Contellations No. 7

Not giving up

Hello and welcome to Constellations No. 7-

I am sure I have never looked forward to spring with such ardor as I have this year. As I wrote about recently in Pocket Change, a new arm of this newsletter, time seems to be revolving around the moment exactly one year and two days ago when I became a cancer patient. The experience was like being plucked from Earth and spun around in another planet’s orbit. I am returning now to spring where I departed from its cusp last year, and still unpacking the inscrutable distance I traveled.

Adding to the disorientation, winter here in northern Michigan has been unpredictable and dramatically warmer than usual, like so many places experiencing the alarming impacts of climate change. Little ice formed on the Great Lakes through the winter, and snowfall was far below the annual average in most parts of the state. A few weeks back, in late February, my kids and I lingered outside in tee shirts one afternoon, only to burrow inside by the fire the next morning during a blizzard. We are not experiencing a linear path through the seasons, or any reassurance of what is to come. 

This volatility is deeply unsettling - there is no guarantee that anything is going to happen the same way it has in the past. What is happening outside feels strikingly parallel to my experience of cancer recovery so far. One day there is forward momentum and growth; the next day sheltering and stillness; I never know exactly what I am going to get. I am reckoning with a body that will not be the same as it was before. The natural world, once again, provides a striking metaphor.  

With growing distance from the most wrenching moments of cancer treatment, I am aware of both the striking good fortune of my outcome as well as the residual grief of it lingering in every part of me. I find myself still in the uneasy zone of unfinished business. I check off my ongoing infusion treatments one by one, and cross my fingers that no new side effects will show up. I tinker with my daily medications. I wonder if I am safe now, or when, if ever I’ll be free of worry that my cancer will return. I relish boring days, when there is no need to rush to the ER or wait in medical offices. I bow to my body and my mind for the hell it traversed. Cancer, with its multifold repercussions and implications, continues to humble me.

Spring, too, is a model of messy transition. Subtle processes and crucial growth are rumbling under the dirt, and within the tree trunk–in ways mostly invisible to us. Tiny increments of change happen inside the branches so that we may finally see a burst of green materialize. These massive transformations only sometimes progress on the timeline we hope they will.

And so, I look to this season for patience. I take small steps each day, reminding myself that there is growth happening even when it is invisible and slow. I make choices to fortify my well being: strengthening my body, cooking and eating well, keeping my stress level low, and nurturing my mental health by getting outside, seeking beauty and humor, spending slow weekends with my family, and time with friends.

As you’ll read below, I’ve been settling into a new studio space and investing time in developing my writing practice. For the first time in 15 years, I have the itch to oil paint again. In these increments I engage with an important contract with myself: to invest in the work that feels most genuine to me, I must begin to let go of irrelevant self-imposed categories and boundaries. To remain open to what might come, I let myself give in to the messy unfolding, whether I agree with its pace or not. So much has changed in me - why wouldn’t the things I make change too? 

Even when replete with doubt, I attempt to trust that the next season will be all the sweeter because of these muddy months of prelude. I hope that as the earth turns farther toward the sun, we will gradually cross a threshold leaving this winter firmly behind. Birdsong will become louder. Light and shadow will begin to shift and soften.

Impossibly, we will edge toward summer. 

Lindsay

NEWS

My New Studio

For just more than a decade, I have made a studio space in every one of our homes. First it was a creaky kitchen table in our small San Francisco apartment where I drew during my first daughter’s newborn naps. Then it was a desk in a basement room in our slightly more grown-up apartment. After that, I crammed my art supplies into a small sun porch in our first home in Oakland. Most recently in northern Michigan, I took over an extra bedroom that looks out at the lake. I have loved and appreciated these spaces over the years. None of them were perfect, but crucially, they were mine.

But after a year that kept me home for long stretches, I felt ready to shake it up. At the start of 2024 I made a promise to myself to start looking for studio space, and as luck would have it, I found one just a few days later in a building full of other artists in nearby Traverse City. As a bonus, I’m just across the hall from amazing artist friends Katherine Corden, Brianne Farley and Alyssa Smith.  Renewing my investment in myself and my work feels like a big deal, and so far I’m proud of myself for not turning my commitment into undue pressure.

2024 Farm Club Calendars

Sales of the 2024 Farm Club calendar benefitting Leelanau Conservancy totaled more than $5,000! Thank you for your support and enthusiasm for this annual collaborative project. Preorders for the 2025 calendar will begin in November 2024 - so (wink) mark your calendars.

IN MY KITCHEN LATELY

A few weeks ago Farm Club hosted writer Tamar Adler in conversation with Nic Theisen. Adler’s latest book, The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: leftovers A-Z, is a love letter to the scraps and bits that remain after cooking and eating is done. Her gorgeous 2011 book The Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace, set the stage for this one, which offers an encyclopedic array of ideas and recipes for the leftovers you have put away with good intentions but don’t know what to do with. 

Adler’s scrappy cooking ethos is rooted in the idea of love and respect for the food we eat, and using our resources with care and intention. I enjoyed listening to her speak about finding inspiration in her mother’s cooking and travel; making her way cooking at Prune, Blue Hill at Stone Barns and Chez Panisse; and her few unsuccessful attempts to pull away from her passion for cooking and writing. She spoke eloquently about collaborating with artist Caitlin Winner who created the book’s oil painting illustrations that celebrate the beauty in mundane moments of cooking - an orange peel, a broccoli stem, a broken egg. Read more about the book on NPR and Vogue.

A BRIGHT LIGHT

At the start of February, I began a year-long writing workshop with the writer Summer Brennan, called A Year of Writing Dangerously centered on the commitment to a daily writing practice. I have written nearly every day since the beginning of February, showing up to write a few lines even when I think I have nothing to say. Brennan aids this process by providing optional prompts and guidelines and, most importantly, by supplying permission to write about topics one might otherwise shy away from for fear of being mundane. The practice has helped me stop to notice, become more aware of my daily observations, and develop the courage and habit to do something with them- writing them down, pushing myself to look more closely, or connecting one thought to another. Looking back on the pages I’ve written in the last six weeks is an encouraging testament to doing a little bit of something everyday, and having faith in the creative process.

POEMS FOR THE MOMENT

Ada Limón
Instructions on Not Giving Up

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

---

Jane Hirshfield
Da Capo

Take the used-up heart like a pebble
and throw it far out.

Soon there is nothing left.
Soon the last ripple exhausts itself
in the weeds.

Returning home, slice carrots, onions, celery.
Glaze them in oil before adding
the lentils, water, and herbs.

Then the roasted chestnuts, a little pepper, the salt.
Finish with goat cheese and parsley. Eat.

You may do this, I tell you, it is permitted.
Begin again the story of your life.