Dead Letter Department #37

(did you miss Dead Letter Department #36? read about changing cities & rose gardens here!)

weather report

I spent most of Saturday morning driving around to different corners of my neighborhood for the big yearly garage sale. Someone—I don’t know who—has finally dragged us into the information age, meaning the map was actually available online. In past years you only knew where to go if you could find the photocopied directions shoved into boxes scattered around some lightly convenient locations, so I usually just selected sales at random based on vibes. This year signs were still up, but they had QR codes to scan for the map & all the sales had a little description pinned so you knew approximately what was on offer. It was almost alarmingly well organized.

The first house had all of the neighbors piled up outside excitedly chatting about their own garage sales, and the second was spilling over with discarded art supplies from a bookmaker, including a paper press that I stroked very lovingly while having a firm conversation with myself about not accumulating objects for hobbies I don’t actually have, especially not ones that require both skill & money, like book making. I did get tracing paper, which I’m probably just going to write letters on.

Then I set off to try & find the house that was advertising handmade bowls. It can be hard to navigate in the core of that area because all the blocks are split in half by alleyways & the alleyways are not named, so the maps online just show you a puzzling mystery street wedged between, say, Williams & Monroe, which turns out to be a very narrow dirt road stuffed full of gardens & various outdoors equipment.

When I finally emerged from the maze in front of the bowl-selling house, the guy turned out to be totally charming.

“It’s made of FOG wood,” he said. “Do you know what that is?”

Reader, I did not.

“Found on ground!” he announced, and then went on to explain that he collects wood he finds & helps his elderly neighbors with their trees in exchange for the cuttings, & then makes these lovely bowls out of them. I bought an objectively ridiculous amount for one person, but I love them all & immediately put things in them when I got home, so obviously I had a great untapped need for handmade wooden bowls.

The final stop was supposedly an estate sale, which it might have been, but was also clearly the home of someone who struggled with hoarding disorder, & the sale seemed to be happening in stages to deal with the various layers of accumulation. The weirdly personal glimpse into another life is one of the things I love about events like this—otherwise how would I know that the ladies with the box turtle that periodically gets lost are sisters, & both artists? Sometimes the fractured little view you get is quite painful, & it’s always complicated further when someone is a hoarder, because the disorder is so overwhelmingly misunderstood & difficult to treat.

Whoever had lived there had amazing collections: old tools, huge piles of signed & numbered art prints, a strangely enticing bag full of miniature pairs of scissors. All I got, though, was a landscape, somewhat oddly matted onto a background of leather, a moonlit view of ship masts rising over a fog-enshrined bay.

This is all part of the small scale space refreshing I’ve been trying to do the past couple weeks, along with knocking some long-deferred things off the always overflowing to do list. My friend sent me a TikTok recently where a woman was talking about how much fucking energy she had before the pandemic, how much she could get done, but it’s all vanished now & I feel exactly the same. I understand how it happened, & to some degree why it’s lingering (the pandemic isn’t over, isn’t really going to be over, this is just how things are now). The question is—what do I do now?

The current method of trying to slowly scrape together enough energetic force to keep the bus rolling forward slowly is completely exhausting. I feel like I’ve spent the past many months with my shoulder to the back of something enormous. When we’re on a downhill slope it’s not terrible, but the slightest rise in the terrain makes the whole business agonizing & my reserves are absolutely stripped. I don’t actually even remember what it’s like to feel full of energy, or overflowing with creative ideas. I used to have to keep a numbered list of new ideas to work on, otherwise I’d lose track of them completely. What happened to that guy?!

I know I can’t drive on a dry tank forever, so how do I start refilling that reservoir? I truly don’t even know what would begin to help at this point. I remember (sort of) what I used to do, the routines, the rituals. I don’t remember how it felt, though, to have them succeed. When I try to recreate it, it feels a little like going through the motions of prayer for a religion I don’t believe in any more, which seems a shockingly clear sign that I need to move on to new forms. I’ll keep you posted if I manage to dig some fresh ones up—and if you beat me to it, for the love of God write & tell me what you’ve found at departmentofdeadletters@gmail.com

one good thing

One of the endless, far-ranging lists I inexplicably insist on keeping is for music I want to listen to. I am a hold out in that I haven’t gotten into any streaming services—there’s a little possessive goblin inside that wants to OWN the music I fall in love with, not just have it accessible when the algorithm gods make it available (& risk getting mass Mandela effected when things are changed on the fly) so I buy a fair number of albums, but my budget refuses to keep pace with my desires. However, as in so many things, the local library has come through for me. I put a bunch of new music on hold recently & best bro of the podcast reminded me that Fiona Apple had a fairly recent album, which I am now obsessed with, especially this song.

If you need something to angrily chant while you stomp through your day, I highly recommend it.

If you like the newsletter, please share it with a friend. I hope to see you here at the Dead Letter Department again soon, & in the meantime, may your own reservoirs start to feel the steady stream of a thorough rainstorm starting somewhere close enough to smell.