⧉ The great reordering
Welcome to the thirty-seventh issue of OVERLAP ⧉
The great reordering
I’ve been thinking about the days after 9/11. I was in my first job out of college, making websites for a coffee company in Yonkers. When the weekend finally came, I went home to see my family and had a memorable conversation with my grandparents. I couldn’t understand how the world would be able to move forward … this thing had happened, this overwhelming thing, and we were supposed to just keep … going to work? And doing our jobs? As if everything normal?
They assured me that, yes, life would go on. During World War II, the cows were milked and the fields were planted and the food was cooked and the kids went to school. Even during the Great Depression, when clothes were thin and bellies were empty, the work had to be done. Life was disrupted and uncertain but didn’t stop for anything. And even if it felt like things were falling apart, I had to keep going.
I realize now that they left something out. Something important.
Life-altering events … alter your life. They change the way you think and force you to reconsider your priorities. And when the entire world experiences a life-altering event together? Nothing is ever the same again. All of my grandparents’ strange behaviors — filling up the chest freezer with ice cream when it went on sale and scribbling notes on junk mail envelopes instead of buying paper — were formed when their values were tested and sharpened. Their entire generation radically reordered its priorities, and the following decades ushered in a completely different era.
If your true character is what you do when no one’s watching, then your true priorities are the things you keep doing when it seems like the universe is crumbling. Your true style is what you put on when you’re not leaving your apartment. Your true family is the crew you can’t wait to see after you’ve been isolated for a long while. Who you are right now is probably who you really are.
Almost 20 years ago, the idea that I had to keep going felt like a burden. Now, under different circumstances, a chance to reorder my priorities feels strangely liberating. In the past week, I’ve stopped wearing makeup but still wear perfume. I decided I’m probably never going to sort the box of papers under my desk and spent the afternoon seasoning my grandmother’s cast iron pans instead. I looked out the window at the impossible blue of twilight and thought about what it means to be home and to stay there for a while.
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How are you doing? No, seriously. I want to know. Things in New York are strange right now, and it’s going to get more strange. I’m safe; I have everything I need and then some. I’m well, I think. Like everyone else, I’m trying to keep going.
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Auntie Jess recommends:
Anne Louise Avery. Artful Twitter microfiction about kind woodland creatures.
David Lebovitz. Delicious dispatches from Paris, from one of the most genuine food writers on Instagram.
Saeed Jones. The Intelligence of Honey, an email newsletter filled with golden sentences.
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Thanks for reading. I’d love to hear from you — hit reply or send a message through my website to tell me about comforting quarantine content, your latest acts of self-liberation, or anything else that’s on your mind. You can also forward this to a friend or two and invite them to subscribe. If you missed a previous issue, all the archives are online.
Until next time,
Jessica
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