Into the fall
It's been a while! Hello!
Here's a funny story: The other night I went out to the Newberry Library for a book talk by architecture critic Lee Bey and artist Amanda Williams. I had preordered Bey's book Southern Exposure, about the overlooked architecture of Chicago's South Side, a while ago as a gift, but I wound up keeping it for myself after it arrived in the mail and sat on my porch in its envelope in the rain for an afternoon and got a little water-warped.
Anyway, the point is I already had the book so when the Newberry gift shop ran out of copies before the talk had even started, it didn't affect me. (It's a good book! You should get it.) But, in the gift shop, as I waited for the event to start and watched the staff apologize to disappointed patrons, I browsed the shelves. Not to my great surprise, the two books I have edited about Chicago were not included in their extensive collection of books about the city, but it didn't seem like a terrible stretch that they could be. So I went over to the register and asked if there was a buyer or manager around. The woman working the table pointed me to her colleague behind me, and as I turned around the second woman -- the manager -- looked at me patiently, took my measure, and said, "What can I do for you sweetie?"
I froze. I knew in a flash what she was thinking: how to get rid of this random stranger, who was probably about to try to sell her a self-published book of poetry about cats, or maybe BY cats, as politely as possible. I've been in her shoes. I know the feeling -- anyone who's worked a customer service or otherwise public-facing job has. "Never mind," I choked. And I fled to the lobby.
What the hell? In that moment it seemed like every instance in which I've ever felt invisible, worthless, delusional to think that I had anything to offer that anyone might want, had for a hot second flooded my body, and overrode all logic. Run! God it's so embarrassing. I can't believe I'm even telling you this!
But anyway, the point is, I recovered. I went out to the car and got some copies of my books, and went back into the gift shop with a sheepish smile and a business card and explained what I was about and we all apologized -- because of course we were all women -- about how awkward that had been, and they promised to look into stocking the books, and we all parted friends. This, it occurred to me later is, in some teensy way, an example of human resilience. To be able to extend yourself enough to imagine that the people in front of whom you just behaved like a complete nut job will, actually, not hold it against you. That they might laugh with you in solidarity about how frustrating book distro can be a scant 10 minutes later.
We put ourselves out there so randomly, in so many ways, and are slapped down again and again, with malice or by accident. How anyone finds the core strength to keep going is a mystery and a miracle. And yet, for the most part, we do. It's quite an amazing thing.
The next night I went to another book event (October is a big book month you guys), this one at the Puerto Rican Museum of Arts and Culture in Humboldt Park. It was a talk between anthropologist and generally brilliant thinker Yarimar Bonilla and Chicago alderman and lovely person Rossana Rodriguez, about the book Bonilla had co-edited, Aftershocks of Disaster. The book is a collection of photos and writing -- poetry and prose and a play -- about the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, and it is beautiful and inspiring. It also has some things to say about resilience -- a term that was thrown about a lot in the wake of the storm to praise the DIY can-do spirit of Puerto Ricans in the face of the overwhelming catastrophe of both the storm and the inadequate government response that followed. Resilience is fine and good to a point, Bonilla points out in the book (and reiterated at the talk), but it can also let the system off the hook. It's all too easy for resilience to become "a pressure valve for the responsibilities of the state.... jargon for simply adapting to, rather than confronting or transforming unacceptable conditions."
It is of course a preposterous stretch to connect momentary personal humiliation to a Category 5 hurricane, but this is my newsletter and there are only 68 of you reading it, so I'm going to go for it. I appreciate and respect what muscles of resilience I've been able to develop in a lifetime; you probably do too. Without them, none of us would get through the damn day. But more and more, louder and louder, I'm asking myself: what are the unacceptable condition to which I am adapting? And how can I confront them; transform them even?
This is I think both a function of age, and a function of the times in which we live -- in which as writers we are asked to be selling ourselves 24/7, even when attending an innocuous book talk (I enjoyed this recent essay on this very subject), and in which as citizens we are asked to adapt to an ever-more catastrophic set of conditions and make it work, as it's clear the state has no interested in stepping in to help, if -- in truth -- it is any longer capable of doing so.
At some point during their talk, Bonilla and Rodriguez drove home the point that resilience is not an individual attribute. It exits in relationship with each other, is fostered by trust and the faith that we're not in this alone. Whether it's the trust that the bookstore manager will hear you out or the trust the community -- your block club, your social network, your union -- will have your back, it's all a continuum of care.
As I write this it's a dark and stormy night here in Chicago. Our teacher's strike is looking to stretch into its third week, pushing union members and CPS families to new heights of creative resilience. The new mayor announced last week that the South Side, with all its beautiful overlooked buildings and all its empty lots, is supposed to be getting an infusion of needed investment in the coming years, but locals are already skeptical that this flash of cash will only line the pockets of developers rather than truly transforming neighborhoods. And Donald Trump is supposedly coming here on Monday, an unacceptable condition to which I suspect few in this city are inclined to further adapt.
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What's up in the rest of my world?
I got to combine two of my favorite things -- haunted houses and Puerto Rico -- in this piece I wrote about a colonialism-themed haunted house being staged on Halloween here in Chicago for PRI/The World this week.
The Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook continues to be well received around town -- there was a nice review in South Side Weekly last week, and a great interview with contributor Nicholas Ward ran earlier this month in LoganSquarist. And, since we're speaking of the trials of perpetual selling, if you enjoyed the book and have a minute, it would be wonderful if you would go on Amazon or GoodReads (if that's your thing) and leave a review. But it seems to help a great deal.
We have one more book event coming up soon, on Thursday, November 14 at Back of the Yards Coffeehouse, 2059 W. 47th, at 7 pm. It's a partnership with The Gate newspaper and depending on what happens with the strike we hope to also have some BOTY high schoolers on the docket to read as well. Stay tuned.
Also coming up, sooner than you think: SOUP & BREAD. It kicks off January 8, 2020, but we're in planning mode already; this year we're making HATS. If you'd like to cook or contribute in some way, please get in touch with me at soupnbread10@gmail.com.