Observables #71

on notes from our child minds, an apocalyptic read and parrot love

This little note from my eight-year-old self who is bugged at her sister for wanting to sing and dance. So many delightful things for me here: Natalie was obsessed with singing and dancing and I was irritated by it; the mystery of Sally (Who is she? Why am I writing to her if she’s my former friend?); and what is it I wanted to be doing instead of singing and dancing? It’s all perplexing and beautiful—the mind of a child. Maybe this will inspire you to dig up one of your own journals and experience a pang for your child self?!

Bliss Montage, Stories by Ling Ma for my book club.

In the first story the protagonist references her 100 husbands and then later there’s a story about making love to a yeti. So, yes, it’s almost a surrealist read, like the stories of my friend Aimee Bender who we interviewed here. But then it gets normal again. And then back to weird—or as one person calls it, “an apocalyptic satire.” I connect with apocalyptic.

(My mom pointed that out to me when I was hyperventilating over a change in my daughter’s life. She was saying, “Rebecca, you have to disconnect from their emotions…” She speaks from experience as a mother who has intensely felt our pain. Because the end of that sentence is…”or you will die!”)

I was shooting a documentary on Saturday and at one point I found myself with a parrot on my shoulder and I really liked it. I would happily become the bird lady or the cat lady or the dog lady if my husband would let me.

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