*"Brooklyn; a tonal study in ink over a page from Collier's World Atlas and Gazetteer (1937 edition)” by* *Ed Fairburn*

Personal Plate Techtonics

I have a map in my mind.
It's not any real place you could look up or find
Complete with geographical features like mountains and rivers below
It's a map of the relationships and every person I know.

First let me show you where I live– fertile ground, lush landscape, in a river basin.
It's where anthropologists would say is an ideal place to establish a civilization.
It changes every day, you see, even now as I'm writing.
I've dreamed about this place (but when I was younger it was much less exciting).

There are regions of ice and frozen landscapes where nothing grows.
Deserts of extreme heat and dangerous storms, where no one goes.
There are dense jungles that once felt like an exciting adventure to navigate,
but now feel too dangerous or too much work, perhaps you can relate.

Here's a fault line– the relationships here have been extra volatile
quaking and shaking my world until it falls apart. Unresolvable.
This area is prone to disaster, but I have to say there is one advantage.
Some communities here have built reinforced cities to prevent future damage.

Not too far are the mountains. Peaks and valleys and varying weather.
Each peak named for a friend or family member
At the far end is the volcano– an energetic, messy, and fiery pit.
Though in here I'm not willing to say who that's named for, I have to admit.

There's a distant sea I sometimes venture to cross anew.
Islands named for friends I have no other connection to.
Sometimes forgetting that they're even there.
But upon arrival it's like an oasis, I swear.

Beyond the sea, lie continents that have drifted from here (it's fine).
Far off lands where I imagine a culture so different from mine.
But I know if one day I grew the courage to go and visit,
It's not so strange to believe we'd have much in common, now is it?

*San Francisco digital illustration by pindrops.ai*

Afraid of Getting Lost

One thing I've learned from parenting is to not rush if I don't have to.

Kids have no understanding of time or being late. It's infuriating when school started 3 minutes ago and Golda's shoes still aren't on yet. But it's wonderful if I can lean into it.

I can give them a bath in 5 minutes, but if we have 30, it's more fun (plus, I don't have to think of 5 more activities to entertain them).

Last weekend Lauren was out of town and I decided to take both kids to a diner.

Instinctively I put the address in my phone, clicked "navigate", and started to drive.

Don't rush.

I thought: Who cares if we don't take the fastest way? (Literally no one)

What would happen if we got lost? (No one would know but me)

So I decided to turn off my phone.

Google Maps has made it so we don't ever have to be lost.

But why are we all afraid of being lost in the first place?

Asking a stranger for directions? Wasting our time?

Getting hurt? Never finding our way home?

When I write it out, the fears are kind of ridiculous.

I've noticed that when I don't use my GPS, I notice more. I remember more.

I make the trip about the journey instead of the speed.

So I stopped using my phone.

I may get lost, but I'm learning my way around.

*Photograph from The Monastery series by Lucy Rinchen*

I Want To Believe

I was searching for the video of Taylor Swift's "Antihero" and fell down a rabbit hole. Instead, I found videos explaining hidden meanings to her songs revealing secret relationships.

That led me to another theory that Willy Wonka is a child serial killer and the movie is a kid's version of Saw.

(Look, Judgy McJudge Reinhold, I don't only find my way to garbage clickbait articles. My point is...) there are conspiracy theories about everything.

Fake moon landings, 9/11, and ones about the deaths of Paul McCartney, Princess Diana, and JFK.

But it feels like there are even more these days. QAnon and Pizzagate, Birds aren't real, COVID as population control, flat earthers, Birtherism, crisis actors at Sandy Hook....

I'm not asking you to believe any of them.
But it's curious to me that more seem to be popping up lately.

It makes sense to me psychologically.
Conspiracy theories often take flight during unsettling times. (AHEM. Like during a pandemic, a divisive election, or after a terrorist attack.)

We're living in reality where we feel disconnected from other people, where everything we know is put into question and our lives are bound to change in ways we have no control over.
Writing a new story gives us control.

What is a conspiracy theory but a new drawing of how we imagine the world should look?
Conspiracies help us feel less lost in a world that stopped making sense.

And when even those don't exist, we create our own.
When we feel the most lost, we search for a map.

*127cm Churchill Map in progress by Bellerby & Co*

Art Lights The Way

When everything is routine
and your days all feel the same,
you're not thinking about poetry.
Or filmmaking or songwriting or painting or novel writing for that matter.
(To the artists reading this, play along. Think of the one you don't do every day. Kthx.)

But you will have a bad day soon.
Someone you love will die. Your relationship will end suddenly. Your heart will be broken.

Or you will have an incredible day.
You will fall into some chance encounter that wakes you up. You will feel deep love for someone, for everyone. You will feel completely alive.

And in those moments,
you will find the perfect piece of art.
The poem that helps you make sense of loss.
The film that portrays what you feel about your partner better than either of you could have expressed.
The song that captures your falling.
The painting that magically feels like it's about you.
The novel. Ugh. That novel....

Art is how we make sense of our own experience.
Art lights the way during our darkest moments and reflects the glow of our brightest.

Here's to finding the light.

_____

Thank you as always for opening the refrigerator and spending your time here. Thanks for responding with your thoughts and especially for sharing this with your friends who might appreciate it.

My hope is the Email Refrigerator can somehow light a clearer path for you.

Bon voyage,

Jake