The Second Person

Suddenly, the perspective shifts when I’m writing in my journal—no longer I but you. The second person takes over. I continue moving my hand along the page, but a consciousness outside my own subordinates me, treats me as you. But who is I or you or me? Who’s in control…who’s not?

The second person doesn’t know me well enough to narrate my life: It may reveal glimpses of my past, but it doesn’t see the future before I do. These limitations make this point of view good for stories where the narrator needs to be as close as possible to the protagonist without actually being them. But it subordinates the protagonist with its instructional tone. In Lorrie Moore’s essay “How to Become a Writer,” the second person is Moore’s present self looking back on her journey as a young writer and guiding that person through it based on the conclusions she’s made over the years.

Through the second person, perhaps one can make peace with past selves.

What shows up in my journal, though, is more present, more urgent. Less a voice of experience than one of punishment. Punishing me for what, you might ask. Punishing me for who I am not. Nowhere is this voice more prominent than in my lists, a format where I will no longer do. These lists are usually about what I must do, and what I’m not doing. Who I am, and who I am not. The you aims to be a bridge of self-improvement. In the many lists of books and films and art works I hope to read, watch, and see, “you must” could be read before each one, even when absent. Instructions from the second person.

But where do I go?

It’s not that I disappear…I just become I, etcetera, like the title of Susan Sontag’s 1978 short story collection. The narrative voice in each story is disembodied, struggling to place events in a coherent flow for the reader (and the writer herself). I know from Benjamin Moser’s brilliant biography of Sontag that she demanded self-improvement. She sought to bridge the gaps between the many versions of Susan Sontag. She sought to bridge the gap between the writer she was and the writer she wanted to be—not become but be.

Sontag was a master of lists. She knew when they were needed in her work and could drill any subject down into items grouped based on some loose relationship they have to one another. A list is a body in how it brings together limbs of thought. Sontag wouldn’t approve of that metaphor. But she’s attempting to bring together disparate things in her lists. “Somewhere, some place inside myself, I am detached” (24) she writes in her short story “Project for a Trip to China,” which could almost be read as literary nonfiction.

“Somewhere, some place inside myself, I am detached.” — Susan Sontag

There are at least 42 different lists in “Project for a Trip to China,” though the entire story could really be read as a list. Sontag is trying to distill this trip down to an itinerary based on memory, imagination, and history. Finally, she will be able to link her imagined China (a place tied to her father, who she never knew) and the real China. “Mythical voyage” (27). Her trip will result in “literature” more than “knowledge.”

In our personal writing, can we be both the psychoanalyst and the patient? Sontag’s feelings about psychoanalysis were that we tend to rely on it too much. We seek a reason for why we want to go to China and what that trip would mean to us before we even go. We overanalyze for meaning, interpret instead of experience; and as the title of her famous essay collection makes clear, Sontag was Against Interpretation. But in “China,” I wonder if she’s trying to bridge analyst and patient, and that’s the project that fails in the end: “Perhaps I will write the book about my trip to China before I go” (29).

Literature over knowledge.

The limitations of the second person come from the directions this point of view gives the protagonist. You not I. I, etcetera, which doesn’t mean “I, plus” or “I, and so on.” It only means that the I is constantly being overthrown. Overthrown by a narrative consciousness that analyzes and interprets experiences for me.

The second person takes over.

The roots I'm putting down

On the back cover of Susan Sontag’s collection of short stories, I, etcetera, is a review from Michael Wood of the New York Review of Books: “The book not only confronts and explores the life which is traveled rather than lived, it records a life fully lived in the face of all such doubts.” The life which is traveled rather than lived. Or, you could say, a life without roots. It’s not that a life without roots isn’t fully lived, but it can make one feel fragmented.

I spent this past summer with Benjamin Moser’s biography of Sontag—it became my journal I wrote in it so much, my own biography. Moser identifies in Sontag’s life and work a distance between her mind and body that cannot be bridged, a desire to overcome the problem of the self. It’s this distance Sontag felt within herself that makes me feel close to her. She was concerned with her origins, even lied about them to control or, rather, find her truth. And I think Sontag’s search for truth in her origins is the same as my search for truth in the roots I want to put down. But what are these roots exactly?

Not my copy, I’m afraid. I had to finally leave it behind in London when I was in a rush to catch a plane for Ireland and couldn’t fit this massive work in my backpack. The sacrifice!

Around the time I wrote my last blog post about putting down roots, I happened upon Simone Weil’s The Need for Roots in the London Review Bookshop on Bury Place. It’s a beautiful little paperback with a photograph of large orange carrots on the cover. The title called out like an answer to a question I didn’t know I’d been asking myself—should I put down roots? Where? And how?

Another photo of my copy of Weil’s declaration of duties toward mankind.

I’ve been familiar with the French philosopher and activist’s work for some time, having first discovered Gravity and Grace while browsing the shelves of a used bookstore when I was 15. I’ll admit that I couldn’t grasp her work at the time (I still don’t, completely), but I couldn’t pass up the paperback with an outline of Weil’s face inked on the cover.

My copy is packed away somewhere in my storage locker. I must reread it!

Haunting—there’s no better way to describe it. I still have the book, a compilation of entries from Weil’s journals that capture her ideas about existence, God, eternity, and the self. A few years ago I read On the Abolition of All Political Parties, an essay in which Weil argues that true democracy can only begin where “party spirit,” where collectives formed based on self-serving interests, end.

