to attempt
I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between theory and praxis. Or the difference between the speech act and what it enacts. Or maybe that is to say the difference between the digital and the physical world. Really, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it takes to make a bus—in practical terms. To not miss your transfer.
Whenever I need to get to Bushwick or Bed-Stuy, I take the train up to Barclays and then transfer to the bus. To make this transfer entails leaving the station at a specific exit, turning left and cutting across a park to catch the B38. All kinds of invisible systems are in place to allow me to see if I will make this transfer, surveillance apps benevolently meting out my travel times: Fifteen minutes. Nine minutes. Most of the time it seems clear that I will make it—no road closures predicted, nor delays, and the bus is due to arrive in a minute or two.
But there’s this moment that happens, in the time that I’m hustling down St. Felix to catch the B38 where it stops at Fulton and Lafayette, where all those estimates get tossed in the air. Where—say, I don’t jaywalk, or I’m moving slow—the bus comes early, and I miss it. Or, conversely, it is early, but my pace is brisk enough to catch it. Then I get on, out of breath, marveling at the Real. I feel victorious: My body has triumphed over where my phone said I would be.
That’s what I mean by missing a bus. That no matter what happens, I have to be out there, in the world, in order to make my bus—there are so many hypothetical B38s, right now, that some algorithmic version of me is catching. Could catch. But I have to be there, in the moment, to make it.
I’m not really talking about a bus, although I am talking about a bus. I’m thinking about how often I like to say I’ll love you forever, and I do mean it when I say it. But forever is just a word; what I really mean is I’ll do my best to love you every day, and every day thereafter. And every day I will try.
I like to think in forever, in always. I like to fix things in the world with words: this is because I am, unfortunately, a writer. This reliance on the theoretical—on saying I’ll be where I don’t know where I’ll be—is my weakness. But it is also a framework, and furthermore, a promise.
The original meaning of essay was: to attempt.
Writing a book feels kind of like a forever or a promise, in that every day I still have to get up and do it. Even the vision I have, floating about a foot above my head, still needs to be turned into something real and tangible and made of—of course—words. Some days it’s really easy, like I’m channeling an unearthly, beautiful fountain from deep within the root of myself, and other days, like today, it’s really hard. Where was that fountain I was hanging out at just a bit ago? It’s still there, just run down to a trickle. And where did all that music go? It’s still there too, but I must go into the world of real things to find it.
We changed the title of my book, we’re tentatively calling it Pop Song. I’ve been reading a lot lately. It’s been good for me to exist in the world of real things. Short letter, again. Don’t miss your bus—be sure to go out into the world and make it. I believe in you; I believe in your attempt.
xo
LP
1: I’ve been listening to Pang, the Caroline Polachek album, on repeat lately.
2: Also the 0PN album from 2013, R plus Seven.
3: And two books I appreciated reading: Appendix Project, by Kate Zambreno, and Hito Steyerl’s Duty Free Art.
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Hi, you’re reading intimacies, a relaunch of the original, occasional diary letter I sent out from 2016-2018. You’re getting this email because you were previously subscribed to its first iteration, and you got those emails because you were probably subscribed to Cum Shots, my previous letter at Nerve. If you liked this letter, please click the heart. Thank you for reading. I really appreciate you.