Know When to Walk Away

The best thing I’ve heard in the past few weeks was something Alicia Kennedy said at the book event for her memoir On Eating: The Making and Unmaking of My Appetites at Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn. It was during the Q&A with the audience, I don’t recall the question and I don’t want to bastardize the query, but obviously I will. I think it had something like how do you do what you do? Meaning write so much and put it out there, and just be Alicia Kennedy.

“Conviction.” Alicia answered.

And that’s all I heard. Conviction. And I keep hearing it.

There’s always a reason why someone else has something I don’t. Something I’m not doing. I don’t wake up early enough, I am not disciplined enough, maybe if I took up running I will become that person. Maybe if I could figure out how to outrun whatever from my past trips me up I could get there. Ten years ago, at the hippy bookstore in Woodstock I bought the book about the schedules of successful artists, the only book I could find in a sea of tomes about meditation and spirituality. Just buying the book felt a bit like defeat, but I appreciated looking at the schedules of painters, sculptors, and writers. It’s inspiring to see that art is work, rather than a lightning bolt, that it’s a lot about schedule and saying no.

Over the past few years, I have had to come to accept a few things about myself. I used to be a person who could sleep for two hours or four hours, and function well. That is no longer the case. I can no longer trip the light fantastic the way I used to, I can’t work 10-14 hours in the kitchen and go see a band. (Depending on the band.) I used to be able to close down bars and get locked in and wake up for work in the morning. But now, I require sleep. I think I spent two solid years in a fight with myself, from 2022 to 2024, trying to make what used to work for me still work for me. What can I say? I’m stubborn.

A lot of the things I used to do, don’t do it for me any longer. I’m full up, I’ve been out, I’ve heard a lot of people talk, and now, sometimes, I just want to read the damn book. I want to give my body a chance to recover from a day of cooking. I don’t need to prove to myself that nothing has changed. I know it has, and that’s fine. (See, look at that acceptance.) Getting older means I know the clock is ticking, I feel it more, and I’m lucky for it, that my clock still ticks. I know I need time to work, to read and write. (But please don’t take this as instruction to never invite me anywhere fun, like oh she’s so busy reading that book about all the weapons the US gave Afghanistan in the 80s to come to this party or opening or friends & family.)

This last apartment move brought up things about tomorrow and every day after I hadn’t previously considered. Getting rid of a lot of stuff, books, clothes, records, furniture, felt good for this hoarder soul, although there’s still some pin pricks. I don’t need to hold on to what I was or where I was, not all of it. I don’t need to bring receipts for former lives. What I need to make space for the future. And then make that future.

“Don’t forget what you came in here to do.” Steve Albini said this to the band the Dirty Three when they were having problems when he recorded their album Ocean Sounds at Electrical Audio in 1997. I think of it a lot.

So yeah. Conviction.

I got it.