Not all stories have a plot—Not Reading, But Didion and Jansson
Photos from the week, illustrated journal Week 26, and thoughts on reminding myself, looping, and gathering.
“This is my attempt to make sense of the period that followed, weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I had ever had about death, about illness, about probability and luck, about good fortune and bad, about marriage and children and memory, about grief, about the ways in which people do and do not deal with the fact that life ends, about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself.” — Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking
(The day after posting….this post seems to have been a misstep, but I’m still not sure how. I worked on it the same as all other posts, for days. But yesterday, immediately it was clear that something was off. I debated last night about locking the post, hiding it, putting behind a paywall. Thank you to those who commented. It really makes a difference. Even now, I opened the post to lock it mid-way, but that would put the art and photos below the wall. That isn’t the goal.)
Keeping things short today. That’s what I told myself. That was the goal. I will keep it short. There was a clear carousel story to share, but it didn’t quite work out that way. I softened. I edited. I obscured.
This isn’t really what I planned. There is very little here that is concrete. I could share a list of the calls I’ve made, of the calculations I’ve done, of the variety of ways my name has now been misspelled, of the kind words and of the missing words. I could outline the things I’ve already canceled. I could diagram the minor dent those decisions made. I could describe my attempts at organization and the reality of my jumbled notes. I could talk about the usefulness of small sticky notes. I could explain that it took six hours to finally decide against something (that might have been good for me) because gas is too expensive.
But, really, I feel tired. I feel over-exposed, skin turned inside out. It seems I am perpetually, awkwardly, simultaneously, over-exposed and yet bordering on becoming invisible.
Every day, I start over at the top of this letter, adding, cutting, bolstering, redirecting, tempering, moving the most vulnerable, the most disconnected words out, tucking them behind walls, around corners, anchoring them under half-empty cups of tea, setting them aside for later.
Later there will be time to assemble, join, stitch, and rearrange the disjointed bits into something meaningful. This is a myth I tell myself, a story I tell to mask the awareness that there may never be time. The gathering of words, the attempt to embrace the loose ends, is, in and of itself, the lifeline.
I use personal story as a framework. There are always questions woven in, hints at the universal, threads that invite us to see connections between our stories and others. There are questions. This is the nature of seeking, of process, of evolution, and of journey.
We quest.
We question.
We tilt at windmills.
Questions drift and swirl, but the mapping of questions is not the same as asking for answers.
I am opinionated.
I am rarely asking for answers.
I am rarely offering answers.
I am simply mapping terrain, lining things up, gathering twigs, breadcrumbs, fallen leaves, and bits of glittering light, wrapping threads around milestones and random markers, measuring distances, pondering shortcuts and off-roads, and moving farther and farther into the unknown.
If there are birds, I make a note.
In all the years I’ve talked out loud to other artists who are keeping journals and making art in the margins of their days and lives, viewing their individual lives, the quotidian, as important, I’ve reminded, again and again, that there is no single way.
I have checked out a bunch of books, but overall, I am not reading.
I am not reading, but I opened Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book this week. I haven’t read it before, but in opening it, highlighted passages in the library ebook reminded me that at some point I checked it out and read the first few pages.
I checked The Summer Book out again this week because I saw a note from Melissa Wiley about it. The title hadn’t come up in my gathering of titles that I might line up to read in coming months.
It was random, checking it out and choosing to open it, but is anything really random?
In rereading the introduction, I stumbled immediately over the fact that there is a loss, that there is grief, that there is a reminder, again and again, of the reality that has led to the moment.
I am in that phase, reminding myself each morning, throughout the day.
I wake in the night and say it again and again. I vary the phrasing. I say the words that still don’t seem real.
In the introduction to The Summer Book, these lines appear:
“Some writers—Thackeray is an example—want to make it easy for you to know who they are in the world, slipping an abundance of clues into their writing about their lives, a sense of what you might expect were you to meet them. I suspect this apparent openness is often a form of narcissism, a wish to convey whatever about them is admirable, delightful, intelligent—nor does it mean that to meet such a writer you won't end up disappointed. A second category of writers—Henry James comes to mind—seem bent on reminding you of how difficult it will be to even begin to get to know who they are. Tove Jansson is in this second, smaller group. These writers hide personal information about themselves from the world, while at the same time writing about nothing less revealing than psyche in all its stark and startling nakedness.” — Introduction to The Summer Book
I wonder where I fall. I see myself, sadly, in both characterizations. It is uncomfortable to think the first might be true, but those of us who write from the personal know this space, these halls and walls littered with bits of story, layers of peeling papers from which we pull meaning. That someone put the phrase “navel gazing” in my head has stuck with me through the years, a negative, a euphemism for narcissism.
The quest for understanding, for finding and crafting and arranging meaning, is a process of moving in and out at the same time. It is a process at times of being transparent, almost to the point of invisibility, and yet being over-exposed. It is a process that opens doors even as it reinforces the unknowable.
I think a lot about what is and isn’t said, about the structure of story, about stories that have no plot, about stories that simply unfold, an assortment of details gathered and placed together in proximity. Some stories take shape in the juxtaposition.
“…on the one hand you could say nothing happens, there is no plot, and on the other hand that everything in the book is driven by a single event, so fleetly mentioned as to be almost occult: ‘Sophia woke up and remembered that they had come back to the island and that she had a bed to herself because her mother was dead.’” — Introduction to The Summer Book
I am not reading. I have read maybe a few pages of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking again. I checked out a number of books in the days after M’s passing. I continue to reserve books and to gather titles. But this is the book I immediately gravitated to.
We all want a year of magical thinking, right? That’s what first led me to the book, years ago. Of course, this isn’t that.
