My Prima Donna Rat Hermit Era
I don’t think of this blog as being primarily about hope, but hope is certainly an undercurrent. Possibly one of my favourite poems that I’ve ever posted is “Hope is Not a Bird, Emily, It’s a Sewer Rat” by Caitlin Seida. It of course refers to the Emily Dickinson poem. In her brilliant book on the writing life, Opacities, Sofia Samatar quotes a friend who talks about “doing an Emily Dickinson” which is to say, disappearing from the internet, and who knows where else. And isn’t it tempting?
But then, also, I think of Simone Weil, and unrelatedly, ageism, or being an artist and writer these days, or being someone of the artist class, and this line by Weil: “Indeed for other people, in a sense I do not exist. I am the colour of dead leaves, like certain unnoticed insects.” I think about my goal, after Rumi, to be the one in the room the least in need. (Bad career move, good soul move). And then, I also think about what Anne Bogart says about how “we have something to learn from the person who has not yet spoken.” (This in the context of civic conversation, the hope and the notion that everyone should be heard). I think of the line from Elizabeth Gilbert who said, “no one is thinking about you” — that salve. And it’s true, it’s really true. What to do with these gifts?
I recently quoted Rebecca Solnit on hope and her saying that “maybe the community is the next hero.” And while I do believe that this is the answer politically, I, a bundle of contradictions myself, also crave the hermit life. At the same time, I also wish to be seen, heard. (Generally speaking, the eternal writer’s conundrum/quest — how to be known and seen but also simultaneously invisible). We want our due and not too late, unlike Jean Rhys, quoted as saying at an award ceremony where she received accolades late in life, late in her career, “It has come too late.” In a James Wood essay in The New Yorker, he said of Rhys, “She lacked hope, but never courage.” In truth, most of us are unlikely to win any awards.
Ah well, it’s courage that’s the thing. It’s not time we lack, said Adam Zagajewski, but concentration. Wouldn’t it be nice to have all in equal measure, hope, courage, concentration.
I included the word EMERGENCE in my list of 25 words for 2025. And here we are way into 2026. Let me repeat part of that here:
Emergence, according to adrienne maree brown (you should really buy her book, just saying) is: “the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.” Emergence, she says, “notices the way small actions and connections create complex systems.”
In an interview on On Being, she says, “…the definition I work with comes from Nick Obolensky. And its emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of relatively simple interactions. So birds flapping their wings, birds in a flock together, is a relatively simple interaction; but birds all doing that together and avoiding predation can become the most complex, gorgeous patterns of murmurations, migration, survival.”
Emergence, murmurations, as hope.
adrienne maree brown asks how can we make the future compelling?
And for me, all I know is that degenerative AI is not part of that. (I know I promised to not talk about AI here again until it cured cancer but it’s hard to escape). The funny part of degenAI is that it’s not only unethical on so many levels, it’s mediocre. Just because it can fool you or trick your eyes or ears a lot of the time now, doesn’t mean it’s good and certainly not excellent. So if you want excellence, why would you want to promote mediocrity? I believe in the right to refusal. And you can use the power that you do have. Your attention is not to be squandered. I feel like right now we have to be extra firm with ourselves on that. I’m very happy to unfollow anyone or any organization that uses AI.
At the same time as we don’t want to squander our talents, we have to be careful where and how we share them now. It’s tricky though right? Annie Dillard in The Writing Life warned us about hoarding, and says that we ought to spend it all every time we write. And that’s true of the process. There’s something, though, to be said for being a bit secretive, playing hard to get. Being the prima donna. I’ve been joking with friends, saying I’m going through my prima donna era, saying I’m not grovelling for invitations but waiting for them on a silver platter these days. Truth is, I’d rather not go where I’m not wanted. And maybe a larger truth is that now is my hermit era. And maybe an even larger truth is that I’m in my Prima Donna Rat Hermit Era. So sue me.
Maybe it’s just time to get back to doing secret good things, bird-like, rat-like, dead leaf-like, with random emergences and murmurations.
Photos: taken by me, as always, a human, in my backyard this past week with my Fujifilm Xt4, duct taped together and everything. Spring snow with last year’s sunflowers.
