a friendly reminder to... a thing that used to give me a lot of anxiety when i was younger was feeling myself lose interest in something i had previously been really into. i’d find a thing, make it my thing, live and breathe this thing and then suddenly, one day, i would wake up and something would be different. i would be able to sense that the enthusiasm was draining from what had previously absorbed me, like air slowly leaving a balloon. and then it would be gone. and i wouldn’t be able to access the genuine feelings of excitement that had buoyed me along before. i couldn’t carry on simply going through the motions because the vacuum left by my exhilarating enthusiasm felt worse than if i had never cared at all. all of a sudden, i had no passion and was disappointed to find that i was standing in exactly the same place as before. the seeking place. this perceived defect in my character was particularly painful during the phase when i was at all times trying to figure out what i wanted to do with my life. raised on the imposing narrative that the recipe for a good life is to find your passion, turn it into your job, and gain widespread recognition as a result, i was in search of that thing which i loved statically. my purpose. every new interest was embraced as that thing and the relief at having finally found it was very sincere. finally, this was proof that i was not a delinquent waste of potential! i would give myself over to the new thing entirely; all hope, and sweet hours absorbed in it. until, seemingly without reason, it would slip away. and there was nothing i could do to stop it. a significant turning point for me was when i read the book refuse to choose! by barbara sher and learned that i was a type of person she calls a scanner. according to sher, scanners are people who have intense curiosity about a bunch of unrelated subjects. she explains that there are different types of scanners: those who go deep on one thing for a long period of time and then move on to another, those who cycle between interests, and those who pursue multiple disparate interests simultaneously. basically, scanners find it difficult to specialize because they are endlessly inquisitive and to do so would come at the expense of indulging their curiosity. because turning your passion into your job typically involves a level of specialization, many scanners feel like they are fucking up by not choosing one path and staying on it. this was pretty revelatory for me. mostly it allowed me to adjust my expectations for what a great life would look like for me and unload a lot of the shame i felt around the waxing and waning of my interests. through reading this book, i realized that my interests are, for the most part, cyclical. that is, highly connected to the seasons and likely to return annually. this discovery allowed me to anticipate the draining of enthusiasm and even plan for it. for example, all summer long i was obsessed with gardening. in august, anticipating a great indifference to come over me shortly, i made my plans for next year’s growing season, did all my ordering, left instructions for myself of what needed to be done while i would be busy not giving a shit and then peacefully let it go. and it did. i could give an actual fuck about gardening right now. and i cannot imagine feeling differently. but i will. as i write this, i am experiencing a shift. something draining while something takes its place. i call this particular change “spring fever” and it makes me think of the part in bambi where the animals all get “twitterpated” at the onset of spring. This mood is very consistent and specific. it is characterized by a growing indifference to the interiors of my home, which dominates my attention over the fall and winter. (no kidding, right?). but the paprika that makes spring fever such a special transition is that every year at around this time, without fail, i will feel very emboldened in my personal style. like, i just wanna get weird with it. be a bit much. dye my hair pink, get a 14k gold septum piercing, wear a pastel green suit, or a cocktail hat with a veil, do my eye makeup like twiggy. oh god, it feels incredible!!!!! and every year it feels, not like a mood that will pass, but like a long anticipated watershed moment. like my limiting self-beliefs are melting away and i am finally becoming the person i was always meant to be! glamorous and free; the way i felt playing dress up as a child. and i think of david bowie, bianca jagger, chloe sevigney and the people in my real life who are bold and unapologetically themselves in style and say “if they can do it, so can i!” so i buy some stuff, wear some stuff, but mostly dream of what i might wear because i don’t have much time before it passes. i’m left feeling completely alienated from the things i purchased or had wanted to wear. i’m left to ponder what the hell that even was. was it genuine or was i kidding myself? by now, i know it’s coming and even look forward to it. i lean in fully but do not allow myself to make any major purchases. and every delicious time, i want it to be real and by that i mean forever. to last into the summer, the fall and winter. that this one is enough to shake me loose for good. i want that this year especially because cathryn is one of those people i feel emboldened by. unapologetically herself. a bit of a style chameleon but absolutely and utterly dedicated to being a bit much at all times even into her sixties. i have channeled her spirit at this time every year since i met her, but this is the first time since she’s been gone. in the days and weeks after she passed, i frantically amassed a collection of objects that reminded me of her and imbued them with a talismanic significance. the yellow linen turban she wore all the time, that made a drunk girl declare her the queen of the bar once. the fitted red corduroy jumpsuit that she would wear unzipped to her sternum with no bra underneath to a shitty trade show near the airport. big glamorous sunglasses, a printed silk scarf, a richard avedon print of nastassja kinski with a boa constrictor draped over her nude body. all collected to remind me of who she was and who she made me imagine i could be. she ran a very special fashion boutique in west toronto for 18 years and in all that time she wished the same thing for the women wearing clothes in our city. she wanted them to give less fucks. to be more inspired. to have more fun. to take themselves less seriously. she would constantly choose crazy things for the store that nobody would buy. they had been her little wishes for what she would like to see. her unwitting invitations to be more than you thought you could be. it’s an invitation i want to accept. for real. and by that i mean forever. i hang the mirror and order the chairs to get the living room to a place where i can be fine with it until november when i’ll care again. i spend hours on the instagram grids of makeup artists from euphoria but don’t buy any expensive eyeshadow palettes i might later regret and give away to my sister. i plan an epic look for an upcoming party and have a really hard time imagining ever wanting to be any less than a lot. even as i write this i am trying to convince myself that this one is for keeps.
