May Checkpoint
Some quick reflections on creative burnout, an audiobook recommendation for literary nerds, a true-crime nonmonogamy horror tv show, and more....
I’m in a busy season, adapting as well as I can. I have often considered myself exempt from the contemporary conversation around burnout, thinking the term refers to people with careers and trajectories more conventional than my own. By contrast—so I tell myself—I am an artist. I can’t possibly be burned out by day jobs that aren’t my real career!
It’s giving rose-colored glasses, honey.
Having a full-time job to sustain myself and my creative work is exhausting, and I may not suffer from “conventional” burnout in each individual position I maintain, but the compounding effects over time can be excruciating. I feel like I am in a period of deep fatigue, which I share to validate those of you reading this who may feel the same.
An aspect I think we don’t consider as artists enough, too, is that our creative work can itself be fatiguing. We’re conditioned to think art-making is recreation, that all creative acts are both restorative and restful. In reality, creativity is work. It takes our energy, even when it energizes us. We need time to rest from it as well.
As a creative, I also find it frighteningly easy to make everything about work. Even when I am trying to rest, I gravitate toward activities and media that will inform something I’m working on. I can easily transform a trip to the museum, an hour with a book, or weeknight plans to see a movie into scoping out another aspect of a project. Often, the effect of this is an imagined serious/not-serious::good/bad binary for anything I do or consume, as if something I’ve done purely for entertainment is something to feel guilty about.
At times when I feel like I’m starting to reach my limits, I try to shift direction. As I did this past week, I delete social media apps and cancel the plans I can. I’m still pursuing balance in this: trying to figure out how to integrate that in-vogue philosophy of detoxing into my regularly scheduled programming. As we start to stare the summer in the face, I’m trying to think about things I can do purely to enjoy them. I’m also reminding myself that creativity takes work, and is much, much better when I’m not exhausted.
-Bryce
Some of what I’ve been listening to…
Overdue by Amanda Oliver
As I’ve mentioned before, I am not always a “good” listener. An audiobook, in particular, is a major commitment for me. I only carry a few audiobooks all the way across the finish line and, as of this past weekend, I’m glad to say Overdue by Amanda Oliver, read by Eva Wilhelm is now one of them.
Oliver’s memoir about her 7 years working in the DC Public Library System piqued my interest because of a script I’m working on (see what I mean about how I can make anything work?). In addition to telling her own stories, Overdue attempts to outline an honest history of the American library in conversation with some prevailing mythologies about what libraries do and mean in our society.
Oliver addresses inequalities in the founding of the American library system and its role in maintaining segregation and racism. She shares anecdotes, history, and data about how libraries often assume the roles of “first responders” in mental health crises, acts of physical violence, and as resources for unhoused communities, usually without adequate resources or training. “At an individual level,” she writes, “when we decide to avoid or lessen the process of seeking broader and more accurate understandings of our history, preferring the ease of a shallow depth over the truth of a deep one, everyone around us is susceptible to our opacity.” Engagingly read by Wilhelm, Overdue is a book about finding hope through inquiry and reckoning with complex truth.
I Hope You Can Forgive Me, by Madison McFerrin
I love this dreamy little album, released this past Friday by Madison McFerrin (who is, in fact, Bobby’s daughter). I’d already enjoyed the earlier-released single, God Herself. The full album is short (less than 30 minutes total!!!), so you can listen to it a few times back to back if you’re naughty, as I’ve been doing. Here’s a taste:
Some of what I’ve been watching…
Love & Death, HBO Max
Oof. I have to write more about this show because I have just so many thoughts. It is, admittedly, not my genre. Unlike many of my friends and loved ones, I don’t thrive on the true-crime genre. I am, however, fascinated and frustrated by new submissions into what I call the nonmonogamy horror genre. Love & Death is one such entry.
It tells the true (if embellished for primetime) story of Candy Montgomery (Elizabeth Olsen) and Allan Gore (Jesse Plemons), otherwise “good methodists” who have a carefully calculated affair that winds up with Gore’s wife, Betty (Lily Rabe) murdered. It is a disturbing show about secrecy. Though I am, admittedly, not well-informed about the true story of the Montgomerys and the Gores, I am curious about how our attention to stories like these and the way we tell them shapes how we think about what partnership is supposed to look like and what it means to establish trust (and recover from trust broken) in our intimate relationships.
Polite Society, A24
Written and directed by Nida Manzoor, Polite Society is literally so much fucking fun. Ria Khan is a martial artist aspiring to a stunt career. She maintains a video blog of her training and progress with the help of her sister Lena, an aspiring artist who has returned home after leaving art school. Lena and Ria’s relationship grows tense when Lena becomes engaged to Salim, who Ria does not trust. Ria makes it her mission to derail the wedding, uncovering darker circumstances in the process.
This movie is full of action, super funny, and tender. It’s giving instant cult classic. I loved it.
Some of what I’ve been reading…
Trans Bodies, Trans Selves ed. by Laura Erickson-Schroth
Words can’t describe how grateful I was to come across this at the library. It’s a huge tome that I’m only just getting started with, but the current edition was recently updated and is truly a comprehensive guide for gender-variant folks. If you’re in New York City, I can confirm I’ve seen it at a couple of bookstores (including Kinokuniya and The Strand). If you’re in New York City and have a library card, there are a few other copies available now at different branches.
Here’s the table of contents, to whet your appetite:
Section 1: Who We Are - Our Selves; Race, Ethnicity, and Culture; Immigration; Disability; Religion and Spirituality; Sex and Gender Development
Section 2: Living As ourselves - Coming Out; Social Transition; Work and Employment; Legal Issues
Section 3: Health and Wellness - General, Sexual, and Reproductive Health; Medical Transition; Surgical Transition; Mental Health and Emotional Wellness
Section 4: Relationships and Families - Intimate Relationships; Sexuality; Parenting
Section 5: Life Stages - Children, Youth, Aging
Section 6: Claiming Our Power - U.S. History; Arts and Culture; Activism, Politics, and Organizing
As I’m sure you can see, this is a remarkable community resource. I really encourage all my gender-expansive babes to seek it out and dive in.
Some of what I’ve been doing…
Writing.