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rambles and half-essays

Tag: holidays

  • breaks are important

    KM Brunner

    When you work in higher education, sometimes you’re lucky enough to get a break when the students do, which is why I can’t leave academia. Counting weekends, I had 12 days off over Christmas and New Year’s. Initially I thought I’d try to be productive, but once the break began, it didn’t feel right to push myself. So instead of buckling down to write, I decided to do the opposite.

    Something felt wrong – fundamentally – in my writing practice. I couldn’t pinpoint it, so I figured I’d just wait until it came to me. Luckily, it did.

    The day before Christmas, my friend asked me to a blues jam. I love watching live music, and as a musician, I’m even happier when it’s improvised. A jam is like a sporting event to me.

    These musicians were fabulous and a few minutes in, I realized I was deeply, painfully (toxically) envious of them. When they asked me to play (the host lent me his guitar, which was sweet), I was aching for it. And while playing, the penny dropped.

    I hadn’t picked up my guitar in months.

    Years ago I realized that music (my first love) was integral to keeping myself sane, stable, creative. I suppose I forgot that.

    The moment I started writing music again (11 a.m. on Christmas morning), I felt something unlock in me. I knew that I’d be okay. I knew I’d recover creatively and felt very stupid for forgetting the thing that keeps me, me.

    It’s always weird to be ignorant of the obvious, especially when it’s to do with you. Embarrassing, really. ‘Cause I know this about myself. It’s something I try to watch out for! If I stop playing music, I’m supposed to do like, a mental audit.

    Unsurprisingly, I recovered my creativity over the week following my revelation. The callouses on my left hand returned. It felt like I’d returned, too.

    The first recommendations list of this year!

    Music: “This Town” by Trixie Mattel/Shakey Graves. It’s about a small town in northeast Wisconsin, a few miles from where I went to high school. The song (and Trixie’s voice) is simple but the second verse makes me cry. It nails the very specific vibe that part of the country has.

    Reading: The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada (trans. David Boyd). It’s a wild, surreal criticism of capitalism and office work masquerading as a novel. I really enjoyed it but it’s not for everyone. I have a feeling it’s even better in Japanese, but the translation is fine.

    Miscellaneous: I only use shortscale guitars because I have tiny hands. My forever guitars are this Fender Mustang (electric), and a GS-Mini Taylor (acoustic/electric).

  • family, tradition, and growing up

    KM Brunner

    I want to start by saying that I love my family. I had a fabulous time with them over the holiday. Best one I’ve had, I think. Ever. Of course there were difficult moments, but we each have our failings and challenging personality traits, so that’s to be expected. Ultimately, though, I love them. And that can be hard, because we’re so different.

    I was the black sheep of the family the moment my sister arrived. My sister is a fantastic woman. She’s smart, confident, and loving. She can be intimidating, but so can I. Thing is, she’s unique in ways that elevate her in American/traditional society, I’m unique in ways that alienate me from it. Regardless, I think she’s very cool and in some ways, I envy her. I certainly envy her easier navigation of the world.

    She doesn’t question much. Her life is her life, and my family understands that life. They lived that life, and are thrilled that she, too, is living it.

    I do nothing but question. It can be exhausting. I can be exhausting. My family doesn’t understand my life – and it has nothing to do with my being gay. It’s ’cause I think too much. That’s it. And that molded me into someone so, so unlike my family. A little changeling creature.

    But I’ve been like this forever. Mom used to say I was “born forty,” but I know that’s another way to say “strange.” I never stop at what. I always have to interrogate things, get to the why. And once you understand something, you can’t un-understand it. If you’re like this as a child, you get stuck with knowledge you don’t know what to do with, and worse, knowledge of things you can’t discuss. So it’ll fester. Little things will start to grate, especially things that to the rest of the family, might not seem like a “big deal.”

    They are, though. Some small things – word choice, teeny judgements, off-colour comments – the roots of them are serious and so, so telling. The things that grate are the things you can’t unlearn, only ignore, and ignoring is tough.

    My sister is an amazing woman. My parents are fabulous people. I love them more than is reasonable and will continue to love them. Still, when we are all together, I feel so different from them that it’s almost unbearable.

    I’m still trying to understand the divide; when I’m not paying attention, I sometimes find myself trying to repair it. I found that sad, this last Thanksgiving. I don’t want to be more like them. They’re not bad, they’re just different, but I like the things that make me different and don’t want to sacrifice my personhood to make them more comfortable.

    This Thanksgiving, I felt the most myself than I ever have around them. It was a little scary. It was thrilling. It felt like I was daring them to finally acknowledge my strangeness. They didn’t, of course, and they won’t. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t brave of me to be myself, to maintain my boundaries, while in their house.

    ‘Cause it was. Anyway, I hope they never find this piece.

    Recommendations:

    Music: Illinoise is my favorite Sufjan Stevens album. It’s really cohesive and a fun listen. The song “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.” is buck wild and really unsettling, but it’s my favorite from the album.

    Reading: Just finished The Writing Life by Annie Dillard, and it was fun. Dense and poetic, but fun. I took my time reading it; I recommend a…slow digestion.

    I find THEMA, this entirely-analog small literary journal, to be really charming. Been submitting again lately (not to this journal, but to others), and damn does it take a long time to get responses back.