or random things because i don’t know this time
Welp, I got three gentle animals out before feeling like I totally ran out of ideas. That’s more than I thought I’d get! And also I am not surprised that my energy pretty immediately ran out—writing long pieces about personal experiences every week is a surefire way to run out of steam.
And, I have been busy, and burnt out. M’s kidney stones turned into a week-long fever dream of ER visits and an eventual minor and non-invasive but still emergency surgery. He is fine now, or getting there. I immediately, after that long and lonely week, went into a week-long virtual theatre conference which was a time, let me tell you. I’m not a conference person; I might be an anti-conference person. Stay tuned to find out what this means for my leadership position whose sole focus is…organizing a huge college theatre “festival” (re: conference).
But there are always excuses, and not everything can be long and personal. So after a few days of wondering what I would write about next, and then after a few more days of that old familiar I should have never started this in the first place and no one will notice if it just silently disappears feeling, here I am, back again, writing another gentle animal to you today.
But today’s will be casual! And a collection of things. Random, one might say, but all connected to what my life has looked like lately.
for ears
Lately, I have been drawn towards listening to piano music, some classical, some contemporary. As I’m often doing work right now, this is an obvious choice for background music, and as a trained pianist, it’s been nice to let my brain latch onto something from many moons ago. Fortuitously, the two albums I’ve been digging into recently also have very pleasing—and strangely apropos—covers.
“Bach / Chopin” - Vikingur Olafsson (on spotify)
for eyes/brains
My reading really took a hit in the first weeks of February, but I had just started Matthew Salesses’ wonderful Craft in the Real World shortly before M got the kidney stones. Salesses is a wonderful novelist and essayist, but he has been my favorite writer writing about craft for the last 5 years. As a Korean-American adoptee, he writes often of the idea that craft is culture/cultural, and it is an idea that warms me to my very core. As someone who had a lot of issues with my MFA program and the classes therein, Salesses’ essays—which eventually led to this book—were very healing for me, when I could find them. I’m doing some unpacking now about just how much my MFA experience harmed my writing instead of helped it, and this book is, to use a colloquialism but to mean it wholeheartedly, giving me life.
I often talk about the responsibility of storytelling with my students and with other artists, and here’s a quote from p.22 of the book, where Salesses’ paraphrases a Native craft writer, Thomas King:
…King…respects the shared responsibility of storytelling, and warns us that to tell a story one way can “cure,” while to tell it another can injure.
“Craft in the Real World” - Matthew Salesses (bookshop.org)
for hearts
Almost two years ago, I was working part-time as a writer for an app where you could read in-depth summaries of mainly self-help books. One of the first books I summarized was The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. I went into the book with a bit of a chip on my shoulder (I’m a contrarian and it was ALL THE BUZZ back then) and came out an obsessive tidier who still practices minimalism (so eat shit, Kirin of 2019, and maybe stop being such a dick about things just because other people like them).
In one section written specifically for her Japanese audience in regards to shrine charms, Kondo gives ideas to non-Eastern readers for having a personal shrine somewhere in your home, where you can pick your favorite, most joyful mementos and knickknacks, and create a small, personal altar in your home. This is in direct keeping with one of her main principles, the idea of turning your home into a place of joy, your own sacred space, and filling it with positive energy.
I’m not much for what I call “woo woo shit,” but I also now have a lot of what other people would call “woo woo shit” in my life (I am large; I contain multitudes; leave me alone). And one of them is a personal altar, a small space where I have a collection of things that make me feel like me, that remind me of people I love, and that brings me joy and a sense of the sacred.
It has been bringing me a lot of heart, and I need it right now, as most of us do—so I thought I’d share it today.
my personal altar
There is a fair amount going on here; though I do practice minimalism, I continue to do so mainly because I am so susceptible to hoarding anything and everything. I am also an avid list-maker, so here’s what’s in this shrine of mine, starting in the bottom left corner and going clockwise in a spiral towards the dish:
The Astronomer’s Apprentice skeleton embroidery (by CrimsonPins)
Evenstar necklace
Battlestar Galactica cufflink
A witch? conductor? woman warrior? earring
Silver dollar
Battlestar Galactica keychain
1 of 2 Kirins on a stone sphere, with a spacey resin ring around its neck
Larger Kirin carving
Polaroid of M and I in Ireland, with a bracelet draped over it
Brass abacus
Small brass elephant, small brass dragon, small turtle charm barely seen
Disguise pen
Kirin necklace, with a gold-toned Kirin pin attached
Silver dish
Blue sandstone bracelet
Crystals: amethyst, citrine, rose quartz, clear quartz
Small rock from the moat of Kasteelwell
Do you have a personal shrine somewhere? What’s in yours? What would be in yours, if you made one?
Thanks for being here. As always, yours, ready to receive.
KM