Experiencing a period of thin time
I've been thinking about thin places. Places where the distance between the earthly and the divine/transcendent contracts. Kerri Ní Dochartaigh writes in her book Thin Places, "Heaven and earth, the Celtic saying goes, are only three feet apart, but in thin places that distance is even shorter. They are places that make us feel something larger than ourselves, as though we are held in a place between worlds, beyond experience." The Celts used this term to describe wind-battered islands and mountains in Ireland and Scotland.
I also think thin places can be a time. Thin time? Maybe because Lent began this week after months of grief and loss, the mood feels extra sober, tenuous. A friend and I were talking and they said, smiling, "We can't wait till we're not sad to get together." Because it seems that we'll be sad for a while, and that's okay. Life feels extra fragile and precarious, the distance between living and dying more on display. When I'm able to catch my breath, I'm in awe.
If you have the resources, here are two opportunities to meets the needs of people in the arts community:
A writer I admire, Kate Zambreno, and her family are going through a horrible situation where they face legal fees and relocation expenses. They've almost met their goal and every little bit counts.
Wasted Ink Zine Distro is looking for donations of reams of regular copy paper, astro bright paper, glue sticks, bone folders, and rubber stamps. They will provide a tax receipt. WIZD is a second home for me and my family and provide so much good to the local community, as well as to the zinesters across the world whose zines they distribute. Consider donating and/or retweeting.
Hope you're well and here's a picture of a rainbow.
I'm still reading The Blue Issue of the Fairy Tale Review, and have been carrying around (but haven't yet started) Of This New World by Allegra Hyde and Midwinter Day by Bernadette Mayer.
In Harpers, I read Christian Lorentzen's report on the merger between Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House that didn't happen. A quote: "The American publishing industry as it exists today is largely the remnant of a middlebrow revolution initiated during the Twenties."
Hafizah Augustus Geter's essay about Christina Sharpe's widely-referenced, but unreviewed by major outlets, book In the Wake made me immediately order the book and pre-order Sharpe's new book (out April 25) Ordinary Notes. A quote: "In the Wake offers a lyric framework—the weather, the wake, the ship, the hold—to understand the ways the Middle Passage and its aftermath haunt contemporary life." Another: "As a Black woman who works in publishing, I recognize what I’m seeing to be rare. Through this single text, I am witnessing a new intellectual renaissance."
I'm not even going to link to that NYT article about Elizabeth Koch showing her lack of care about Catapult's magazine, classes, and the people depending on those two entities for their living. But I did read it. And, for some levity, the books I'm reading to my kids: Redwall, Dog Man: For Whom the Ball Rolls, and Beatrix Potter's The Tailor of Gloucester.
In writing this week I found out I didn't get Ann Friedman's Fellowship, but seriously she sent the best rejection letter. A sweet consolation prize. I submitted to the Sustainable Arts Foundation this morning and moments before that declared my short story I've been working on for the application GOOD ENOUGH.
Cooking while trying to move is weird -- the inside of my oven is cleaner than it's ever been and I don't want to mess it up, or have to clean it. We've been leaning on take-out and food contained in a single pot. I'm hoping to make The Recipe that I just read about in Small Fires by Rebecca May Johnson the next time I'm willing to spatter my kitchen with tomato and oil (Tomato sauce with garlic and basil from Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.)