I’ve been moving, a sacred time to confront one’s lingering fears about security and also to learn what makes that new weird noise, and why. I listened to a lot of Matriarch by Tina Knowles, until I got quite emotional wishing I’d been mothered differently, and then I switched to Stephen Fry’s new version of The Odyssey, until I got too emotional feeling sad for 90% of mortal women mentioned throughout Greek mythology.
Neither of these reactions was groundbreaking or unprecedented, but both felt a bit stronger than I might ordinarily have expected. Reflecting upon the fact that I have always wished for a different kind of nurturing and that I have always thought sex crimes were bad, I concluded that this move has simply made me very fucking emotional about anything, really. I could just as easily have listened to the entirety of the 1996 World Series broadcast and wept into a cardboard box labeled “MISC. - PUT IN CLOSET.”
I had planned to take a course on how to be better at Substack, and I even paid for it, but I just haven’t had the time to look at any of the materials. I bought a year’s worth of access to it, so I hope I’ll get to it eventually. Or I won’t, but in any case, I helped support another artist’s work, so there’s that.
I did put together a suitable outline of a chapter for the Lincoln biography I’m writing. As with all greatly esteemed presidential scholars before me, I did it in my Notes app in between long bouts of listening to an Italian witch talk about folk magic from her childhood (this was on YouTube, not in person - my home isn’t tidy enough yet for any visitors, much less those of the sorceress variety.)
I’m pretty witchy myself, so my new home is full of incense and jar candles and Prozac (I assume all American witches are on some sort of SSRI) and also a significant amount of Catholic iconography, not that this ought to be put into a separate category of decor. Magic is magic is magic.
Last night, I was listening to Father Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain and judging him heavily for various life choices, including the spelling of the third word in the title. This was interspersed with worrying about my own digestive health, wondering if the marks from my recent cupping massage (baby’s first!) will ever go away, and feeling inordinately anxious about doing a job I’ve done very well for over eight years. At some point, I fell asleep, and woke up, and fell asleep, and woke up, and did that a few more times until it was today.
And now, today.
I am generally fortunate to be fairly steady, emotionally and mentally speaking. I am passionate, certainly, and I sometimes enjoy bursts of creativity and energy like any artist, but usually it feels safe and healthy. I have panic attacks sometimes, and experience depression sometimes, but both of these feeling-states are far less common than when I was younger.
My internal life is not typically a storm-tossed sea. It is not one as we speak. But it isn’t as calm as usual. I have found myself needing to surf the waves a bit more.
And also: I am grateful to be alive. I am grateful to be fairly healthy. I am grateful to have patient readers. I am grateful to see the very green trees outside. It has been raining so much this week here in Chicago, and it has been beautiful, if depressing at times, and my ceiling has thus far not leaked, and I am grateful for that, too. I remembered to pay a new utility bill - one day late, but I did remember. I’m thankful for that, of course.
It struck me that perhaps a listing of a few things for which I am grateful ought to be in a journal, not here. Then I thought - what? Why? It’s not stupid. It’s not bragging. It’s not shameful.
I should hope that in leaving a record of this life, for anyone who cares to read it, that there is some evidence of being thankful for the many blessings I encounter - like the thin, darkly verdant veins of a leaf on the bright green staghorn fern that has survived under my care for approximately one month.
Take good care of yourselves. Sometimes the April showers show up in May, but the flowers arrive too, eventually.
Best wishes,
Sara
CLASS! with Sara Benincasa and Chad the Bird on May 29 in Chicago
I am moving from Philly to Boulder in July. Weirdly, I am also rehearsing the largest role I have had in years. So along with the creative disassociation that is part of acting, my relationship to the place I have called home for 30 years is . . . untethered. I haven’t been high from any substance in many years and yet the best description of how I feel these days is stoned. So yes, I find this post relatable. 😳
So, I’m going to need to know who that Italian witch was on YT.
My drug of choice is Zoloft (and estradiol and progesterone and a small helping of levothyroxine).
And I have been doing the work in EMDR in releasing the grief and absolute outrage that I wasn’t nurtured the way I should have been. (My mother told me a story on Friday about how a person told her that she was their favorite person while they were on a trip. That is, perhaps, a weird thing to tell someone else and Teen Kris really wanted to punch her in the face in that moment… but that is my mother - focused on how she is perceived and being feted for her specialness.)
Good luck continuing to ride the waves and I’m super happy your roof is leak proof!!