Inhabit This

The quest for inbox zero, and the cool kids looked at me!

Pere Borrel del Caso, Escaping criticism, 1874

Welcome new subscribers! I’m feeling a little deer-in-the-headlights after a wild week. I wrote a thing (which was actually a fresh edit of an old thing) that got more attention than I’ve ever had here on Substack. The kids might say it went ‘viral,’ though I sort of hate that descriptor. We wear masks and line up for shots when things are viral. Virus, viral, virulent — bad bad bad.

This was good! It was a bit of Warhol’s 15 minutes, maybe, in a relaxed, at-home kind of way. I had a bad night after posting and woke from a short, fitful sleep with a headache and a storm of notifications. People were liking and responding to my thing — many people, notable people! It was surreal.

That essay is fine. I try to post things I sort of like and can kind of defend, but that one wasn’t my best. I’ve written much better stuff that caught the attention of five kind nerds. This is the way of creative endeavors, I suppose. (And thanks so much to the sweet nerds, my people.)

It felt like high school, 1979. Romeo is Bleeding and Chuck E’s in Love. You’re an anonymous weirdo, certain of your own minor brilliance but also of the world’s indifference. They just don’t know yet. On the inside, it’s coolsville. On the outside — baggy jeans and oversized flannel, a curtain of lank hair that you can’t figure out. You drift by the cool kids’ table in the vast, artificially bright cafeteria. It’s maybe a Tuesday, definitely not a holiday. You’re overwarm because of your stupid clothes, but it’s the uniform. The armor. It works, if only in your head.

You realize, suddenly, that a cool kid is looking at you. Smiling even. Wait, some of them are waving. They are looking at you, smiling and waving. Unsure, you look around — ME? For a few brief, weird moments, it’s you. The spotlight has finally found you and it’s uncomfortable but also, kind of okay? You only wish you had a better outfit. This isn’t your best, here in the harsh glare of attention. You weren’t ready. You smile, wave a little, and drift away.

This will mean exactly nothing. You will be you tomorrow, and they will be them. But the bright light was nice for a minute.

It’s ironic that a piece about wanting to be alone made the cool kids look my way. Was this the trick all along? Act like I don’t want it, play hard to get? I really do want to be alone much of the time, but this is interesting. I could get used to it, as long as I can stay home and wear the same clothes.

It’s late August. I’m nearly 60. I had the idea to write one very long, possibly annoying, sentence about everything. I imagine talking to an old friend, sun blazing, comfy chairs and cool drinks, and telling her about my summer. It would be one long sentence with lots of commas, and then, and then, and then. Like a toddler.

My 80 year old mother says she needs to “shake up” her life. I wonder what that will mean for mine.

I’ve totally neglected the garden and now it’s a lush square of weeds. We planted my father in my tiny town, instead. Weeks of packing, cleaning, and moving. Miles of driving, mountains of paperwork. Too much wine and hand-wringing. I’m flirting with a summer wine break and drinking a nice South African Chenin Blanc.

September wants a clean slate. Clean-ish, anyway, let’s be reasonable. The thing that’s getting in my way, occupying too much of my mental space, is email. The inbox is a panic, an avalanche of chaos. I ignored it during my father’s big move and now it’s making me pay. Everyday I chip away, and every day more stuff tumbles into the little hole I make.

The number taunts me. After a spell of furious reading, clicking, reading, there’s no progress. It’s Sisyphean. It’s beginning to feel like such a trivial endeavor. What will matter in the end? She had a clean inbox?

I did this to myself with all these newsletters. So many newsletters! I know I can receive them in Substack instead of mail, but that triggers some serious FOMO. What will I miss if it isn’t yelling in my email? It will just be an avalanche elsewhere. Same problem, new place.

It’s ironic that I’m filling your inbox with a complaint about full inboxes.

Note to self, here at the end of another weird season:

Learn to inhabit this.

Whatever this is, in any given moment. This is it. Viral moments, full inboxes, long sentences, South African wine. Bad nights and cool kids. 60 is just around the corner, this is not a dress rehearsal. Live in it, find every crumb of joy, savor the 15 minutes.

Cheers! 🌻
Lisa

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Things to share:

• This beautiful letter about Sinéad and her big-hearted generosity.

• “Until the age of seventy, nothing I drew was worthy of notice. At seventy-three years, I was somewhat able to fathom the growth of plants and trees, and the structure of birds, animals, insects and fish.”

  — Katsushika Hokusai, One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji, 1834

• Turns out my weird little bedtime habit has a name and is good for me.

• Actor Stephen Fry on getting through the bad days: "In the same way that one has to accept the weather, so one has to accept how one feels about life sometimes. "Today's a crap day," is a perfectly realistic approach. It's all about finding a kind of mental umbrella. "Hey-ho, it's raining inside: it isn’t my fault and there's nothing I can do about it, but sit it out. But the sun may well come out tomorrow and when it does, I shall take full advantage."

• Speaking of viral, I’m finally reading

  Maggie Smith
  . You Could Make This Place Beautiful deserves every fabulous thing. I’m inhaling it and will be pressing it on others. A brilliant, important, gorgeous record of life, love, marriage and divorce. Read it, if you haven’t.