Book Reviews, Free Time & Hope
This past week has been . . . an exercise in absolute insanity? To put it lightly? I’m exhausted guys, and at the moment I don’t know when I won’t be exhausted anymore. So, you get a short little note from me this week. Think of it as a brainstorm or a diary entry I’m graciously allowing you to read.
I should say I’m not unhappy. Not exactly. Most things are going pretty well for me at the moment. Changes are afoot, I get to spend time with the people that love me, I’m spending time with new friends and old friends, money is manageable at the moment, and it feels like, if I can keep some semblance of momentum, things might finally start going my way for the first time in a while. But there are so many moving parts, and just to reiterate, and I cannot stress this enough, I. Am. Exhausted.
Right now, I have a book waiting for me at Lemuria. It’s After Work: A History of the Home and the Fight for Free Time by Helen Hester and Nick Srnicek, and I think I’ve been waiting for it for a long time.
I’ve spent most of my life feeling crazy for some reason or another. Sometimes it’s been because of a relationship I’ve been in; sometimes it’s been the people I’ve surrounded myself with; in childhood, it was living under my parents roof. At the moment, I feel crazy every time I come home confronted with the work of the home that sucks away the free time I should be spending reading or writing, cooking if I really want to. Where is my free time going? Why is it disappearing, and what do I need to do to get it back? It feels like sand slipping through my fingers.
I think that’s enough to make anyone crazy, don’t you?
I’d like to devote my energy more to my creative work, of course. But I think, first, my energy has to be devoted to figuring out where the time is going. I’m hoping this book can help with that. I haven’t read it yet, so it might be terrible, who knows, but I’m hopeful. That’s the thing I keep clinging to when simply being alive feels so impossible, when I feel trapped in the drudgery of my own life. Can I put that Emily Dickinson poem here? Is that gauche? Oh whatever, it’s my newsletter, I’m doing it:
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
I’ve seen John Green do a great explication of this poem, and now, every time I read it, I hear him saying: “Hope is there, even when you can’t feel it.” I suppose you could say I’m carrying that around in my head lately, like a mantra or talisman. “Hope is there, even when you can’t feel it.” Or, even when you think you’re crazy.
So, with all that said, I have, what I think is at least, exciting news for you: once I’ve finished this book (god knows how long that’s going to take) you can expect to see a review of it here, as a part of this newsletter! I’ve been wanting to include new components to this project for a while, so here’s where we’re starting: book reviews. Maybe you won’t find that interesting at all, but I feel like if you’re enraptured enough with my thoughts about domesticity and homemaking, you might also be interested in someone with more expertise discussing those things, and what I manage to make of it. And hey, if you pick up the book as well, you could almost think of us as operating in a little long distance book club. I’ve never been good at book clubs because I’ve never been able to finish the books on time, but I promise to try my best here since I’m the one running it.
I have the comments open to all on this post. If you have any suggestions for books that you think fit the premise of this newsletter, and you’d like to see me review them here, leave them in the comments. I want more time for reading. I seem to make so little time for it these days. But maybe the first step is a creative act of carving out time for it, combining this project with an effort to read more.
Maybe this new project will work. Maybe this book will give me some answers. Or maybe neither is true. But sitting here this morning, having slept in just a little and typing out something a little dramatic and saccharine but true when I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to say, I cannot help but feel a little hopeful.