I knew today might be a personally challenging one because I woke up with the theme song to ‘Dawson’s Creek’ stuck in my head. How can a person recover from a start like that? (I don’t want to wait— for our lives to be over— I want to know right now— what will it be?)
Luckily it turned out to be a day I could point to one of my favorite quotes:
"My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened."
- Michel de Montaigne
My kids were sweet, I got to see some great friends, and I find back-to-school season absolutely refreshing. I love new school supplies (even though my boys’ school doesn’t require them), I love new sneakers (just not paying for them), and I love that we all get a fresh start every August/September. When my kids are grown and out of the house, I plan on lurking around a local elementary school like a creeper so I can still take it all in.
Something is brewing over here, and I wonder if something is brewing over at your place, too. I saw two of my dear friends today, Kate and Laura, the ladies from my POD, the friends who saw me through Covid and getting sober and everything that came after. We chatted about family stuff, funny stuff, and occasionally, we’d return to the same worldly question:
“What do we do?”
Kate and I talked about the time I stopped by her house, and we let it all out on her porch. I said the only thing I know right now is we have to keep asking that one question and keep coming back to our talk that day.
Later on when Chip got home and I could sneak a quick break, I listened to Billie Eilish’s album ‘HIT ME HARD AND SOFT’ on my AirPods (essential listening!!!! AirPods or headphones a must!!!) while I jogged on the treadmill. At the end of the song ‘The Diner,’ I heard Billie whispering numbers.
What is she saying? I thought. It started with 310, and having been a past resident of L.A., I thought, That sounds like a phone number.
It took two tries to remember it, but I typed it into a new text on my phone, and I got a response:
Ok, ok, so it’s a cute automated chat bot. Very 2024, Billie. Obviously Billie Eilish superfans figured this out the minute the album came out and talked about it over Reddit threads or some shit, but I just felt proud that I caught the hint. And she said to call, so I called.
Billie “picked up” the phone and said, “Hello? Hello? Are you there, I can’t hear you,” a.k.a. the classic outgoing answering machine message (remember those?) from the 90’s.
As you can see, I saved her number because Billie might want to get in touch someday, the way Barack Obama likes to do to say wasssup.
After my run, the endorphins pumping, my body started to move on its own, the way it does when something is happening but I don’t know what. This happened last year when I started erasing my entire Instagram page post by post.
What am I doing? I thought. No response. Just quiet. So I kept erasing. (Now, as you may know, my instagram page is only an outlet for my stories.]
This is my favorite kind of place to be; the place where I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I just get moving already.
So I completely finished cleaning out my creative space/a second writing space, my Artist’s Den:
Yes, it’s in the basement! Sure there’s not really a ceiling, and sometimes the aroma is *slightly* off, but I have an air purifier and my Peloton husband (same last name) Adrian Williams once said, “A lot of great workouts happen in basements.” A lot of great everything happens in basements, Adrian, and this is why you get me!!!
So I think I’m going to be doing something. What it is, I have no idea, but now there’s a space for it. What are you going to do? Do you have any answers? If so, please get them to me ASAP. In the meantime, life is to be lived, and mid-August/soon-to-be-September means it’s time to boogie. I’ll be following the clues, whether they be secret messages from Billie Eilish or my body turning into a cleaning robot.
As Miranda July said on page 59 of her book ‘All Fours:’
What kind of monster makes a big show of going away and then hides out right nearby?
But this was no good, this line of thought. This was the thinking that had kept every woman from her greatness. There did not have to be an answer to the question why; everything important started out mysterious and this mystery was like a great sea you had to be brave enough to cross. How many times had I turned back at the first ripple of self-doubt? You had to withstand a profound sense of wrongness if you ever wanted to get somewhere new.
Thanks for reading.
XO
Alissa