Author: Suzannah Kolbeck

Hey, Everyone: Cut Yourself Some Slack

A 1,000 piece mushroom puzzle box, with unassembled puzzle pieces sits on a wood table.
I am perhaps more excited about this than I ought to be.

Just this morning I was writing my morning pages and berating myself for my lack of writing. A familiar trope that I revisit frequently: that I am never doing enough creative work, even when not social distancing and with ample time.

And then Khristian Weeks shared this Instagram post with me:

“Notes from my last residency in Ontario, Canada:
A whole bunch of materials is waiting for its transformation into something we commonly call ‘works of art’. Not only these from Canada, but a lot of other findings from Italy (sea and forests) reside in my studio suspended in this motionless moment. On top of that, new projects and conceptual works reside in my mind for the warm season, and one could think right now, given the quarantine, an artist should have an abundance of time to dedicate to his/her practice.
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What I want to say is that I just don’t feel like doing anything. I just prefer to spend my time deep into this crisis rather than distracting from it.
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Suddenly my work has become something far from what I’m living, something off-topic from what I’m through right now. Everything feels useless or distant. And in the compulsive ways socials are pushing people to do, do, do (on-line courses, exhibitions, flash mobs, virtual gatherings and whatever may sound productive, which I don’t criticize), I want to allow myself just doing nothing.
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It’s strange how death is the only certain thing in this life, jet it shocks and upsets us so deeply.
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I hope and guess that my mood will change again soon as everything is changing fast and I will be going back to my art practice with a different attitude, but for now I’m living through my mood with the effort to not feel guilty about it and it feels good I’m succeeding in this.” @francesca.virginia.coppola

I alternately love it and hate it when someone beats me to a public expression of how I am feeling.

The idea that we (the big, U.S. of A “we”) are being pushed to be productive and busy at the same time this virus has forced us to slow down seems counterintuitive to me, and, for creative people, a direct contradiction to the quiet reflection that is necessary for deep work.

I am a big fan of the idea that creative work is more than just the production of stuff and encompasses the whole wide network of action that includes inaction as well. And that there is tremendous value in removing all of the distraction of busy-ness to sink into creative practice that may or may not have a final product.

People: you don’t need to organize your closets and deep clean your house. You don’t need to re-create your child’s school at home. You don’t need to go into high-speed production of your art, or learn a new skill, or attend a class.

You could, but this is not required.

Nothing is required of you at this moment in time except that you wash your hands, cough/sneeze into your elbow, and don’t touch your face.

Literally, that’s it.

Today, we are watching movies and working on a puzzle (‘shrooms, natch). It will be warm but cloudy, so maybe we will stretch our legs around the block, but maybe not.

Do you feel pressed to “do, do, do,” or are you letting this forced slowdown sink deeply into your bones?

May You Live In Interesting Times: Stinging Nettle

Small but mighty: stinging nettle.

Today Khristian Weeks and I went for a long walk at Lake Roland. Which was great, except it seemed that many other people had the same idea for a long walk before the rain comes tonight.

And then halfway through our walk it struck me that our bodies have become weaponized with this virus. I didn’t really want to be close to people out walking, and any time anyone sneezed it felt dangerous.

Another walker passing by commented that it sure is a shitty time to have allergies. #heard

But then there is the other side of this, the positive things that are beginning to emerge from this ongoing (and much longer than we think, IMVHO) crisis. The U.S. has figured out that yes, we can help everyone, from the poor to the elderly to the uninsured, if we put our mind (and our priorities) to it.

Companies like &pizza are leading the way when it comes to putting workers before profits (and supporting hospital workers), and even nature is beginning to take a deep breath without the constant corrupting influence of humans.

Maybe we are even beginning to appreciate some of the things we have taken for granted. Freedom of movement. Comfort. Toilet paper.

Calm the fuck down on that last one, people. Good lord.

Anyway.

Towards the end of our walk, I spied a little spiky plant next to the path – stinging nettle. Long reviled as an evil weed, this plant is arguably one of the most nutrient-dense plant foods available in the wild. Not only is stinging nettle delicious as food, cooked to remove the sting, but the root extract also helps to relieve allergy symptoms. There is not a ton of research on this, but some studies have been promising. Proceed with caution, as it can also, ironically, cause allergy symptoms.

Stinging nettle is also anti-inflammatory and can be used in tea to treat joint pain.

So this little plant seems to sum up our current global crisis. Yes, there are barbs that must be dealt with, preferably gently and with great care, but in the end there may be innumerable benefits if we can just bring ourselves to look past the prickly outside (and since the virus itself looks spiky, this is also a skillful metaphor. I had the phrase “very skillful metaphor,” but decided it was more obvious than skillful and so eliminated the “very”).

And there we are. Today’s missive, literally from the field.

Wash your hands, don’t touch your face, and cough into your elbow. And take an allergy pill before you go for a walk.

The Introvert Olympics: Social Distancing

How you know it’s serious: boxed wine stores are low at The Wine Source

It’s March 17th, St. Patrick’s Day if you care about that sort of thing. The sun is shining, mostly, and Khristian and I are practicing social distancing from everyone but each other.

I have taken the cat for a walk (which is funny), and we have gone to my house for a re-stock on books and supplies for gluten-free scones. I am about to crack a pineapple cider (Austin Eastciders) and maybe will continue to read aloud from Michael Pollan’s book A Place of My Own, dreaming of a day when Canada opens its borders back to people in the U.S. and we can start building our little shack.

