I’ve been housesitting and labeled my week here as a writer’s retreat. I haven’t quite gotten used to the coffee maker, so I put way too much coffee in the machine and drink two cups, which I’m beginning to see now is really six cups. Each morning I seem to induce a mild panic attack, which doesn’t really help my writing at all. Each morning I seem to repeat this mistake, too groggy to remember the anxiety from the previous morning.
The house belongs to a couple who owns an independent bookstore nearby, so their home is like a second bookstore. There are books everywhere and I haven’t read most of the titles. During one of my coffee-induced panic attacks, I told myself I wasn’t a real writer because I hadn’t read enough books. This line of thinking occurred because I find it challenging to take myself seriously as a writer, but I’m determined to do so.
I saw Notes from Underground on the bookshelf above their writing desk and took the book off the shelf. I read their copy of the book in their bed, on their yoga deck, on their balcony, and their young gray cat seemed always to be by my side.
The more I read, the more the main character surprised and appalled me. There seemed no hope for him to change. It seemed as if he would remain miserable and tortured all his life and that made me feel sympathy for him. Because I felt all these things for this mostly unlikeable, lonely, and contemptuous character, I wondered if soon I’d be reading much more Dostoevsky.
After I finished the book, I went online and read Can Dostoevsky Still Kick You In The Gut? What I didn’t tell you before but might as well tell you now is that because of this book and my feelings for this character, I started to think about my mind and my life and found sympathy for myself. And maybe for all of us, really. And maybe I write sympathy and mean sympathy but wish it were compassion.
Now I’m thinking of Mark Twain saying, “But who prays for Satan? Who in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most, our one fellow and brother who most needed a friend yet had not a single one.” I’d like to think I can be compassionate for the person who needs it most. I’d like to shine light in the darkest of places but usually refuse to look at the darkest parts of my life, of myself. Reading Notes from Underground reminded me of what I want and the ways in which I fall short but still. I want what I want. It’s another way of saying the heart wants what the heart wants. I can’t be the only woman who thinks of her heart as a lonely hunter.
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I wrote most of today’s column in a journal but midway through typing it up, I took a break and looked at several photos of Carson McCullers. I’m not entirely sure it was a waste of my time. I especially like these three: One, Two, Three.
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Vice did a fashion spread of women writers who committed suicide. I caught wind of this from a post by VIDA that read, “Oh sure. In its ‘Women in Fiction’ issue it totally makes sense for Vice to do chic fashion reenactments of famous female writer’s suicides.” In response to the fashion spread, Michelle Dean wrote Talking Famous Female Suicide: The Right, Wrong, and Vice Way and Alison Balaskovits wrote The Artful Wounding.
Roxane Gay wrote an article prompted by Paula Deen’s racism or, as she’s come to think of it, “Deen’s general outlook on life.”
And, in case you missed it last week, Zadie Smith responded to Lauren Sandberg’s article about motherhood and writing. Gina Frangello commented on that article as well.
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This week I called Melissa Chadburn, who is at Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop this summer, and during our conversation, Melissa compared every subject matter to writers and literary characters. I said, Melissa, I think Iowa is working.
She told me that during her writing workshop, the instructor asked everyone to say a defining characteristic about themselves. After our conversation, I sent Melissa a quote from Notes from Underground that read:
If only my doing nothing were due to laziness! How I’d respect myself then! Yes, respect, because I would know that I could be lazy at least, that I had at least one definite feature in me, something positive, something I could be sure of. To the question “Who is he?” people would answer, “A lazy man.” It would be wonderful to hear that. It would imply that I could be clearly characterized, that there was something to be said about me.
Then Melissa shared a poem by Michael Leunig:
There are only two feelings: love and fear.
There are only two languages: love and fear.
There are only two activities: love and fear.
There are only two motives, two procedures, two frameworks, two results:
love and fear. Love and fear.
