The Reason for the Season
I've cracked the code
Hi my name is Liz. I like gossip, the films of Taika Waititi, and friendship between different animal species. I do not like: Taylor Swift, injustice, and DECEMBER.
You know why: the end of things is so very painful; the emotional labor that befalls women this time of year; and most of all, the interminable nights and their attendant SADs.
But here’s something I think I’ve figured out: now is not the time to figure anything out. It is too dark to see clearly. That break from solving life is the true gift of December.
Q4 and its retrospection with best-of lists (easy content, fret not, mine is coming soon!), Spotify wrapped lists, and the illusions of what “the holidays” should look like (i.e. what we should be like) create existential dread. We are asked to celebrate, to take stock of what was, what is, and what we’d like to be.
But here’s the thing: FUCK THAT! I am too damn tired. I am asleep on the couch by 7:30 most nights and fantasizing about installing a fireman’s pole deliver me down to my proper resting place in bed by 8:30.
We are not evolved to take on the current level of activity, all you out there in academia right now know what I’m talking about. I touched on this last time: the darkness tells us it’s time to shut down, yet the demands upon us are at their most stringent. This causes significant internal confusion.
So that’s why I recommend: Do nothing. Stop trying to solve life. Take some pressure off. Figure it out in January. Give your inner life a vacation. Embrace vapidity. Dedicate every ounce of caloric energy to mental hibernation.
I’m always intending to be more present blah blah and strangely, now, in the most loathsome of months, is actually the best time to do it. My channel is too overloaded to get any worthwhile strategizing done (I’m still trying to figure out what to do with my life, tbh). Best to just triage moment by moment. Yes, there are the things that Must Get Done, but I’m avoiding embroidering any kind of big meaning upon any of it. I’m just trying to do the things and make it to the couch. Am I recommending disassociating? Kind of. Frankly we could maybe all benefit from a bit more disassociation from our thoughts because it can end up looking like presence.
Example: 5-7pm is known as Sad Hour in my house. The kids are clinically insane, I am criminally liable due to extreme hunger (why is dinner not at 4pm?!?!?), and I usually decide that this is a great time to multitask and respond to emails while children assault one another/commit property damage. I want to tie up loose ends, get a jump on tomorrow, feel my identity solidified as “professional person” > microwaver of dinner/wiper of butts.
Upon this stage a great psychodrama plays out, starring Yelling & Screaming, Whispered Curse Words, and Daniel Tiger. But yesterday, when the darkness descended at 4 o’clock, I could not muster the energy to retrieve my phone and pack a lunch while the brothers came to fisticuffs before PBS programming. I simply couldn’t even, so instead I submitted to the saccharine tiger and his perfect parents (those adult tigers have zero inner lives, to be sure). I let the songs I have heard so many times wash me over in their familiar strains. (I don’t know who needs to hear this hot tip but: If you have to go potty, stop, and go right away. Flush and wash and be on your way.) I didn’t do anything. I didn’t think anything. My mind was a Buddhist blank of this one moment. In difficult times in my life I have felt a similar freedom within the overwhelm. When things are too incomprehensible and too much, you can only be do so much. Focus on the task at hand. One foot in front of the other. Go through the motions. That’s why the motions exist, after all.
For your palliative December care, might I also recommend:
The saddest songs are always Christmas songs, and this one by zaddy (do we still say this?) Chris Isaak is among the most beautiful.
Reese’s Christmas trees: One of the most validating moments in recent history occurred in the car this weekend with my sister, when I advanced that Reese’s “shapes” (i.e. pumpkins, hearts, Christmas trees) are far superior to your workaday cups, and she instantly knew what I was talking about.
This episode of Tara Brach’s podcast: the guest, Arthur Brooks, is kinda annoying but about midway through Tara defines her reason for all of life and I GASPED.
The borscht at Bathhouse, but here’s the thing: where’s the spa for ugly people? I eavesdropped on the most inane convo by the most beautiful people when I was here. Excerpt:
“I’m getting a haircut.”
[long pause]
“Cool. My agent doesn’t like me to change my look.”
HELP!!! But maybe these gals got the memo re December and not thinking big thoughts? Would pay extra to be around my people, the uggos.
Deadloch: My dream Mad Libs of a show: lady police procedural + onyx comedy + Australians being Australian= platonic viewing experience
Dave Davies reflecting on his Fresh Air career: Love a BTS and there are some stunning moments of tape here.
Rogue by Mona Awad: our sinister authoress has done it again.
Eileen the movie: I forgot how deeply disturbing this story is and some suit surely rained Moshfegh in from depicting her most favorite subject, taking a shit, but this has some devastating Massachusetts indictments and Anne Hathaway is a Hitchockian fatale who gives gives gives and I do not even like Anne Hathaway!!!!
This profile of Flo, a Caity Weaver joint: Would die for CW.
15 days till solstice! What’s getting you through these dark days? Better yet, what are you refusing?