May 15th, 2023 - Maintenance, Hvidovre

Dear TNY,

Today’s grist for the mill is “Maintenance, Hvidovre”.

There’s not really much to say about it. 

I like a lot of the descriptions, so that’s cool.

“Colossal sweat”

“The sanitary towel grew thick between my legs, like a pair of rolled-up tennis socks.”

“Uniboob” (I have an ex-girlfriend who introduced me to this phrase; she also used to call it her “speed bump”; her usage of such breast support was meant to de-womanize her so that the dads at the children’s hospital would have a more difficult time recognizing that she was attractive, thereby warding off some of the inappropriate attention (because men, no joke, won’t even be stopped if their wife is present and their kid is dying of cancer))

There’s not much to this story.  Like I said, the descriptions are nice, but they appear to be describing something akin to a dream.  And do they do a good job?  Yes.  But what’s the point of the dream?  I don’t know.  And I don’t even know if it’s supposed to be a dream.  I’m just saying it is because that’s what it sounds like.  It’s got that false sense of purpose one has in a dream, where you know what you are supposed to do, but you have no idea why you are supposed to do it and you don’t seem to recognize how preposterous the tasks may be.  But I don’t think this was “real”, per se.  The main character didn’t experience this in the way we experience reality.  Although one could argue that dreams are also reality, as they are happening to us in the same way reality does, in which our brain creates an understanding of the world around us with stimuli (except in the case of dreams, the stimuli comes from within). So what is life, really? Not sure on this end.

Regardless.  I like that it was short.  I tracked what was happening beginning to end.  I just didn’t feel anything for the piece.  A disappearing/reappearing baby that’s got a tiny girl penis, while interesting, just doesn’t hit home for me I guess.

On that note, I was told the other day that I only write sad, angry, or sad & angry things.  I don’t happen to believe that.  I think there’s some sadness in my work, yes.  But I don’t think I’m shooting for sad.  I’m shooting for beautiful.  And beautiful, to me, isn’t a monochromatic emotion, like “happy” or “sad” or “confused”.  I think it’s all the emotions at once.  And that’s reflected in how we experience love, right?  Like, we all have that someone that when we make them proud, we see them cry and we cry.  We aren’t sad.  We aren’t happy.  We are overwhelmed.  Overwhelmed with pride and gratitude and warmth and even some sadness, that this time, this moment will be over soon.  So I would say what I’m trying to do is deal with my own overwhelming, and to do so with words on the page.  I love love.  So much.  But to me, love is so complex.  I love my kids more than I have ever loved anything, and they are the most contentious things in my life (divorce will fuck a brother up, you feel me fam?).  So my emotions toward them have become complex and nuanced and difficult.  And big.  Some might say colossal.

Anyway, I think a writer, a good one, is only ever doing one thing: trying.  I’m not here to tell you what I’m doing.  What I did.  I’m here only to try.  And I’ve tried to capture my own expansive sense of love.  Of sadness.  Of loneliness.  Of joy.  Of heartbreak.  Of tenderness.  Of guilt.  And shame.  And hugs that don’t seem to end.  And abuse that can’t be outlived.  I’m just trying to tell the truth.  And the truth, the real truth, is everything.  All at once.  For an infinitesimal moment.  Because if it lasted any longer, we’d die.  So we try for la petite mort, one might say.  Of the heart.

Sayonara.

Nick

P.S. I should end it there (because la petite mort of the heart has got that luster, baby!) but I wanted to talk about a perfect example of being overwhelmed. The totality of it. All the emotions, all at once. About a week ago, there was a disc golf championship won by a woman named Kat Mertsch. And maybe you don’t like DG or you don’t like sports, or whatever. That’s cool. That doesn’t matter. Because what we are talking about is storytelling here, folks. Anyway, Kat, we found out, had some dark times in her childhood, up to and including attempted suicide. She’s a good golfer. For sure. But she’s never won any competition this big. And what you see in this clip is what all of this means to her, this win. It’s not winning. We see people win all time (for instance, the male winner of the same competition was pumped up, but he wasn’t this). What we see here is the realization that it all mattered. That she mattered. That that tiny little voice in her head that told her to keep going, keep living, keep trying, keep struggling, because there was something beautiful out there for her, that voice was right. It’s watching someone become the person they are too afraid to tell themselves they could be. A belief so fragile that we almost never let it out for fear that it so easily could be lost. This is being overwhelmed by it all. What we see here is a woman who crossed and ocean of sadness in a tiny boat, only getting four sightings for navigation (two of which were shitty (shout out to Shackleton et al; unfuckingparalleled triumph, my man; you fucking earned this rest; you saved them all, my guy)). And what I don’t think is that this story, Kat’s win, would be so overwhelming without the sadness. We don’t like a guy who’s had everything his whole life, stumbles into a sport, and is miraculously glorious at it and there’s never any struggle. It’s not complex enough for us. Among the types of conflict we can use in storytelling, my belief is that the one that hits hardest is man vs himself. And this win is the culmination of that. Kat wins. Kat beat Kat. And we see it on her face (listen to how she says, “Mama,” for chrissakes). She didn’t win. She survived. She said, “Not today, Satan.” Not this day. It’s only love, today. Only beauty. Tell me that ain’t la petite fucking mort of the heart.

P.P.S. Sir David, thank you for getting it. I just wanted to say that. I’m sitting here writing to no one (even though I know you read this). I know TNY doesn’t read this shit anymore (a friend recently accidentally emailed themail@newyorker.com and immediately got an autoreply, which I haven’t in years which means I’m blocked). I don’t know who I’m writing to anymore. I know what I’m not doing. I’m not critiquing these stories, per se. I’m not addressing the public. I’m not trying to change the world. I don’t believe in this mission, like that I make a difference or anything. Maybe what I’m doing is trying. I sit down every week and I take out the paints and I see what the paper has hidden in it that I can uncover. I don’t know what I’m doing other than trying, I guess. I’m looking. I’m compelled to keep looking. Because I think there’s something here to find. Some real truth. And thank you, David, for seeing that. That this isn’t what it looks like. It’s a big, complex, nuanced, and unraveling reflection of a human in motion through time/space space/time mindheart lovebuckets. This is the gallery, my man. And I’m on display. Try that on for size, TNY! Get that fucking genuine with your readership!

P.P.P.S. I’m swollen with love right now. Not cute hearts made of chalky sugar that say saccharin things. Not platitudes or hollow phrases. I’m in love with our struggle. People get mad when you compliment them by saying a whole bunch of negative things and then say that you love them anyway. It’s not a good way to compliment. I have learned this first hand. But that’s how I love humanity. And that’s what I feel right now. Completely overwhelmed by how, against all odds, this roiling sea of fucked up shit can produce moments of pure beauty, day in and day out, enough to keep pushing us forward until we realize that little voice was telling the truth. That we matter. So, in the words of Listener, I’ll send us out:

So I've built a wooden heart inside this iron ship

To sail these blood red seas and find your coast

Don’t let these waves wash away your hopes

This war-ship is sinking, and I still believe in anchors

Pulling fistfuls of rotten wood from my heart, I still believe in saviors

But I know that we are all made out of shipwrecks, every single board

Washed and bound like crooked teeth on these rocky shores

So come on and let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief

And fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach

Come on and sew us together, tattered rags stained forever

We only have what we remember.