Let's Not
On a day like today, how could we?
It’s a gorgeous day in New York.
Today’s temperature is 71° and sunny. The sky is filled with the sort of fluffy clouds that look like they were imagined. The humidity is more than bearable and there’s a light breeze to cool you down if you feel an extra tinge of warmth.
On a day like today, I just think, “Let’s not.”
Let’s not go to a job or to meetings. Let’s not do anything that could be considered ‘work’. Let’s not fulfill any obligations whatsoever.
Let’s not open the galleries and sit at a desk on the first day of Fall and awkwardly remind grown adults to not touch the art. No. Let’s frolic across the island, catching glimpses of the Statue of Liberty, predicting what buildings are haunted (all of them), languishing on benches, and eating ice cream.
Let’s not get on the subway and get off the subway and get on the subway and get off the subway. Let’s not do any required commuting at all. Only walks. Leisurely and joyful walks. With occasional skipping. And jumping through every chalked sidewalk hopscotch we find.
Let’s not remain where we are. Let’s travel 3,000 miles in two minutes to sit in backyards with our friends, drinking matcha and coffee. Then drinking water (important). Then drinking wine and/or beer and/or whiskey. Then, let’s hop another 20 or 200 or 20,000 miles and say hello to our friends’ kids and our friends’ pets and our friends’ parents. Finally, let’s sneak into the houses of our parental figures, our mentors, our guardians, our protectors, and give them a gentle kiss on the cheek as a small act of devotion.
Let’s not go to bed at a reasonable hour. Let’s make all hours unreasonable. And questionable. Let’s make 4a look like 1p look like 10p. Let’s be the most exhausted we’ve ever been and the most awake at the same time. This sort of day will not end if we don’t let it. Let’s not let it.
Let’s not refuse rest. Naps and sitting still and fidgeting through our favorite movies. Let’s sit in silence next to our hearts, breathing together until one makes it a game to exhale out of sync. Let’s be settled in together. Let’s be always settling and always comfortable. Let’s let those two things live together. Let’s let many things to be true at once.
Let’s not feel the loneliness of individuality and estrangement from our community. Let’s text them and call them and send a heartfelt telepathic message that ends with a millennial-coded emoji. Let’s take cards and art work and trinkets and forgotten t-shirts and last looks and let them be more than symbols for everything we need. Let’s let them be tangible, let them be what we want, let them be what we need.
Let’s not pass by a window we do not stop to stare out of. Let’s look at the landscape with new eyes and old eyes and foggy eyes. Let’s see trash as art and a beautiful sunset as trash. Let’s marvel at the technology of spinning wheels and bricks and paddles. Let’s find every dated cornerstone we can and re-date it with today’s date—the date the building was founded in our minds. Let’s mark as many things as “founded today” as we can. Within reason. Without reason.
Speaking of reason, let’s not do that either. Let’s not reason. Let’s be without reason. Let’s be unmodulated and untoward and unclean and unfunny and unhappy. Let’s speak loudly in soft rooms and quietly in night clubs with djs. Let’s ignore anyone who says, “Be reasonable” to something that’s already reasonable that they simply don’t like. Let’s respond with “YOU” to any insult, to any question, to any compliment. Let’s be the frustrating versions of ourselves, the version that on a regular day, my most pragmatic self would hate.
Let’s not live within the confines of a calendar. Let it be fall and winter and summer and spring and yesterday and tomorrow and eons ago and the future all at once. Or, if that seems like too much, let’s let it be just this moment right now for as long as it takes to get back to ourselves. And let us decorate with skellies all year long (if you don’t already).
Let’s no longer ignore the everyday grief of living. Let’s not treat the inevitable as avoidable. Let’s both hold on to and let go of the pains of losing sweaters and tschotskes and change and opportunities and jobs and homes and relationships and people. Let’s light a candle once a day and say, “To the friendship I thought would go the distance, thank you for twenty years. And fuck you too.” or “To my aunt, whomst I did not connect with enough in all your years on earth, thank you for being with me now.” or “To my favorite stuffed animal, I’m sorry I washed you one too many times.” or “To my favorite snack, I wish I hadn’t eaten you so quickly.” Let’s live with the fear and the wonder and the anger and the acceptance of life. And let’s live.
Let’s not ignore all our own clichés. Let’s be the high schooler carrying poetry books in her backpack and spending all lunchtimes with the theatre kids in the choir room. Let’s be the undergrad with pencils in her hair, learning her lines in the middle of a party. Let’s be the unsettled 20-something making weird art in warehouses and basements. Let’s be the grad student who moves to New York with two suitcases. Let’s be the post-grad who says “grad school” one too many times (drink). Let’s be the 30-something, the late 30-something grappling with trying to put old dreams in new contexts and worrying about wasted time and empty bank accounts. Let’s be the newsletter writer who is writing, yet again, a newsletter that is somewhere between poetry and truth and sometimes sounds, suspiciously, like her Livejournal persona from 2006.
Let’s be what everyone thinks about us. And let’s also be what no one thinks of us.
Let’s not waste our days. Let’s bake cakes and order pizza and watch the same show for the millionth time. Let’s write odes to Catherine O’Hara and Dominique Morriseau and Carmen Maria Machado and the Secret Sisters and our friends. Let’s trip and fall and let the blood run down our knees like when we were children, just happy to be playing at all. Let’s walk the wrong direction towards our destination and then pretend to get a phone call and turn around. Let’s call the cardinal directions something else. Let’s rename all words that make us feel wrong in our existence.
Let’s not live with pain on purpose anymore. Let’s not live in pain because it’s what we know which makes it easy. Let’s not live in pain because we think it’s who we are. Let’s try for all the feelings. Let’s feel those feelings and then ask for help to feel our feelings. Let’s cry so hard we have to spend three days rehydrating. Let’s smile so big our teeth glow-in-the-dark. Some days, sure, let’s ignore our feelings. Let’s talk about tv shows in therapy. Let’s ask our therapist how they’re doing. And when they won’t answer, let’s ask them again. And when they still won’t answer, let’s make jokes and observations and accidental breakthroughs.
Let’s not give any mind to the systems of the world. Let’s ignore them as hard as we can. Let’s ignore them so hard, they become jealous and try to get our attention. Then, we’ll have them right where we want them. Let’s squash them.
Let’s not search for answers. Let’s ask questions. The more ridiculous the better. What’s your most ridiculous question? It better be about shoes and ships and ceiling wax. Is your question whether it’s ceiling wax or sealing wax? Ask that too. Whatever the question is, let’s ask it.
Let’s.
Let’s finish reading this newsletter (it’s almost over anyway) and let’s.
Let’s take whatever time we have and make it ours. Let it be ours.
Let’s ignore the fact that ‘let’s’ no longer feels like a real word.
Let’s spend our break outside.
Let’s be whatever the day wants us to be.
This sunny, breezy, (now) 74° day.
Let’s do this suggestion. I’d do it.
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