Included Below: Accidents / White Squirrel / Crying in H Mart / The Brain Changes / Dreams of Being a Kiwi. Click HERE for further information about this newsletter. To those from before and those who are new-
I. WELCOME
How will things be remembered?
I’ve written before how I believe artists will be an important part in trying to explain what the hell happened over the last year. If they can survive, that is. Obviously, I don’t mean from a scientific perspective, but a cultural one. Although, I do wonder if people will want to just make this collectively personal experience something that happened in the past? Or will we just not be interested - we lived through it, we don’t need to see it dramatized right now thank you very much. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
A few years ago, I was in a serious car accident where I got hit by two trucks (weird segue, but it’ll make sense in the end). It was intense. I had trouble sleeping for a long time because the memories appeared every time I shut my eyes. From what I read, after a traumatic incident, memories start forming within hours, and if they are not countered, they can solidify into post traumatic stress disorder. What happens when people have been continually traumatized for over a year, and for a variety of different reasons? Maybe the memories just haven’t had time to solidify? What happens when they do? What are the after effects?
I think stories are shaped from memories, but sometimes it’s difficult without the aid of time and distance. From The Atlantic: “We’re already shaping our future pandemic narratives - the stories we will tell as individuals, as communities, as societies, and as nations about this epoch. How we tell our stories can transform how we move forward from hard times.” There are numerous studies about collective storytelling, the social construct of autobiographical memory, and cultural narratives. Personally, I don’t know yet how I will talk about this experience in two, five, or ten years.
What I do know is that about a month after my car accident, I stood up in front of a roomful of people and told the story of what happened at a Stories We Don’t Tell event. I was terrified because due to complications from the accident, I developed a stutter and had difficulties with word searching. For what it’s worth, it helped me put the situation in perspective. And I believe it did help me heal faster. I do respect if people will just want to move on, but I hope there is some degree of facing the many injustices, inequity, and psychological damage that many have suffered.
In The Plague by Albert Camus, the protagonist Dr. Bernard Rieux wasn’t able to save many people, and he couldn’t begin to say what it all meant. By the end of The Plague, you come to believe, with Rieux, that at least it meant something for him to bear witness; he bore witness to suffering. Not every story is redemptive—there are other kinds of great stories in the world, and bearing witness is an important one. It’s possible that’s the best most of us can do this year. Sometimes you just have to come to terms with the world as it is, and to human beings as they are, rather than how we wish the world and people were. In the worst of times, even as many people surprised us with their indifference, ignorance, racism, and aggression, other people—some of them friends and colleagues, some total strangers—managed to cross barriers and offer us kindness, compassion, alliance, and strength. — Melissa Fay Greene / How Will We Remember COVID-19 / The Atlantic.
Q - A very unscientific poll: when we can see shows again - comedy, music, improv, storytelling, etc. - do you want to hear about the last year? Yes or no? Bonus points for providing a quick reason why.
II. TALES FROM THE DREAM ROOM
Each month welcomes an exclusive story from a parallel world.
The Dream Room is a place that where everything is interconnected. The sights and sounds and people that inhabit this world feel familiar. The tales pulled from the Dream Room are sometimes true and sometimes fiction, they may scare you or make you laugh. The Dream Room is a place not to be taken lightly and if you’re ready to enter, read the excerpt below and click on the link for the full story.
WHITE SQUIRREL: From then on, Tom returned to the park every day with a supply of nuts. And every day he sat down on the same bench. And every day the white squirrel returned. Tom had not realized just how starved he was for any type of connection with another living being. The government had ordered everyone to stay at home to stop the spread of the fires. But how long can people go without talking to each other? All these touch-starved people, so close, but unable to reach out.
Feeding the white squirrel every day provided the space in Tom’s mind to process things, to lay his life out in front of his eyes, and attempt to understand his choices, his decisions, and what direction he wanted to head towards. What he didn’t expect was the crushing feelings of loneliness that hit him like waves. He mostly managed well on his own, even seemed to thrive. And after the ghosts arrived, he only saw a solitary life in front of him. And he thought he had accepted this.
