Leaky Filters and Saying Too Much
Standing on the outside watching my filters fail. A scone, a vacuum, and a roof.
A scone is a scone is a scone.
A vacuum is a vacuum is a vacuum.
Neither of these is true.
I ate an amazing scone this week.
I ordered a vacuum this week.
These simple sentences mask everything that is beneath them. They are tidy. They give nothing away.
A scone and a vacuum. These are wildly different topics, although neither is very wild. The scone marched in first, into the space I thought, really, might be blank this week.
The scone was that good. It opened a door I hadn’t expected.
As an anchor, the scone was surprisingly wide-ranging, trivial in its tiny indulgence and yet sweet in the memory on the tongue.
The next day I interjected an intro line about buying a vacuum, just to give context to the week, a bit of framing to balance the crunchy sugar topping of the scone. The scone, alone, may have seemed too sweet as a reflection on the week. The vacuum keeps the accounting in line. The bit of sweet is a counterbalance in a week full of dust and dirt, weeds and rodent droppings.
I may want to focus on the scone, and a salt bagel a few days later, but there is more to the picture.
I agonized over a vacuum decision the day before the roofer came. Had the timing lined up differently I probably wouldn’t have even bought a vacuum.
It was supposed to just be a counter to the scone, the mention of the vacuum. But it wasn’t so simple. I needed to explain that I bought a vacuum and how it connects to the month and to years. But that, too, stood up, a line wiggling on the page, an inflatable dancing around as its arms and legs filled with air.
Nothing is as it seems.
Nothing is straightforward.
Everything is straightforward.
Everything is as it is.
Everything is connected.
So much boils down to numbers.
I started over again to explain that I keep writing simple sentences, and they fill with air and start wobbling around like a cast of holiday decorations that come to life at dusk on a lawn.
These inflatables are ghostly. They are pale and shimmer in the night. The strands of the past, of who I am now and how I got here and what is left, are all woven around every simple sentence. They snake and wrap, sometimes threatening to pull me under and sometimes creating a buffer.
I think my filters are broken.
These are not the filters I look through, the filters that help hone and narrow a view. Those were already cloudy. These are the filters that keep things in place, that reduce spillage, that ensure edges are maintained.
I’ve noticed the seals have been wearing thin over the last few years. I think it happens when we retreat, when the world narrows and the walls draw in. We forget how to use our filters. Their edges loosen. Their mechanisms begin to rust.
The slightest bit of a vent, much less an invitation, and the words come hissing free, air leaking from a sealed jar.
Seals? Filters? Maybe they are gaskets?
Maybe they are gates or grates?
When asked a question right now, I stand on the periphery watching as words spill. I watch myself go on and on and on, saying too much, offering too much detail, too much candor, too much bitterness.
I watch the faces of the listeners, and realize I need to stop talking, realize I am saying too much, realize I am repeating myself, realize I am answering the wrong question, realize I am saying more than I want to, realize the lines have faded, realize I am answering a question that should require three or four words, and I am still talking and don’t know how to stop. I can’t find the switch.
I feel the need to explain. To justify. To give context. To highlight why this is different. To have someone understand.
I catch myself saying too much, and I trail off. I tuck the other words away. I worry over and over then about what has been said. I worry about repeating myself because even the “too much” doesn’t feel like it ever really says what I mean.
“You will write if you will write without thinking of the result in terms of a result, but think of the writing in terms of discovery, which is to say that creation must take place between the pen and the paper, not before in a thought or afterwards in a recasting...” — Gertrude Stein
I am okay.
Until the roofer came, I was okay. I ate a scone. I bought a vacuum.
On the outside, I look okay.
Just don’t ask me a question or give me an opening.
I watch the face of listeners, and I realize I need to stop talking. I realize my filters are unreliable. I realize that even though I don’t feel, at all, like a stereotype in this moment, the words keep drawing me back to that place.
I grab the roll of packing tape, tear pieces free, press them against my mouth.
They don’t need to know that. They don’t really care about those details. They don’t need to know about the crumbling that is happening now.
I watch the expressions on the faces of kind listeners, and their tolerance is my undoing.
I am going to need more tape.
I did write about the scone and the vacuum. I’ve tucked them aside, vignettes for another time, different inroads to a life and a history, to the series of connections we unknowingly make, grow, and store away through the years.
This is a reminder to check your filters. Are they properly opening and closing on demand? Do they keep in what you want and let out what you want? Do they respond to a nudge, a twitch of the eye? Do they serve you well? Do they need to be cleaned? Are there torn spots that need to be patched or mended?
Filters are complicated.
Filters can be costly.
When asked a question, do you say too much? Do you say nothing at all? Do you rattle on and then feel like all the wrong words came out? Do you worry about the cost per hour of the listening? Are these words worth the cost? Are these words painting the wrong picture? Are these words creating those kind expressions, the ones that are tolerant as they listen to words that must be coming out like razors in the mist.
Where are my filters?
The orchid has dropped all but two of its flowers.
The hummingbird is persistent in the trees out back, at eye level to where I sit to write.
I tried to take care of something Friday that has lingered for weeks and so arrived at a government building to find it closed because of a “widespread outage” (before I heard about the Microsoft Cloudstrike problem). Timing.
Things I have taken care of and crossed off have reappeared with costly repercussions.
What are you thinking? I am asked.
How to spin straw into gold.
Thank you for reading.
Amy
Illustrated Life is a reader-supported publication. Thank you to everyone who reads. Subscription prices will be going up. There is a summer special on annual subscriptions. Thank you to those who help make this a sustainable space.
Color mahogany.
Color mahogany center.
Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.
Loveliness extreme.
Extra gaiters.
Loveliness extreme.
Sweetest ice-cream.
Page ages page ages page ages.
Wiped Wiped wire wire.
Sweeter than peaches and pears and cream.
Wiped wire wiped wire.
Extra extreme.
Put measure treasure.
Measure treasure.—Gertrude Stein, “Sacred Emily”
Illustrated Journal, Weeks 28 and 29
Snippets from the last few weeks. (You may remember that I scaled down, an odd move for me, but one that reigns things in as I struggle to stay afloat in these weeks.)
Photos from the Week
Weekly Bits and Pieces
Made It?
Thank you for reading.
What are you working on these days?
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I understand that look of tolerance all too well. I wonder often if people are just too nice to tell me I say too much, if I overshare and make things weird. My filters are faulty from one extreme to the other. They're either the overzealous power-hungry hall monitor (I've watched too much SpongeBob thanks to Cody), or they're sleeping disciples at the most pivotal time. I go for weeks posting nothing, barely able to answer messages, and then I make up for it by dumping too much. People continue to listen and hug me and then listen to the same stuff again. I struggle over what to put on my pages, if I should say anything at all, and then my journal doesn't feel like mine. I'm trying to make it mine, a safe place, but it's been a very personal year. Thankfully I've had a lot of good, but I need a space to work through the other, and I'm trying to find a way to incorporate that. I hope you know that even as readers who haven't met you, we care very much, and you're never too much. Your posts are always so powerful and thought-provoking, and so many times I feel you give my own thoughts a voice. Things I can't articulate. So thank you, and I hope the days ahead soften for you and that you always have a place where you can be unfiltered unapologetically. ♥️
Beautiful lines from Gertrude Stein, thanks for sharing those. The scone sounds divine, I hope you can continue to find moments of small pleasure in life and the everyday. And I have been loving the b&w photos. You are never too much here Amy!