Scene:
Dear you,
It’s 9:29 pm on April 6th, 2022 and I’m surrounded by piles: a little pretty box with a sample of a smokey fragrance on top of a usb port, on top of a postcard depicting a snow scene: kids on sleds on top of a hill, anticipating. There’s a blue rubber slinky of a hair elastic band nuzzled up against a fancy red tinted olive oil based lip balm. There’s a pile with Transom swag that I received after writing my Manifesto and my trusty old Protools Ilok, perched on a diagonal, recently replaced by a sleek work Ilok. There’s a slate coaster and a dusty monitor base and dried flowers and knobs without homes. There’s one bobby pin next to two black pens; one is inky at the tip and hungry and one is properly retracted, patient. I’m typing with my fingers the way one might drag their feet across the floor. Just grazing the keys until I find the right letter. Knuckles un-lifted, like knees without a mission. A lazy, sensual meander towards my eventual landing place.
Craft:
A couple of people have asked me recently why this newsletter isn’t a podcast, or a series of audible letters. Your whole thing is about audio and writing for the ear, so why not voice it? What is the thinking behind talking about audio instead of making audio that embodies the things that you talk about? These are great questions! Here are some of my thoughts:
I’ve been writing since I could only vaguely hold a pencil and I revere the process and craft more than most things in the world. There’s no way to hide on the page, I mean not really…okay there is, but I mean craft wise, it’s all there. I want to learn to skillfully articulate myself without the sound of my voice. (I’ve always been told that I have a good voice. And sometimes I feel like people can hear my voice, but not hear what I’m saying, and I don’t want to take advantage of that). Just creating with these sturdy little letters, without depending on tone or color or pitch or music?! Can I do it? Without sonic accessories can you hear me on the page? So part of it is just a good old personal practice. It’s also me being exceptionally stubborn and wanting to be someone who writes novels but I never really nurtured that path, so I’m feeling like letters will do, for now. Plus, maybe I’m scared? Will it be enough?
I also think about these as expressing glimpses of life, and I want the glimpses to be accessible to people who only have space for a glimpse! For instance, now that my life has gotten much busier, I have less time to dedicate to a whole podcast episode, but I can open my phone in the bathroom and read a line of something, or quickly read something while waiting in line or procrastinating from work. I like the exercise of trying to figure out how to expedite intimacy with the reader through strong sentences. How can I really reach you with a glimpse? Not through click bait, etc…but how can I carefully, almost audibly articulate a line, so that it’s a momentary holding? How can I swiftly enliven the moment that you’re in? How can I skillfully ask questions or get you to ask questions?
But! I do read all of my letters aloud as I write them and they are audibly alive to me. So maybe I will try recording one of these…would you listen?
YOU:
Have you heard the peepers yet this spring? Do you know what a peeper is? If so, do you know what it feels like to slowly approach a little thawing pond and momentarily, hold your breath and listen? If you live in a place with seasons, how much do seasons shape your memories or inspire inspiration? If you don’t live in a place with seasons, how do you mark time? What are some of the other ways that you organize your memories? Speaking of memories, how much do you live in yours? How much of your day to day is an overt response to memories you hold in your brain or your body? Are you actively avoiding your brain in order to navigate life in the present? Do you rely on your brain to feel in control of your present? Are you surrounded by photos from your past? Do you look at them and do they remind you who you are at some essential level? Do you long for certain versions of your past selves and do those versions show up more prominently in pictures around your house? How do you feel about nostalgia? What audio stories have your heard that successfully lean into nostalgia and make room for you as a listener to come along for the ride?