It’s strange times, these, and I have to have some sort of plan for myself to keep anxiety at bay. So far I am not great at doing the right things (e.g., staying off social media and not compulsively checking the news), but I am writing this instead of doing those things. Perhaps I will do this daily, write a dispatch, so to speak, and send it into the void as everyone learns how to work at home and crowds onto the internet like the train platforms they used to stand on for their daily commute. I have a few recipes to work on from recent travels, and those will happen in the next week or so.

How will you spend this time of quietly reflected madness where we try not to peer too deeply into the darkness of what might be?

Wash your hands, don’t touch your face, and cough into your elbow.

Yours in the apocalypse, Suzannah

Apropos Of Nothing (With Brownies)

A chocolate nut brownie sits on a marble countertop in front of a cut glass bowl and a brick wall.
The end pieces are the best pieces. #FightMe

Apropos of nothing, I have come across the following proverb from William Blake: “The cut worm forgives the plow.”

I don’t feel the need to belabor the point, but it got me thinking. Who is the plow in my life?

Also, remember the World’s Best Brownies that I crowed about (linked for your convenience)?

Well, throw that recipe out, because I just made the basic brownie recipe from The Joy of Cooking, 1997 edition, and I believe, firmly, that this is the best recipe for brownies ever. I made it with my gluten-free flour blend, reduced the sugar by a smidge because I used bittersweet chocolate, and needed to bake it for much longer than the recipe time, but good lord. These are the best brownies I have ever eaten. Crispy, shiny top, deep chocolate flavor, and the best mouthfeel/chew of any brownie I have perhaps ever had.

Turns out, more sugar + real chocolate = amazing brownies.

Also, kudos to Austin Kleon, an artist/writer I have recently started following again after a dust-up on Twitter caused me to block him in a fury many years ago (the internet makes me sensitive). There is still something about him that rubs me the wrong way, but I am enjoying his lists and (nearly) daily blog. So maybe more of that in this year – short missives instead of a once-monthly tome.

Who is the plow in your life?

Happy 2020?

I cannot decide if this is a good sign or a bad omen.

As I write this, it’s nearly 2020, the last Saturday night of the decade, to be precise. I am alone, lying snugged under a blanket and biting my fingernails to the quick as I alternate between watching season three Better Things and scrolling through Instagram.

It’s not an unusual way for me to spend a Saturday night in general; the only thing that sets this one mildly apart is an unusually strong craving for a brownie sundae and the fact that this is right around the time when I think of the upcoming year.

I do wish, just once, that the end of the year found me looking back with warm contentment at the preceding 12 months, not white-knuckling it into the next year. This past Thursday night, a friend of mine was attacked by 15+ kids and beaten, sent to shock trauma the day after Christmas on what should have been a fairly routine Thursday night reading of Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans at Khristian’s studio in the CopyCat building.

We were waiting for our friend who had just texted that he would be at the door in a minute. When he didn’t arrive after texting, a quick glance up the street at the police cars and ambulance told the story – just a block away and a minute or two after his text, he was knocked off his bike and set upon by a roving group of kids with nothing better to do and a whole lot of despair to expel.

He is better than he might have been had it not been stopped so quickly. Quick intervention by a mail carrier, concerned neighbors, and an uneasy feeling from Khristian meant that from beginning to end the whole incident lasted about ten minutes. Enough time to shove him around and shatter an ankle, but thankfully not much more (other than the trauma of the attack, which I am certain felt like a lifetime).

Seems odd, maybe, but this incident got me thinking again about home.

I have been back in Charm City for almost six years now. I grew up in western Maryland and went to college at UMBC, spending several years in Fells Point when Harbor East was a wasteland of abandoned warehouses and Druid Hill Park was still a place you didn’t go after 5 pm. I was once pinned down in a rowhouse by gunfire in my capacity as a counselor for women in transitional housing, and I saw my first dead body on the sidewalk in front of The Buttery (the restaurant featured in the movie Seven and has now been replaced by what is referred to as the “Ouija 7-Eleven“).

The city has always been dangerous.

But this feels different.

When Sicily and I came to visit after Dane died in 2013, we felt like we were coming home, but since I have been here it hasn’t fit quite right.

I love my house. I love my street. I have built a community here, in my neighborhood and among the people I have met. I have been lucky in my work and in the friends I have cultivated.

But it doesn’t feel like home.

I thought Baltimore would be the place where I would feel settled, and although there is a familiarity about it, and it is more home than anywhere else I have been, it’s not quite the comfort I have been seeking. I don’t feel held in the bosom of this place as much as I thought I would.

In this city that could be so great, with so many brilliant people from all walks of life and such a perfect location and size, there is so much daily desperation and pain that I find it hard to leave the house some days.

Is this the midlife crisis, the actual one instead of the one brought on by Dane’s death, where I make bad choices and rash decisions?

Super possible.

Fast forward four days – it’s New Year’s day, and I have been awake since 4, out well before midnight. I have already walked the Loch Raven Reservoir (found the new friend in the picture above), painted, edited some poetry, and felt regret for a decision I made last night. Khristian always says you feel lighter if the decision is a good one, but I don’t feel light. I am not sure if it matters.

The tone of the post is rambly and ranging – from New Year’s resolutions (eat more Daim cookies) to brutal attacks to what makes home and now finally bad decisions.

I don’t know what to say, but I feel compelled to write, and as this is my party, I will cry (write) if I want to, platform be damned.

I do wish everyone the happiest of new years. Hopefully, it’s a damn sight better than the last one.