But How?
In many wisdom traditions, from Buddhism to 12 Steps, we are told again and again that we must surrender. Give up the fight. I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately. But what is worthy of our surrender? And just how the hell does it happen?
I think it has something to do with going to Bergen Spa and getting beat the fuck up. (This is a sidebar letter of recommendation for Bergen Spa, the happiest place in Brooklyn where you can get your feet and back rubbed for an hour at a reasonable price if you are willing to pay in all cash and grave discomfort to your person.)
My back and neck were seriously jacked the other day because I’d been transcribing an interview in bed and somehow overextended my arms, which is about as close to an on-the-job injury you can sustain as a writer. So, I went to see my man Calvin at BS. I used to resist his witchy fingers and knobby thumbs by saying ow ow ow, pleas that went largely ignored. Now, I let Calvin do his bidding on me. It doesn’t feel good, per se, but I do enjoy it. That’s a bit of surrender. Walking home, an enormous rat skittered across my path and I screamed only on the inside. The rats are out of hibernation, must be spring!
I’m with child again and housing a growing parasite, that’ll give you some surrender. Or at least it should, in theory. I meet the inflation of my midsection and its surrounding regions with resistance and spite. I’ve never been fond of my stomach, even as a teenager when I thought I was fat (HAHAHAHAHA), and I'd imagined pregnancy would be the opportunity to enjoy a Rubenesque proportionality. Alas, I find I can never escape my insecurities or internalized misogynistic beauty standards from this demented culture, even under the auspices of motherhood, which is supposed to make you self-abnegating and holy or something. I envy mothers of yore who didn’t have to contend with pictures of their younger selves up in the club popping up on social media memory timelines. I know my increasing stomach and everything else means baby is growing blah blah. My pregnancy is a tremendous blessing, I am aware and I am grateful. I am also vain and petty as hell. Some women look like they stuck a basketball under their shirts and flaunt visible triceps and cheekbones. I, on the other hand, can wear only bedsheets past the 24-week mark. Some people enjoy being pregnant, embrace it, even. I loathe those people.
I listened to this great clip of RuPaul and Joan Rivers (I will consume any material with or about those two any minute, any day) the other night after Theo was in bed when I busted out the watercolors to paint an homage to the Real Housewives of Atlanta.
[please tilt your head, I don't know how to flip this image!!!]
Rivers, now there’s a gal who did not go gently into that good night. She refused to surrender to aging, maybe less than gracefully? Or was she the most graceful? I can’t tell. Is she a cautionary tale or do we love her for the surgeries? She wouldn’t be Joan without them, that’s for sure. Her artificial feline features strike me especially because I’ve been finding solace in going deep on Reddit threads about tummy tucks and researching cheap recovery houses in Miami, because it sounds kinda nice to convalesce Phantom Thread-style, all the while knowing you have new titties awaiting you. One is supposed to be above all of this, as a feminist, a wannabe intellectual, an authoress…. And yet. To surrender to the ravages of two geriatric pregnancies to one’s person, to aging generally, or nah?
I'm grappling with all this aging stuff generally, and specifically because today is my birthday. (Older friends, tell me I'M YOUNG! I'M READY!) I like getting older, spiritually and emotionally, if not so much physically. I’m probably supposed to resist to the urge to tell you it's my birthday, because, ya know, maturity, etc. But I’m a Taurus sun and Leo rising AF and sometimes my Leo shows! It’s a birthday thirst trap, a birthtrap, if you will.
Maybe the thing about surrendering is training yourself to differentiate what’s worth the fight and where it makes more sense to give up. I know, as a 38-year-old woman, I’m not supposed to get it up for my birthday because it’s tacky as hell, like asking my fifty best girlfriends to chip in for a handbag. (Skip to 4:20 if you are so spiritually and culturally deprived to not know what I’m talking about.)
But not today. There are other good places to surrender. That must be the point, figuring out what’s worth surrendering to and what’s not. If you know, you should send me an email. In the meantime, I'm going to hang out in the cherry blossoms.
I recommend:
Going to the movies!!! I made my triumphant return to The Nitehawk to see Minari and Shiva Baby both of which are great. I nearly cried dumping M&Ms into the popcorn.
Is it weird to recommend Allen v. Farrow? Yeah, it is, but let the record reflect I came for the mess, not the molestation.
Under the Influence podcast So much more than its title and ostensible subject, it’s a meditation on modern womanhood.
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets So good, so weird, verité that picks up where the Maysles left off. Watch it with the captions on.
Alice Neel at the Met. I wept before her self-portrait.
Songs My Brother Taught Me, Chloé Zhao's first (!) film
The Forty-Year-Old Version, hands down one of my favorite movies as of late. One I could have playing in the background of my life, forever and always.
And some personal news…. but it’s all personal news, isn’t it?
Love Lockdown comes into the world on July 13 and you can pre-order it here, if you feel so inclined.
Mega Bestseller and personal hero Lisa Taddeo sez:
“I started reading this book and couldn't stop. there's nothing quite so beguiling as impossible love affairs, but what sets this book apart is the empathy and normalcy with which Greenwood writes about her subjects. It's a clear-eyed, compassionate look at prison love stories, and I found every relationship riveting.”
THANKS I’M BLUSHING!
The first review of Love Lockdown came out in Publisher’s Weekly and I think it’s good? I will heretofore respond only to “Journalist Greenwood,” k thx.
I lent my peculiar expertise to Lifetime for their movie of the week Death Saved My Life. I live for the editing and stock photography choices in this video. My resistance to investing in a professional blowout to appear on national television? Not so much.
I reviewed some excellent books for the SF Chronicle, including Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America by Alec MacGillis and the truly sublime Want Me: A Sex Writer’s Journey Into the Heart of Desire by Tracy Clark-Flory, which Book Marks deemed a Best Review of the Week!
What are you recommending these days?