Hello hello! Happy Spring!
In the interest of spring cleaning, I am moving some ideas out of my head and onto my computer. Although theyâre still also staying in my head, because I find value in them. Theyâre just also going out to you. So in a way I am multiplying them, which actually seems to be the opposite of the discarding of things that tends to happen in spring cleaning, so I guess the analogy is a bad one. In theory itâs a good hook though, right?Â
Itâs spring here in Boston, and itâs been wonderful to see the sun more often. Iâm working on staying on top of classes to graduate this May and thinking about whatâs next, and itâs nice to feel in sync with the seasons. Daffodils and violets (I think, Iâm no botanist) are popping up as spots of color against the still-bare trees. Iâm feeling a little behind them, like the ground is still frozen but buds are trying to pop up, and itâs only a matter of time before they do and are in full bloom. Soon. Hereâs some little buds that feel worth holding onto in the midst of clearing my head (Iâm sorry Iâm sorry, I know the spring cleaning thing doesnât really work):
On hanging out
The Pitchfork album review of Oso Osoâs Sore Thumb, by Arielle Gordon, keeps popping up in my mind lately. Itâs a beautiful review of a great album, and I encourage you to read it in full and listen to the album, but itâs the opening and closing lines that I am particularly struck by: âThe liturgy of Oso Oso is built from finding the perfect view, feeling sand between your toes, and watching the sun rise [...] In the church of Oso Oso, chilling with your friends is a sacrament.â A-fucking-men.
Hanging out is so important. I want to be. As a full sentence, I simply want to be. I want to spend time with people with no agenda, nothing to do. This is where conversations that light us up can happen and where we can truly get to know people on their own terms. At HDS - and more broadly in the culture - I hear a lot of discussions about the necessity and importance of âbuilding community.â Thereâs a disconnect when a professor lectures about a historical figure who spent a lot of time wandering around, hanging out with people, and how we should use him as a model to build connections with people, and then turns around and assigns 10 page papers full of busywork. (What is the point of divinity school if we donât have time to contemplate or sit in community with people? How did we get here? Whatâs going on?)
Building community takes time. And not just time as in putting-in-the-work, but literally unstructured expanses of time where you can slow down and hang out with people. The workload of academia, even at a divinity school, is not conducive to free time. America as a whole is not conducive to free time - with rising costs of living, nearly everyone I know is overworked to begin with and then you have the culture of toxic individualism on top of that. Itâs easier to see strangers in their full humanity when you are not constantly drained and running around feeling like youâre behind.Â
Ambition is a highly lauded quality. Iâd like to be decidedly unambitious. I donât know what I want to do with my life, but I know I want to slow down and feel the present. I want to spend time with my friends and get to know anybody at all. Iâm lonely. Statistically, most people are. Overcoming the heavy individualism of the US feels like a constant battle. Honestly I have to reground myself to the world around me on a regular basis or I get swept away in thinking the wrong things matter. Can we all agree that nothing is more important or more real than each other?
I just want to feel alive in the moment Iâm in with the people Iâm sharing it with. I kinda just want to hang out. âChilling with your friends is a sacramentâ - what else do we have? What a beautiful way to honor the gift that is our intertwined lives.
(âŠmaybe itâs burnout, maybe itâs spiritual growth?)
A Brief Love Letter to Arts & Crafts
Arts & crafts. The term conjures up memories of elementary school girl scout meetings and birthday parties, playdates involving perler beads and popsticks and paint. It was always a favorite activity of the less-athetically-inclined kids at summer camp. If youâve missed making macramĂ© friendship bracelets and staring at piles of scrap fabrics, well, good news - arts & crafts is BACK baby!
Iâm talking air-dry clay, painting wooden birdhouses, PAPER-MACHĂ MASKS! Iâm working on an experimental project with some friends where we have decided masks would improve the project. The masks are not a pivotal piece of the project, and yet we have become engrossed in the process. It is so silly. SO silly. We started with trepidation, intently watching a man on youtube methodically create a newspaper mold of his face. We began copying him to the best of our abilities, taping strips of newspaper across our noses and spreading out from there. It was quiet and focused, and then we all exchanged looks with each other and the sheer absurdity of it hit us- we were half-covered in newspaper, looking ridiculous, praying the tape wouldnât hurt to peel out of our hair, absolutely no idea what we were doing. We spent the rest of the craft night laughing and desperately trying to do what the man in the youtube video was doing, who by this point had begun covering his entire head in newspaper like a villain out of a first-year film studentâs foray into horror.Â
It is such a unique joy to sit around with your friends and uncover your latent creative energy together. Itâs not something that is required of most of us in our daily lives, but itâs something we all have, even if weâre âbadâ at it - notions of artistic talent donât apply here. Everybody can create! Iâve loved learning what friends are hiding their painting skills or who is inexplicably good at making clay animal tails. Go to Michaelâs and see what wooden objects they have in their sale section you can paint. I will soon have an array of brightly patterned tiny birdhouses I hope some creatures can enjoy.Â
Arts & crafts for all! Never too old to play. What a wonder to re-discover our imagination, a reminder that we can make anything possible. Ideas change along the way, projects fail, but it is all a journey of creating; the process is the fun.Â
Unconventional modes of communicationÂ
Itâs time to get creative about the ways we communicate with each other. Social mediaâs a corporate hellscape, phone calls are so â90âs, emails so aughts, texting so 2010âs. Whatâs left?Â
A good old-fashioned, handwritten letter - Classic, will never go out of style. Letters are the most intimate form of communication. Youâre physically passing someone a little piece of your heart. The lag between sending and receiving creates a bit of sexy mystery- youâre not even sure it made it to them and by the time you receive a response, youâve forgotten what you told them! We love and support the USPS here. (If youâre bold, you can deliver a handwritten letter in person and get the adrenaline rush as you watch them unfold the page containing your little heart.)
Voice Texts - Alright Iâm just late, everyone else has been on these for years. If youâre not yet using them, theyâre good, I promise.Â
Voice Notes - Different from voice texts, these are audio messages you record using your phoneâs voice notes feature that you then send to the recipient as an audio file. A dear friend introduced me to this concept and Iâm obsessed. You record a little monologue of your life, 5-15 minutes, send it over, and they can listen and respond on their own timeline. No stress of telephone tag or scheduling times to talk, but you still hear the warmth of their voice and can get deep.Â
A GoogleDoc - Get a shared googledoc going. Thatâs it. It offers the freeform element of chaotically checking it and writing it at literally any time, and alleviates the stress of notifications or feeling like someone is waiting on you. Itâs a communal effort, a virtual shared brain dump. A friend and I have had a doc going for ~7 months and are at 100+ pages. Magic.Â
One massive chain letter - Okay, I havenât tried this one yet, but hear me out: in the 1960âs a group of decentralized psychedelic enthusiasts started a movement called Discordianism, and their holy text was a mass chain letter they circulated amongst themselves (you can find the text reproduced online here). It sounds like a great time. Letâs bring chain letters back.Â
Hi Ellie, Loved this piece, especially the part about Arts & Crafts. I'm looking up at my papier mache helmet for Running Horned Woman right now! Not a mask, you wear it on your head, but it sort of pinches. Keep writing!