No Questions Asked
Well today she said well I changed my Mind
I'm broken-hearted
Well I broke down, like a little girl
~~
Like a little girl, I’m at my parents house. My mom makes me dinner at night and lunch in the afternoon. She washes and cuts up fruit for me every morning. I sit in the grass. I hug my dog. I shut my bedroom door.
The Mother is a terrible figure to face. This steady presence, this first comfort, turns out to be ever changing and almost unknowable. I’ve gone to great lengths to know my mother. She worked at a bookstore in the West Village, so I did the same. She got her heart broken in New York and moved back in with her parents. She got her MFA in Santa Cruz at 33. She knows what you did because she’s been you.
My first day here I pull books and spread them out around me. We share a love of cooking, of herbs and beautiful verdant gardens, of postwar French and English novels, of leafy centerpieces, of cotton linens and methods of organization where everything is put away. I think that your 20s are for sorting out your Daddy Issues and your 30s are for sorting out your Mother Issues, which are infinitely more complex, especially if you plan to become a mother yourself. My Daddy issues were external and obvious; my mother issues are a part of my deepest self. Is it necessary to shore up these issues before you procreate? Isn’t it impossible not to give your child some sort of complex that they will have to sort out for themselves? So what does it matter.
Here are my favorite books for dealing with emotional crises, not the kind that needs action, but the kind that percolates slowly in the background of life. They’re not self help or Jungian theory about integrating the shadow or A Course in Miracles, but absorbing books that allow you to forget briefly, to become lost in story.
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
The title alone! Yes, please, take me to Cold Comfort Farm. Funny, sweet, silly, fast paced. Slightly mocking Jane Austen and Nancy Mitford (although one could argue that Mitford was already mocking Austen) without being overly satirical or critical. From the first page one understands that everything will work out as it ought to. Kind of a beach read, but instead start it in the afternoon so you can finish it before bed and drift off to sleep with your mind at ease.
Dune by Frank Herbert
Okay, this one feels like a guilty pleasure in some ways. I find fantasy and sci fi very comforting because they take you away from the real world. This sense of being elsewhere is especially helpful when you don’t want to face what is around you. Lord of the Rings or the Foundation series will do the same, but Dune has something special for the feminine. The Bene Gesserit witches exert control over the Imperium, yes, but they also have special training that gives them complete control over their body, at the smallest function. There is insomnia, no illness, no allowing your cells to betray you. Imagine being trained and conditioned from child to have complete control.
Lapvona by Otessa Moshfegh
Otherwordly – the conflict in this book is likely not something that has happened or will happen to you. Allow it to wash over you, have fun reading the nasty, disgusting description that Moshfegh is famous for. You aren’t going to have a more pathetic life than Marek so everything will seem a little more okay after you put it down.
The Classic Illustrated Sherlock Holmes
What do small griefs matter when a killer is on the loose? Conan Doyle is the best to ever do it for a reason. Plus, these can probably keep you busy for as long as you need distracting. Once you finish the entire collection your life will be different.
Other things to do while you recover:
Try on all the random clothes left from different trips home and months staying there.
Donate all the stuff that you don’t want anymore, and cut the things that are falling apart into rags.
Try on your grandmother’s costume jewelry, and her real jewelry. Imagine.
Work on applications for Master’s programs.
Dig your arms into the dirt and then pull them out and cover the hole.
Put on a strange but still cute outfit and use your old cotton flowy yoga vibe bag and walk to Century City Mall. Get a $22 Matcha Goddess smoothie from Sunlife Organics and wander.
Relearn Samuel Barber’s Pas De Deux on the piano
Forage lavender flowers, passionflowers, and lemon balm. Make them into a strange tea elixir that is calming. Drink with lemon.
“All these, though, are relatively unimportant. There are only three things I need, to make my kitchen a pleasant one as long as it is clean. First, I need space enough to get a good simple meal for six people. More of either would be wasteful as well as dangerously dull. Then, I need a window or two, for clear air and a sight of things growing. Most of all I need to be let alone. I need peace. From there—from there, on the sill of my wide window, the plan is yours. It will include an herb-bed surely, and a brick courtyard for summer suppers.” - MFK Fisher (I do not recommend her writing while upset, as she is too home and hearth oriented. Cooking is so corporeal and utilitarian. We don’t to be reminded of those things right now.)