coins against a dramatic landscape
Selling coins, Edgar Allan Poe's birthday, a list of reasons why I'm feeling weird about Substack.
Selling coins and Edgar Allan Poe
Yesterday, I went to a coin dealer half an hour away from my house. I thought that I would get at least fifty dollars for my coinage. I had a special silver dollar from 1999, several old pennies from 1919 and the late 1930s, foreign coins from the Netherlands, Japan, Finland, Guatemala, and Somalia, a Sacagawea dollar from 2000, and a Susan B. Anthony dollar from 1979.
I was listening to R.F. Kuang's Babel on audiobook as I drove.
My parents used to buy stamps at a vending machine in the local post office. This vending machine dispensed half dollar coins, and, later, Sacagawea dollars. My dad would give these special coins to me and my brother. I spent them. Then, like many millennials, when the U.S. started a state quarter series in the late 1990s, my brother and I received special books to collect all 50 state quarters. I remember my brother keeping it up long after I pillaged my own collection to pay for candy, or snacks, or going to the mall with my friends.
Today is Edgar Allan Poe's birthday. When I was a child, I loved Edgar Allan Poe. When I was 10 years old, I read as many of his poems and short stories as I could find. He was dramatic and dark and raw. Somehow, the fear described in Poe's stories felt familiar to me, a kid in the suburbs who went to a Waldorf school, with lazure walls and handworking classes. I knew nothing about being in a pit with a sharp pendulum swinging closer and closer to my chest, nor about being buried alive, nor murder, nor torture, and yet—I found solace in Poe's worlds of horror. In my life, there was much that went unaddressed or unspoken and I liked how Poe seemed to expel everything ugly onto the page.
I memorized his poem, “Alone”, and wrote a response poem of my own. It lies in a notebook in my basement and I confess that I am a little bit afraid to read it. I know that I was a sad kid, but confronting the written evidence would be hard.
I have not fully returned to Poe's work as an adult, but have read a story here or there, as well as a poem here, or there. I know quite a bit of “The Raven” by heart.
I'm sure Poe went through periods of selling off his possessions, or considering it, or he would have, if he lived in the 21st century, because his life was marked by poverty. He was abandoned by his father, his mother died, and his adoptive father cut him off financially. He filed for bankruptcy in 1842.
However, Poe, upon selling a childhood collection of coins, like I did yesterday, probably would have written a terrifying story, perhaps about being drowned in a hail of coins, or one of the coins being repurposed into a bullet, all because by selling off the coins the narrator was betraying a loved one, or, perhaps, revealing their part in a murder.
While selling a set of coins from 1990, the year of my birth, I did feel like perhaps I was betraying myself. On the other hand, those coins are worth no more than their face value, and aren't particularly interesting to me, and were just another thing to carry around. Thus far, the coins have not returned for their vengeance.
The coin dealer offered me $29 total for my small collection. On my way home, I stopped at Target to pick up trash bags, a charging cable, a small silverware container for a cabinet, the next size up of kids’ shoes, and paper plates to have on hand, spending $25.36.
My effort to sell random stuff around the house is sporadic. Two weeks ago I listed items on Poshmark. Yesterday I went to the coin dealer. The problem is that I quickly run out of things that people want. At some point, the things that I own are valuable only to me. Or they are more valuable to me than the money I would get from selling them.
Writing, not writing, being weird
I'm going to tell you again about feeling like a fraud. Because the strange thing about having a newsletter is that I feel like I am writing to someone, and that makes me feel self-conscious, and that changes my writing and my voice in ways that I think make it more boring and annoying than when I am writing fiction or for myself or for an unknown future publication. And the best (only?) way that I know to combat something that I'm doing and I want to stop doing is to name it.
I know I'm being weird about Substack. There are a lot of reasons for that.
Reason one: I have barely been writing for about six months now. Here’s what I have written since the summer: half a draft of a new scene for my novel, edited the first 50 pages of the novel again, one poem, and a couple dozen journal entries. Because of this dry spell, I think that I have nothing to say. No, that's not quite right. Because of this dry spell, I am worried that I will write something uninformed or obvious or embarrassing.
Reason two: I am constantly calibrating the level of disclosure that I want to put in this forum. Which is annoying, because as a person in the world I will typically tell anyone anything, but I am learning how to protect my privacy and also how to protect a potential… legacy? Legacy isn't the correct word. Amount of gossip that can be gossiped about me, in some imaginary future world where I have published a book (lol)? Okay, you know what it really is? It's that I am most comfortable when I think I can control what other people know about me, and thus control their image of me. I *know* intellectually that this is impossible, but it's a deeply seated habit that is difficult to resist. I don't want to write a blog about my life. At the same time, related to reason one, I'm not confident about what else I have to say right now.
Reason three: The main topics which fill my brain these days are the following. Worries about money. Wishing I was exercising/writing/working more without actually wanting to do anything other than sit on the couch with tv in the background playing solitaire on my phone. Anticipating the next time I get to spend time with my kiddo. High-level negotiations between me and my kiddo about putting on a shirt, or doing her hair. House chores. Car chores. Which friends I need to text back. Money. Work. Where I'm at on my freelance and consulting jobs. If I've left the house yet today. If my pants don't fit because I no longer like tight pants or because my body has changed. What I need from the store. How to fix my washing machine.
Reason four: I'm out of practice.
Reason five: This CANNOT turn into a newsletter where I write only about how I haven't been writing. But look. I'm writing now. And yesterday I worked on the novel. And I still read! And it's okay (?) for life to have different seasons…? (Let's imagine a future where I say that with conviction.)
Mittens were not on the to-do list
Yesterday, I woke up knowing that I had three to-do items. The first was writing this post, the second working on a proposal for a consulting client, and the third catching up on work for my full time job. Instead, I knitted a mitten.
The mitten is for my friend, who has restrictive rules about how he participates in the world, and is also broke. He will wear only natural fibers, and is also picky about color and style. He lives in New England by the sea and likes to walk on the beach picking up sea glass and doesn't have gloves or mittens.
I have some leftover wool from another project, and so I'm knitting him mittens. I finished one yesterday, staying up late listening to Babel. I won't have time to finish the other one before I see him today, and I think it would be funny to bring him one mitten. But I won't. I will wait until I have a pair.
Today, I woke up resolved to complete at least part of the to-do list. And here we are.
Snack corner:
Recently I made “Cook and Serve” Jello chocolate pudding with whole milk (I live in a world where I pretend there is no other kind of milk) and extra chunks of dark chocolate thrown in, melted, and whisked to make a rich final pudding. I’ve been eating it with sliced strawberries. Whipped cream would also be welcome.