What I remember of reading it, what stands out, is bewilderment juxtaposed with persistent deep-dives into medical information. That juxtaposition, that merging of an inability to make sense of things, of the need to repeat details, timelines, medical terminology, facts, biology…that’s what I remember. (I may be wrong.)
I remember the looping, the dipping back in, again and again.
This looping, this looping, this looping, this circling round and round a span of hours, hours with no clues, months, years…there is this endless looping. A span of weeks, of days, of hours, the narrative all askew, the trajectory unfathomable, the predictions all wrong.
I read Blue Nights last year. At the time, I thought I liked it even more than The Year of Magical Thinking. I read it after watching the Joan Didion documentary, which I found moving. I’m not someone who follows (more than necessary) or reads political journalism, so I haven’t read most of the things that defined Didion’s career, but I’ve read her grief.
I read her grief as an outsider, an onlooker. I read and was transfixed by the looping.
I am not reading, but in the wee hours when I am awake, reminding myself again, I open my phone and I read a paragraph, a page, a few words. I am reading now from a different vantage.
I am writing, but not writing enough. I sit each morning with my keyboard and coffee for the hour or hour and a half before my work window starts.
I follow thoughts as they wander and leapfrog, and then I reign back in, start again. I sometimes wonder what would happen if I took a whole day to just let words fall, words that magically appear as a I move my fingers, fingers stiff and thickened, inflexible, and yet still sure of where keys are on the board (although I would be hard pressed to tell you).
I know there will be plenty of days in coming months, but then I will be months from the epicenter. Right now, I am juggling and balancing so much that I am terrified of losing it all. My memory is such that it will all fade. (Please don’t respond to this with hopeful comments. My entire life is a void of lost memory. I do know.)
All I can do is keep moving, keep writing, keep showing up to work, keep making calls. I keep doing the math, and the numbers don’t add up. They didn’t add up before, and I don’t know what to do now.
I am so grateful for those who pay to support this space. I am sorry that one of the perks of that, right now, may mean you have access to my attempts to understand and grapple with loss and grief, to organize and sift and sort my life, to reset the dominoes, to reconcile regret and guilt and disappointment, and to wander through the maze of memory, something more vapor than substance.
I am grateful.
We watched Your Honor this week, and it is such a story of dominos and strings and unraveling. It is such a story of the interconnectedness of stories. It is such a story of incidental ruin. It is such a story of foregone conclusions, events that unfold despite all efforts to rewrite the story.
Most of this letter I debated about putting into a private post. If I had more time and focus, I would organize things better, keep things parceled off. Today’s main post was about a carousel. The carousel can wait. The animals, after all, are tethered. They move in a circle.
Thank you for reading.
Amy
PS: My mom treated us to ice cream today after a walk in the park—Espresso Toffee Crunch and Peanut Butter Indulgence. A treat.
Illustrated Journal Notes
Illustrated journals are a blend of writing and illustration. The balance often shifts week to week, and we each have our own approach to how we organize information on the page. My pages from recent weeks are word-heavy. Sometimes, saying things in large, bold letters helps lock them in place.
Excerpts from Week 25 are shown below.
I am exploring a shift in Week 27, one that feels a bit counter-intuitive, but we’ll see how it goes. I did try a few new-to-me grey inks (birthday inks) this week, and I am really appreciating the softness and the subtle differences.
Photos from the Week
For some reason this matters right now, this looking, this capturing even of the brightest and harshest of light. The photos are a texture and a record, something I instinctively need.
Illustrated Life is a reader-supported publication. Thank you to everyone who reads. Thank you to those who hold paid subscriptions that help make this space possible.
Weekly Bits and Pieces
Related Posts
Tove Jannson, creator of the Moomin series (which I need to read), has come up before.
Seeing these posts makes me think about reading Hilda again. Note to self: the list needs work. The list doesn’t have to be complicated. It just has to exist.
Other Voices
Two essays come to mind in the context of today’s post.
No Unsolicited Advice, Please (
)Over and Over Again (Aubrey Hirsch)
Made It?
Today’s post didn’t open obvious doors for comments. If you want to join in the conversation, feel free to share:
A project you hope to work on in July
Something you drew this week that you really enjoyed drawing
A favorite quote
Thank you for reading.
Thank you for reading Illustrated Life. Please consider subscribing to receive the weekly email. Writers need readers, and I am grateful for every reader!
Paid options are available for those who can and want to support the Illustrated Life, the podcast, and the weekly #illustrateyourweek prompt series. Subscriptions not your thing? One-time donations are always appreciated.
Thank you, Amy. Reading your essays is always a call to increased mindfulness for me. You're teaching me how to see more deeply, to dig a little more for feelings and insights in my own writing. And thank you for not disappearing in this time of grief. For showing up, even though. That's enormous.
Amy it is a good solid post. An honest one,a thought-provoking one, a beautiful drawing together of the strange soupy unfamiliarity of your journey right now.
Taking photos like the ones you shared help reconnect us with the world, often with what is good, simple to understand with glimmers on the edges when we aren't taking notice. When all else is confusing, challenging and heartbreaking taking a moment to appreciate nature and everyday life going on helps me to appreciate the world isn't ending but it still ticking over in my absence, a constant, a sameness I can come back to. Small hidden gems that I zoom in on when the wide lens of my reality is too much. Interesting you used black and white as that simplifies and calms what you are taking in too. The removal of colour allows you to see the subtleties of light and dark, the tiny details you might otherwise miss.
Your definition of navel gazing is quite different to mine. I always thought it was about taking time to contemplate your thoughts, to look inside your self. Really should look up the definition I suppose, 🤔
That ice cream sounds AMAZING 😍. Yahoo for Mums and Ice creams