My Slightly Less Selfish Purpose

What I hope YOU get out of the virtual latte

Howdy, and thanks for the latte!

I wake hours before the sun, especially as we creep into fall, and this past Tuesday was no different.

Since purchasing it in March, I have not brought a single friend to The Land. When I was writing the bit about the night lake I considered that it might be time, so I invited my friend and colleague and fellow writer Jen Wilking to join me. We had agreed to meet at a particular coffee shop and carpool, but Tuesday morning long before the sun was up and I was deep into my second cup of coffee, I mapped it to plan my departure, and the phone said “permanently closed.” Troubling, to be sure. In the course of my frustration and mild trust issues with google maps, I went a bit further down the rabbit hole and onto the website of the permanently closed establishment, which told the haiku version of the place reopening (today!) under a new name and management, and reassuring the regulars that Tina’s Trees would still be happening in November.

As it were, this encounter foretold the rest of my day, and the rest of the week, and may have subtly change the course of my life, as random Tuesdays often do.

The coffee shop was open, and bookended our drive to and from the land. It featured too much of everything: baked goods wrapped in plastic, a wall of named mugs for locals, an after hours bar, and very loud preschool children clamoring around the ankles of their mothers. The hand-written menu did not look fresh, nor did the note taped to the tip jar. It was clear, the change was in name only.

I frankly wonder if anyone else noticed?

On the drive, Jen listened to me vent about my frustrations at attempting to re-establish some semblance of a yoga teaching career when the wildfire of the pandemic knocked out half of the studios that used to host me and momentum the industry.

No one seems to feel confident in advanced planning these days - it’s hard for me to consider what tomorrow might look like, let alone eight weeks from now, and yet, asking people to register for a ‘pop up training next week for $1,000’ doesn’t feel like the solution. I’ve spoken with famous-ish teachers, students of others, and the universal story reminds me of a line from my famous play-about-a-play, Noises Off

“… There’s quite a crowd at the front of the back of the orchestra section…”

She let me vent, which is what true friends sometimes do when you’re more than two years into a pandemic and a decade older and completely perplexed by a midlife crisis that has little to do with your own biology and more to do with the macrocosm. What if I took the hint, and gratefully received the support that you sponsors of my writing are offering, and the support of my person, who has made me a sweet offer of a few months?

What if I could just write? What if I finished one of the eight books in my personal cue? What if I finished two?

Jen asked me about the purpose of my writing. She wanted to know what I want you [the reader] to get out of it, and because I’m honest I’ll say, I didn’t have a plan for you. In the beginning of 2021 some of you asked, “How can I support you to write more?” And so the [virtual latte] was born as a mechanism for you to support me in writing whatever I want, so long as I do it in palatable sips and on the weekly, and occasionally in a way that moves your spirit.

A year and a half after it’s first incarnation, this is my first attempt to answer the question “why I write” that has more to do with you than with me.

It has changed everything.

And yet?

If you’re a regular?

You may not even notice.

Onward,
K

I would like for you to widen your perspective a skosh, even a millimeter.
You know how you look out at the world through the lenses of your sweet eye balls and the culture of your upbringing? I can’t do much about the actual width of your biological periphery, nor can I singlehandedly shift the culture in which you were raised, but I can encourage you with words and inquiry to LOOK OVER THERE. I’m not about sharing footwear, so ‘walking in other peoples’ shoes’ is up to you, but I am fond of pointing, and that is one of the cardinal things I have to show you through story and nuance. Remember that one time I wrote a book and included a bit about how my mother loves me via extravagant and bizarre bedding purchases?

Like that.

I would like for you to experience dissonance and resolution
My favorite writers do this, often in essay form, frequently with wit, and occasionally with lyricisms. This is why I adore Anne Lamott and David Sedaris, but also Oliver Sacks and Rebecca Solnit, and why I prefer not to share a shelf in the ‘self-help’ or ‘transformative personal narrative’ sections of the bookstore. I’m a pointing navel gazer who has a way with words and so I’m attempting to use my powers for good. I like to create a little bit of dissonance and then a resolve - smacking two unrelated topics as they marinate in my mind and encourage you to consider how they suit you.

I would like for you to do your dharma and stop associating with your god damned roles

Howdy. I have heat here :) You are more than your gender, your familial relationships, your bank account, your followers. If you are a human raised as a female human in the US, this is a particularly bizarre thing to even consider. Do you know how I know? I do comedy. I’ve done comedy. I’m funny. Women-type people are allowed to be funny and allowed to be experts about things relating so longs they are of or relating to vaginas. I did this myself, speaking about infertility. In fact, I think infertility is my pain point as it comes to this role-shenanigans, although yours might be tied up in your sexuality or maternal proclivities or roles. My grandmother was a doctor’s wife, for example. Self-helpy woman folk are allowed to talk about role based things - Glennon Doyle is so famous because she was a wife and a mother and now she’s a lesbian.

Yay!

But also?

I would love for you to consider and know and be who you are at the essence, and then do that with fervor. The yogis say you will execute your dharma in any (and every) role and station. Whether you mother or not. Whether you have a corner office with seven jars of jelly beans or not. Whether you change your name and google maps listing but not your menu or staff.

I would like for you to consider that humans are not entirely evil

We have done some big bad things (see: climate change), and yet, I believe we have the same capacity for good that we do for evil. Our complacency is a mechanism for evil. There is no such thing as ‘complacent good’. So. We must read and act and emote and use our individual and collective powers for good. I believe that if and when we do this together, we can do many things. Case in point: about six days after Denver shut down for COVID, the sky was blue. People shared images of the Himalayas that had not been seen from Delhi in nearly one hundred years. Animals returned to places they had abandoned. That’s just when we stop doing the bad things. What happens when we start doing the good things?!

I’d like to find out.

Do I believe that writing to you about my dog shitting on my favorite bath mat will end climate change? I do not. Some weeks are more practical than others. But also? I do. I believe that when I notice something about the world, including my minuscule and ridiculous responses to things, and I point at them with my words, this might support you in embracing your own agency and dharma.

I intend for my work from now and henceforth to be an instrument for these (and other) principles that I find meaningful. I desire for my time and words on earth to contribute to the greater good more than they contribute to the noise.

I have books to write about this. And lattes.

But more than they are for me?

They are for you.

Thanks for reading,
K