October 8, 2024

To stay, I must sometimes leave | LISB

Leaving in order to stay, vintage chrome, and a canine wake up call.

Hey y’all, 

Last week, when I should have been writing to you, I was in fact on vacation in Washington, DC, where we were eating good food with friends not seen in years, visiting museums and botanical gardens, trawling dusty old used bookstores, and generally enjoying ourselves. 

It was six days away from home - we hired a cat sitter to make sure the kittens were OK* - which is the longest pure vacation we have had since 2014, when we went to Costa Rica for 7 days. We are likely to go out of town for a funeral or to visit family on a holiday. If we are feeling really frisky, run to the nearby beach for a 3 day weekend, but much more than that is so rare as to be a once in a decade event. 

As a child, we never went on vacations. We would go visit my grandfather in Texas every summer, where we would sit on his back porch with him while he drank Coors beer and argued with talk radio. At Thanksgiving we would visit with family up in Memphis on a day trip. My father worked really hard and had long hours, and should he have a day (or a week) where he did not have to work, rather than spend money to go someplace else and sit, he would much rather be home to work on his endless list of personal projects. 

He did not like to sit still. Neither do I. Like him, I have more projects on my list than I will ever accomplish. Like him, I begrudge the time away when I have that list. Spending money to be away from that list is even harder. 

But I have learned that I must make time for intentional time away. I need to eat food that tastes different than mine, see people who look and think differently than me, see trees that bloom at different times than they do here. 

I love living in the Deep South, and I love living in Jackson, and I am committed to helping it thrive. But it is hard to live here at times. Our library system struggles to stay open. Our infrastructure is fragile. We’ve lost 60,000 people to white flight and the suburbs over the last 40 years, so the city is filled with blighted, empty buildings. A third of our households are under the Federal poverty level. There is so much beauty here, but it is seldom obvious.

 Sometimes, I have to go where it’s obvious. 

That is the paradox: To stay here, sometimes, I have to leave. 

I tell you this because it is easy, especially if you do what others consider ‘Important Work’, to resist leaving, to resist taking time to recharge, to seek out beauty in order to have it in your head and heart when you return. But to do good work long term, it is essential. 

The world is a chaotic place right now, and it needs your gifts, your work, your hope. 

Take the vacation. 

*The first question literally all of our friends in DC asked was about the cats, and who was caring for them in our absence. 

Five Beautiful Things

A website devoted to the chrome badges found on cars in days gone by. It was a harsher time, but much more aesthetic. (via Kottke)

Our cats will crawl on us when they think it’s time to get up, but this dog takes it to a whole other level. 

In the old days, before computer generated sound effects, radio productions required a large catalog of sound effects - shutting doors, rain storms, alarm clocks. The BBC has released their archive of over 33,000 effects for download. I know this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I geeked out on it for 20 minutes. 

Back during the height of the pandemic, I shared the Instagram page of the French artist Ememem, who repairs potholes and sidewalk cracks with mosaic tiles. Someone on the socials shared it again the other day, and I was struck once more on how magical this is. Hints of kintsugi for sure. 

Helena Bonham Carter, reading Mary Oliver’s poem I Worried, from the lovely collection 365 Poems for Life.  More of this, please. 

In case you missed it

The most opened link in the last issue was the New Age Bullshit Generator. You folks never let me down. 

Over on the blog, I continued my stories from my time working on the streets with a question one of my unhoused friends asked me about the folks who wanted to “help the homeless”. 

Two more things: 

It’s that most American of holidays here in the US, Amazon Prime Days (sarcasm intended) and I am looking for a blender for soups, sauces, pesto, and occasional smoothies.  If you have a blender you love, let me know about it.

Like many of you, my heart is in the North Carolina mountains as loved ones crawl out from under the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. If you are looking for reliable people to give to, I invite you to consider joining my family in donating to Beloved Asheville, whose founders I admire and love, and whose values I share. They have been caring for vulnerable people long before this began, and will still be there long after everyone else is gone. 

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Since the last LISB issue, members got the monthly Members Only newsletter as well as a short essay about a perfect, life changing day in the North Carolina mountains nine years ago, as we think and pray about our friends struggling there now. 

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Take care,

HH

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Hugh L. Hollowell Jr
(he/him)
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