I’ve been quiet online while living loudly this summer and still asking plenty of questions.
My hiatus from the internet wasn’t planned. Summer feels like honey: sticky sweet and opaque. (Turns out that this mode doesn’t lend itself well to maintaining a publishing schedule or caring about social media.) Also impossible to reconcile with a stable domestic and writerly routine: holidays on an island in the Mediterranean, company visiting from out of town, inter-Germany getaways, and a panoply of appointments for health maintenance.
Life’s pace has certainly increased in the past months. It’s left me feeling that the demands of the self, full-time work, home, and social life that we once somehow juggled are now impossible to keep up with. Everyone I speak with sounds unmotivated, unfocused, and irritated lately, which I’ve dubbed having “sand in the gears.” One friend used stronger language: “We’re all damaged.”
Speaking for myself, my multitasking muscles have atrophied after many months of slowness, and I’m not sure that I want to exercise them quite as vigorously as I used to. We’re supposed to be ‘ON’ again, but I and many others are wrestling with the dimmer switch that’s been lodged in the ‘OFF’ position. We’re supposed to be fine. But two vaccine doses, as grateful as I am for mine, don’t fast-track anyone back to being fine.
I’m finishing up a longer piece for the next Questions to Ask. In the meantime, I’m curious to know:
What questions are you asking?
Unsolicited Recommendations
A moment of self-promotion: my first poetry collection, Everywhere Twice, is one year old this week and at long last is available as an e-book (via Linktree)! Also, a set of new poems, ‘Scout,’ was published in Die Leere Mitte last month.
A brief overview of artist Agnes Martin, whose work I’m dying to see in person.
This interview with poet Ross Gay in the Creative Independent about playfulness and why his writing is better when he’s not trying to be the best.
The gold-medal routine by the Russian synchronised swimming duo at the Tokyo Olympics, because the fact that this is humanly possible still doesn’t make sense to me.
This track from Sable with its dreamy, dark, jungle vibes.
Questions to Ask the sea.