Didion would appreciate that ending. Like her, I'm more fond of leaving with a question than an epiphany, anyway.
'Til next time, dearest.
xoxo,
Ashley
P.S. -- I have a new poem up at Yes Poetry. It's an excerpt from a longer-form thing I'm working on. (And it's my first-ever poem that I've had published, so that's a thing -- and a 2018 goal for myself that I can officially check off.)
P.P.S. -- If you like this letter, tell me or forward it to a friend or something. I always love to hear from you. Part of the reason I started this was to try something new, but also to connect with people in a more authentic way. Thank you all, dearests, for signing up for this. For taking a chance on me. <3