Listen Now
The One about quince There were quince at the market and there hadn’t been the last time. The night before, I’d had a dream that all the tulip bulbs I tucked into the dirt outside were blooming. But I woke up to winter, still. I bought the quince, and put them in a clay bowl on the kitchen table and let them ripen; their candied floral scent perfuming the room. Seeing those happy yellow cherubs piled in the bowl was such a pleasure that I left them too long. Until soft brown patches mottled their flesh. And since that made them look like an oil painting, I left them a little longer. I left them until their structures began to fail, merging into each other, and the smell around the bowl was sickly. “We are the proof that time is passing,” whispered the decaying pile of quince from their bowl on the table. I am too much a creature of the present to live for a brighter tomorrow. It’s not enough to know it will be spring and wait and wait and wait until it is. I need delights, almost every day, to feel like the person who is me. These quince, all sunny and Rubenesque, are my winter’s delight. All the sweeter for only being found when the world outside feels so bleak. Rangey-looking squirrels have been gathering near our patio door; willing to ignore the presence of my large hound dog for the possibility of food. Before this moment, I would have told you I hated them, but now their desperation brought me no pleasure. This summer, these very squirrels bullied me quite badly. I tried hard to grow beautiful flowers on my deck and the squirrels broke my heart 100 times over. Digging up and decimating delicate seedlings. Taking promising young pumpkins from the vine and on a tour of the neighbourhood. Biting the heads of a flower so very close to blooming and then leaving it by the door as an unmistakable “Fuck you!” I tried everything to deter them and found myself obsessing over their movements, like I had seen my mother and grandfather do before. The gardener’s curse. When reading Beatrix Potter books as a child, I naturally sided with Peter Rabbit and his friends. I’d had no thought for Farmer McGregor, his garden, his livelihood, his efforts, his hopes, or dreams. If I ever thought of him, it was only as a buzzkill getting in the way of the animals’ good time. So it was incredibly jarring to catch my reflection in the window, as I bitterly watched the squirrels, and found Farmer McGregor staring back at me. I am he, and they are the Squirrel Nutkins, and for that matter Peter Rabbits, Benjamin Bunnies, Mrs Tiggy-wickles, Jemima Puddle-ducks et al. Unsure of how to proceed with this newfound cognitive dissonance, I lay a neat layer of chicken wire atop my spring-blooming bulbs and decided to take the winter to think on it. I opened the patio door to scare the hungry squirrels away, yet they tentatively moved a little closer. I took in the patchy fullness of their winter coats and their silly little faces and then looked back to the quince in the bowl. I grabbed the least rotten quince and stepped outside while saying “This is a one time thing. Do you understand?” I threw the quince far into the woods behind our house. I wouldn’t have them enjoying their feast on my territory. They shot off after it and I went back inside feeling incredibly generous and maybe a little closer to a sense of peace about the whole business. The next day i found my charitable offering squat in the middle of the communal driveway, embedded with tire marks from where it had been run over more than once. not enjoyed as a peace offering but thrown back as garbage. there would be no truce. it had been naive to expect gratitude from a creature as truly brutal as the squirrel. I sighed deeply and pitched the roadkill quince and its fellows in the compost bin. then i carefully checked the integrity of my chicken wire and went inside to grab my purse. the bowl on the table was empty now. it was time to buy some more quince.
