I was going to make the joyful case for inconsistency this week. Mainly because it has been on my mind but also because I read Zadie Smith’s latest collection of essays. In the book, called Intimations, Smith tackles big thoughts around this unprecedented situation. She embraces messy narratives and conflicting thoughts and rarely draws a clean conclusion, which, at this point in time, feels like diving into the ocean on a summer afternoon. When the masses are so quick to draw conclusions and broadcast them or call out or cancel, sitting with Smith as she bounces between conflicting thoughts is nothing but refreshing. However, one essay caught my attention, so I’m not going to make the joyful case for inconsistency this week. It is called ‘Something To Do’ and it regards the notion of time. More precisely, what we choose to do with it.
When the pandemic began, Smith explains the world was divided into two clear parties: the essential workers whose work was constant and vital, and the rest of us who were suddenly confronted with time, and the question of what we should do with it. What struck Smith was how conflicted we all suddenly felt about it. Did it deliver liberty or captivity? “On the one hand, like pugs who have been lifted out of a body of water, our little limbs keep pumping on, as they did when we were hurrying to our workspaces,” she wrote. “Those of us from puritan cultures feel ‘work must be done’, and so… we make banana bread, we sew dresses, we go for a run, we complete all the levels of Minecraft, we do something, then photograph that something, and not infrequently put it online. Reactions are mixed, even in our own hearts. Even as we do something, we simultaneously accuse ourselves: you use this extremity as only another occasion for self-improvement, another pointless act of self-realisation.” And in the end, this constant doing is not enough on its own, no matter how well we do it. Smith referenced an essay written by Ottessa Moshfegh for The Guardian. In 2018, Moshfegh ironically wrote a novel about a woman in New York City who didn’t leave her apartment for a whole year, and now Moshfegh was struggling through self-isolation. She concluded that the one real thing we need outside of ourselves is love: “Without it, life is just ‘doing time’.”
While one might assume self-isolation is some sort of delightful playground for a writer - who is accustomed to time alone with their thoughts and liberated by being limited to their apartment - Smith explained that all the moment revealed was her “dry, sad, small idea of a life”. Her self-imposed schedule was suddenly on display to her loved ones, and for the first time, truly exposed to herself. While it felt militant and useful, she realised her writing couldn’t ever meaningfully fill the time. It couldn’t, alone, be living. “There is no great difference between novels and banana bread. They are both just something to do. They are no substitute for love,” Smith wrote. “The difficulties and complications of love… is the task that is before me, although task is a poor word for it, for unlike writing, its terms cannot be scheduled, pre-planned or determined by me. Love is not something to do, but something to be experienced, something to go through.”
It reminded me of something the New York Times staff writer and novelist, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, once said in a Longform podcast interview after her book was released. It went something like this: I can’t tell you how much easier it is to write a novel than it is to look around at your life and wonder if you’re doing it right. Finding something to do is easy, experiencing love is hard. Doing it right - managing the juggling act of it all - is near impossible, but we juggle anyway because that is the living part. The pandemic appears to have revealed to each of us the thing we didn’t want to see, the thing we didn’t want to deal with, the thing we need to confront, and for Smith and I, it feels similar: how to ‘do something’ but also dedicate time to experiencing love. The inconsistent, messy thing that can’t be pre-planned or scheduled. Last Friday, I wrote a note to myself on my daily coffee high. It was written on a small notepad that I placed atop the stack of books next to my computer. It read: ‘Do smart work. Maintain goodness.’ On Saturday morning, I went for a run and returned to my boyfriend who announced that I'd just missed my sister. She had popped in for a tea, and now, as I sat on the couch, sweaty and puffed, I looked at my desk and noticed something was different. I walked over and there it was. My note was gone and had been replaced with: ‘You do you boo xx.’ Now, if you're thinking this was sweet, know it was not. She was paying the sh** out of me for writing a lame note to myself, like only a little sister would. And without it, the smart work means nothing. It was love, and it made me smile for the next two days.
Some related (and unrelated) recommendations:
Of course, Intimations. It is a tiny book, filled with six deeply personal and moving essays from Zadie Smith on the year that is 2020. All royalties from the book go to The Equal Justice Initiative and The Covid-19 Emergency Relief Fund for New York. You will read it in one big, nourishing gulp.
This essay from Ottessa Moshfegh for The Guardian on how lockdown has been hard, even for an introverted writer.
I can't recommend this playlist from fashion brand, Aimé Leon Dore, more.
If you haven't watched Michelle Obama's speech from the first virtual DNC, please watch the highlights here. An example of simple, heartful language cutting through in the world of politics that so often prioritises slogans and spin.
Speaking of Michelle Obama, her recent podcast episode on processing the protests and the pandemic is excellent.
This 1984 interview with James Baldwin for The Paris Review on the art of writing fiction is incredible, because it's really about so much more.
A final reminder that my book is out. You can order a copy here or find it anywhere you buy books, so go support your local bookstore if you can.
Have a wonderful weekend, friends.
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