Glimpses:
Sipped a cortado out of a teeny paper cup with my new haircut while crossing the street in the rain
E’s cough in the middle of the night made me jump. Felt like a Mama firefly lighting up with each detected sound of suffering. Cough/glow. Whimper/glow
Painted my fingernails a slatey blue color. Painted them even though R doesn’t like the smell and gets nervous that the polish will come off in our food. Painted them because I never do and I wanted to do something in spite of its relative impracticality. Took extra time dipping the q-tip in nail polish remover and cleaning up the little stray edges of paint around my cuticles. Something wonderfully subversive about doing something superficial with the same tool that I’ve been spinning in my nostrils for covid tests
Cheese after no cheese. A manhattan after no booze. Interaction post restraint is sparkly
Wandering in the woods, anticipating bears, finding moss and quartz and mud
6. Spotted the first tick of the season crawling on R’s arm. Stood in the kitchen holding a pot, with a kitchen towel over my shoulder, cursing at the little devil’s shiny back
7. Dreamt of a pack of wolves with shaggy violet tufts of fur on their throats, tracking me in the snow
8. Making work without being able to share it with an audience yet. An interesting exercise in creation without witness or applause. Steady, un-fiery, deliberate, craft centered. Must be a little like growing a baby during the height of the pandemic without sharing photos on social media
9. The covid testing check in lady with the flamingo pink nails and delicate gold chain necklace who gave E bags of stickers. How she was singing along to a country song about tank tops (I think), her mask moving around and around as she emphasized certain lines. She just sat there, wrapping stickers around sample tubes, while intermittently trying to get E to bop along with her to her country vibes. That yeah, I’m moving and groovin, want to move with me, kiddo? (I don’t like the term kiddo, let it be known) He was not feeling the music or her vibes, but he gladly accepted the stickers
10. Something about watching my editor in real time make suggestions and cuts in my google doc feels like Spiderman scaling a wall and swallowing villains whole, in an instant
11. Listened to student audio pieces inspired from a talk that I gave at a local college and got weepy with how much they got it, get it, are teaching me
12. First time since I was eleven or so that I didn’t stay up to watch the whole Oscars. I was too tired and that made me sad, but it also felt like taking care of myself in a new way and that felt freeing
13. Tried, after fourteen months or so, to casually explore Instagram and it fell flat. There was something about doing something very familiar while I’m in the midst of doing a bunch of new things, that felt right. But I’m too porous to the tangential lives of others, too curious. I want to live in my body and in this place and that space makes me feel floaty and diluted and anywhere. I’ll try again another time. I like the filters and the windows into worlds, but I’m finding those in new places
Recommendations:
This children’s book by Helen Borten which is a true gem. It’s for audio nerds and for parents who want to inspire their children to pay attention to the world around them through their ears
Bring something sweet and salty on a hike
When you’re stuck, pay attention to what has heart and meaning to you and then keep going
Delete podcasts from your feed that don’t feed you. If they’re just sitting there like items in your pantry that you bought years ago because they were on sale or because you thought they were supposed to be good for you, but they’ve just sat unopened, cluttering up crucial real estate, then: unsubscribe, unfollow, delete, delete
Go into the library without a book in mind, give your librarian your mood parameters, and borrow whatever they put in your hands
Instead of watching a show, plan a road trip
Delete photos from your phone and then print some of the gems
Make muffins when it’s too late and doesn’t make any sense, because your tomorrow morning self will thank you
Listen attentively to someone snore when you’re not trying to fall asleep. Something oddly sweet about enjoying restful primal sounds coming from loved ones when it’s not competing with your need to rest
P.S
Here are some of your lovely faces and places. Excited for them to grace this letter. I appreciate you and you and you and you…:
“Hi Sara,
I read your letter sitting on the perfect for lounging wide chairs on the high line in manhattan on the first real spring day in the city. Before your letter i had been texting with a journalist friend who is in poland about to cross into ukraine and also signing up on a google doc to bring food to the family of a friend who died of cancer this week.Your letter was a very welcome change of tone. Prompted me to take more notice of the flowers poking through” Kalli Anderson
“Good evening,
Your latest letter arrived on my phone while I was shutting down for the night. My view:
I kept intending to send something after your last letter, which I read late, but things kept getting in the way.
Thank you for doing this. "
“Hi Sara,
Thank you for the safe-cozy-thinking space that is your newsletter. I don't know which has been wilder - the chaos of Manila in an election year (where I live now or am stuck, for now), or the deep wild within. But your words seem to quiet both.
As I read your email which is dated Saturday, it's Sunday morning in my house. There is coffee in my kitchen, and a daughter making carrot cake.
Hello from half a day ahead,”
“I read your newsletter Saturday around 2pm, while lying on the sofa with a view of the other sofa with nice chunks of light coming through the bay window and Sutro Tower in the distance. A few minutes later, friends arrived and the quiet living room was filled with screaming toddlers and the clacking together and crashing to the floor of magnet tiles. But it was a nice kind of liveliness ultimately.
This month is a big challenge in finding stillness because of an injury that needs to heal when all I want to do is get up and move. It's also when the intense winds hit San Francisco, making moving with grace that much more difficult. It's a month of frustration!” Lily Rose Sloane
“The Fog of More (wink emoji)” Caitlin Rogers
“ For my 30 minute after allergy shot wait I read your last 2 newsletters. Always fills my heart. I missed a few, but you are so wonderful sister. Sorry for the weird capitals, a little girl who just announced to the receptionist that she has curls was staring at me while she slowly walked by. Love you and am in deep admiration of you.” Marissa Singer (My amazing sister)
“After reading” Zara Bode
“Was that you, Paul?
Yes, yes it was!
Sorry I only just saw this... I sent your letter to my Kindle to read in bed, which I did the other day. It had stripped the hyperlinks, so when I read that sentence I just smiled to myself and thought "maybe she's referring to me... But I'm not sure." Anyway. It was a lovely little nugget to find in your always lovely words.
More people should use speakpipe / send voice memos. Maybe they do. I want to hear more snippets of days and hellos and ramblings and private thoughts.
Best wishes to you,”
Paul
Paul has kindly left me voice notes on my website through Speakpipe and you should too. Actually I don’t really believe in “shoulds,” but if you want to, I’d love it and if you’re patient, I will send one back!
Wherever this finds you, may you feel safe and held and loved in whatever you’re going through. May you listen to more stories, to more people, to the deep wild within yourself. I appreciate you coming along for this ride with me-
XX,
Sara