When the government ordered everyone to stay home, he was okay with it. This was something he was used to, and something he knew he could deal with in an appropriate manner. He conducted himself well, despite the ghosts, into a routine that enabled him to survive. But, he kept running into the same thought - what was the point of all this? Tom asked the squirrel, but he didn’t know. What a simple life, Tom thought. A singular focus. Nuts, just nuts. That’s all the squirrel had to worry about.
Read the whole story at this link.
Q - Where is a place for you that makes you feel relaxed and able to think?
III. PAUL’S PICKS.
A recommendation of something watched, read, or listened to.
I’m always up for someone writing about loss in an authentic way. Michelle Zauner does just that in her book Crying in H Mart. This is a memoir about the author losing her mother, but as in the very best writing, it’s also about what she learned and gained. In telling the story of her mother, she explores identity through food, memory, and her experiences of growing into a musician. The book started as this article in The New Yorker from 2018.
I do like a multi-talented person who is able to express themselves across many platforms. In a way, creativity is all coming from a central place, right? Crying in H Mart was a gateway into Zauner’s music as Japanese Breakfast, which I also highly recommend. A music video is included below.
Now that she was gone, there was no one left to ask about these things. The knowledge left unrecorded died with her. What remained were documents and my memories, and now it was up to me to make sense of myself, aided by the signs she left behind. How cyclical and bittersweet for a child to retrace the image of their mother. For a subject to turn back to document their archivist. The memories I had stored, I could not let fester. Could not let trauma infiltrate and spread, to spoil and render them useless. They were moments to be tended. The culture we shared was active, effervescent in my gut and in my genes, and I had to seize it, foster it so it did not die in me. So that I could pass it on someday. The lessons she imparted, the proof of her life lived on in me, in my every move and deed. I was what she left behind. — Michelle Zauner / Crying in H Mart.
Q - Any recommendations on other multi-platform artists?
IV. FROM THE ARCHIVES.
An old story brought to you in a new way.
THE BRAIN CHANGES (November, 2010): I’ve been fascinated by the brain, memories, and neuroscience since, well, at least November 2010. This is a three part series that explores some research into neuroscience along with some personal stories.
The first part is about how it wasn’t that long ago that we believed the brain didn’t change. The second part is all about phantom limbs, which I’m endlessly curious about. And the third part discusses mirror boxes and how they work.
As we grow into adulthood, our memories – much like the neurons in the brain – change, fade away and recreate themselves. Those incorrectly labeled ‘firm’ connections become hazy. Maturity shapes memories into proof of how we define and redefine ourselves. Sometimes this definition can be fictional, a narrative based on faulty research. Change is required. Neuroplasticity shows us that nothing is random, the memories can assert themselves, change over time, reconform the definition into a truth that is closer to reflecting our internal beliefs. We can let go of the hold that some memories have over us, we can shape our experiences not into the person that is the sum of a series of collective connections, but into the person that we hope to be.
Read the first part of this series here.
Q - Does a specific art-form - music, movies, etc. - trigger memories for you the most?
V. WATCH, LISTEN, READ, OR DO.
Something to take with you.
In anticipation of releasing my new book, I’m going to be doing ongoing free releases of some old stuff. If you’d like an ebook of Dreams of Being a Kiwi, just write me an email and let me know. I can send over a Kindle or Apple Books version. There is also some audio excerpts from the book over on my podcast.
Here’s what Dreams of Being a Kiwi is about: Our hero hit rock bottom long ago. Suffering from a debilitating mental illness, he finds himself tucked away in a hospital. Despair kicks in and he sees no way out of the darkness. Then a kiwi comes along and brings hope into his existence. He soon fills his days and nights with dreams of travelling across the world to a new and peaceful life.
Dreams are different from reality. He can only plan his plane tickets, ferry rides, and cross-country trips so far. When he finally takes the leap towards his goal, he finds adventure, love, and battles with the greatest foe of all: himself.
Q - Have you been working on any creative projects you’d be comfortable sharing with me?
You’ve probably noticed that I’ve included a question at the end of each section. No, this isn’t required homework. However, if you are compelled to write to me with your thoughts, I would love to hear from you. Who knows, I might even share some of the answers in future newsletters (anonymously, of course). Email me here: jpd@pauldore.com.
May 2021 Edition: Old and New / Mind the Gap / Walking in Place / Backwards in Time / Stories We Don’t Tell Podcast.