Voice Note #10 - Describe (Perfume Genius Cover)
Hope you like this cover of Describe. I love Perfume Genius with all my heart and can’t pick a favorite, but this one gets stuck in my head all the time.
Lately, I’ve been online a lot more than I’m used to. I’ve found myself scrolling and texting and double-tapping so much it feels like my head is going to explode. Call it whiplash from months and months of isolation, plus the one media deprivation week that broke the camel’s back, but I’m not mad about it. I’ve been involved with my main online community, and much more present in my friends’ lives as we spend time together, whether over text or FaceTime. It’s been nice. Physically, nothing has changed — I’m still stuck at home — but I feel like I’m here again. Like I’m materializing into something solid after so many months of floating, washed-out, like a watercolor ghost.
Admittedly, I haven’t had much time to read or watch things, or even work on my passion projects. But I feel a lot more alive these days, in the midst of all this sparking and rekindling. Being more active on social media has (surprisingly) helped my mental health, probably because I’ve unfollowed “famous” accounts and only follow friends, plus a few public figures I truly admire. No more brands or celebrities. Everyone on my timeline is someone I know in some capacity, a friend from either of my IRL or URL worlds. I can’t deny the scientific proof behind the way social media apps are basically programmed to be addictive, but maybe what we’re really addicted to is connection.
Can you blame us? I mean, why fault yourself for spending a free afternoon chatting with friends? Isn’t that the stuff of life, anyway — affection, warmth, meaning, maybe even love, if you’re lucky? I keep coming back to a review of the movie Soul (which I still have yet to see). I can’t remember who said it, but someone wrote that the film reminded them that life isn’t about your career or your goals or even your passion, it’s about living. When I think about living, I think about the small moments that make up our lives, the minutiae of the day-to-day. The “honey, I’m home”s. The silent evenings on the couch next to someone you care about. The post-work drink with a friend, even if it has to be through a screen. Texting about nothing, and the way that feels like the most special comfort, in all its ordinariness.
Of course, I recognize the privilege of having free time to spend and people to spend it with. I’ve been hanging out a lot in a huge group chat on Discord, and I often feel guilty about not being more “productive” — especially on days that don’t turn out to be as fun as I might have hoped. (We are human, after all, and any relationship comes with its share of friction and awkwardness and nothing-to-talk-about-weird-mood days). I get that balance is important, too. And that alone time is necessary. But I’m not going to hold myself to practicing “self-care” perfectly. I’ve been letting go of trying to do everything right. Maybe I’ve been happier, in part, because I’m learning how to go easy on myself (behind the scenes, it’s been difficult — and honestly, sometimes painful — but I’d like to think I’m getting there).
I’m on Week 8 of The Artist’s Way, after an accidental 4-week hiatus from the program. I’ve always been a type-A perfectionist, and I never would have expected to become so loose with an endeavor I’ve been so dedicated to. Throughout those four weeks, I consistently wrote my morning pages, but I neglected to take myself on a single Artist’s Date. Yesterday, after putting it off for so long, I got up early to watch a movie at 7:30 in the morning. It was a little insane, but I knew it was the only way I’d be able to get myself to finally go on an Artist’s Date without postponing it any further. I watched Cleo from 5 to 7. I’d been hearing Agnes Varda’s name over and over in separate conversations with different people over the past couple of weeks. I took it as a little sign from the universe.
This particular title came at the recommendation of an internet friend from Amsterdam. She likes small, beautifully written books about scandal and romance, the kinds of novels that might not have much in the way of plot but capture a poetic quality by virtue of style. I trust her taste without question. The 1960s film is about one afternoon in the life of a French popstar named Cleo. She wanders around Paris the day she finds out she’s terminally ill. Cleo watches street performances as a passerby, listens in on conversations at the next cafe table, and ambles aimlessly into shops.
Nothing particularly out of the ordinary happens. Yet every encounter is special somehow, imbued with a somber, precious quality, now that we know it will all be over soon. Accepting death sharpens the blurry edges of life, bringing the tiniest, most insignificant details into vivid focus. The biggest ending of all, looming over someone so young and beautiful and full of untapped promise. Perhaps to accept death is also to renounce an invincibility you didn’t actually have to begin with. Cleo from 5 to 7 feels like it’s about nothing and everything all at once. Which is kind of how life feels, at least for me.
Death is a theme I’ve come across more than once this week, which scares me a little now that I realize it. I’ve been reading Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb. Just a few nights ago, I was struck by a chapter about the four ultimate concerns (death being the first):
“Death, of course, is an instinctive fear that we often repress but that tends to increase as we get older. What we fear isn’t just dying in the literal sense but in the sense of being extinguished, the loss of our very identities, of our younger and more vibrant selves… But as Yalom wrote in Existential Psychotherapy, our awareness of death helps us live more fully — and with less, not more, anxiety.”
After a nondescript afternoon spent scrolling through my phone and texting friends (instead of writing this newsletter, as I should have been), I went out with my family. We were going to meet my grandfather for an outdoor walk. On the way to his apartment, we strolled down the sidewalk like ducks in a row. My dad had his arm wrapped around my mom’s shoulders, making jokes, his voice muffled behind his mask but so jovial and light I could have laughed, too, even if I couldn’t catch every word. My siblings were right in front of me, the three of us in white and denim, accidentally matching, like sisters in an Austen novel.
I felt at peace. I knew it wouldn’t last. I knew there would be other days of walking down this street in tears or anger or pain. I knew I would meet again the deep sinking sadness that feels like a dissonant blare every time it touches me, like stroking the raw nerves of a bleeding wound. But I suppose that made it all feel sort of sweet. I sank into it. I watched my parents walk past me, and let myself fall behind as my sisters lined up side by side. I felt my legs move beneath me, one foot in front of the other, as the late afternoon sun began to soften behind some clouds. I knew that this moment was as ephemeral and intangible as a beam of light. I savored it like a bite of birthday cake.