In The Need for Roots, Weil diagnosis 20th-century civilization with “uprootedness,” defined as the loss of ties with the past and a dissolution of community. She wrote this treatise during World War II, which she didn’t survive, in an effort to lay out the “duties” we all have to mankind that must be met to feel rooted culturally, spiritually, politically. These duties are our roots, and they must be nurtured, according to Weil, in order for us to lead morally good and fulfilling lives.

The first part of Weil’s treatise establishes the needs of the soul, the eternal obligations we have in society: Order, Liberty, Obedience, Responsibility, Equality, Hierarchism, Honor, Punishment, Freedom of Opinion, Security, Risk, Private Property, and Truth. In order to regenerate France after the war, she proposed a society structured around these obligations, which she believed to be more essential than rights. For rights to be essential, Weil says, man must live amongst other men in society. But obligations are always essential, even when man is alone: “Rights are always found to be related to certain conditions. Obligations alone remain independent of conditions… The object of any obligation, in the realm of human affairs, is always the human being as such. There exists an obligation towards every human being, without any other condition requiring to be fulfilled, and even without any recognition of such obligation on the part of the individual concerned” (pp. 4-5).

“Rights are always found to be related to certain conditions. Obligations alone remain independent of conditions… The object of any obligation, in the realm of human affairs, is always the human being as such. There exists an obligation towards every human being, without any other condition requiring to be fulfilled, and even without any recognition of such obligation on the part of the individual concerned.”

Part I of Weil’s treatise outlines and defines the needs of the soul.

Reading Weil’s The Need for Roots at a moment when I realized that I don’t want a nomadic lifestyle helped me see my quest to put down roots in a more universal context. In my last blog post, I was focused on finding a place to be rooted to, on putting down roots somewhere. That’s why I wanted to get back to Spain at the end of my 90-day Schengen exile. But the time away showed me that putting down roots isn’t about leaving the United States or Spain or any physical place—it’s about finding what’s essential, about what I want to attach myself to. Symbolically, I’ve been stripping my suitcase down to what’s essential, keeping only what matters (I’ll write more about my suitcase in another post). Roots have weight, and I think it’s important that this weight not feel like a burden.

Now, there’s the question of what I am rooting myself to if not a physical place. I’ve come to like “attachment” over “rooted.” To me, attachment sounds less fixed. It’s fluid, I can move around if I need to. But I need roots to help me attach, to act as connectors. As Weil puts it, roots are the “needs of the soul,” and they don’t ground so much as connect. They allow one to move through many contexts without losing oneself. For me, this process of rooting and attaching is happening within. I’m getting clearer on what is essential about me, as well as a gap between my mind and body that needs to be bridged. I have always felt split and divided, and I suppose I’m really looking to become whole, to experience life as Maggie Entire.

I’ve started to define these roots that will allow me to attach my mind and body, so I can feel more rooted in my own life. My feelings of “uprootedness” have everything to do with living with a scattered self.

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Space to simply be

This is the most crucial root. Finding space, making space is something I’ve been thinking about a lot. It’s not even that I want to be more intentional about how I spend my time, because I want time to not even be a factor. I want to lose track of time, to approach work I want to do in the way I want to do it. Maybe this space can never fully exist within capitalism, but I find myself experimenting with ways to make this space.

The space to be and feel most yourself is an abstract concept, an emotional sense more than anything tangible. In a capitalist society, it can be reduced to blank spaces in a calendar, which is all it’s been for me thus far. I’ve been experimenting with finding open space in my Google Calendar, space where my mind is free to wander.

But beyond my productive self, what is this space? What does it look like? What does it feel like? Would it still feel like space if I didn’t have to make room for it? Would it feel like freedom if I had nothing to be freed from? And is freedom really what I mean by space? I don’t think so. I picture myself floating, being able to move. To have space means to be fluid and present.

It’s difficult to be anything but paralyzed when you’re expected to do nothing but produce. When you’re either productive or nothing. It’s claustrophobic. There’s no time or room to simply be. What’s worse is that I’m not sure I would know how to just be. It will take time to become accustomed to the fluidity of space, to think in the moment rather than ahead to what needs to be done. But this is what the space to simply be is: It allows me to be present, so I can move.

Movement

I’ve been mistaking my need for movement with a need to be nomadic. But movement isn’t about living in different places and never feeling settled anywhere. It’s a need to move the body in purposeful ways, in ways that make me appreciate how my body functions and how this function is unique to me.

I must walk to feel settled within myself. I must spend time outdoors to close the gap between my mind and body, to bring them closer together. I must be anywhere but hunched over my desk. There’s a reason why hiking and long walks through city streets help me figure things out, whether it’s what I think about current events or a tough decision I need to make. Movement unifies my mind and body, which feels fragmented when I’m stagnant. When I sit for too long, it’s just my mind that’s working, going into overdrive, racing ahead of the rest of my body. A disconnection—my mind and body are out of sync without movement.

Mind-body connection

I can’t be rooted if my mind and body are fragmented, if a gap exists between them. Movement helps me connect them, but there’s a more profound separation I make between the two that I need to heal. I subordinate my body, treat it as an entity that can’t be trusted and must be disciplined. I don’t believe my body is controlled by my mind—I think it’s sculpted and created and refined by it. My body is my writing, a product that can be worked and reworked by my mind’s hand.

But this dichotomy drains life from my body and positions my mind as a force that gives it life. More meditation needs to be done to give them equal purpose. This meditation can take many forms: yoga, deep breathing, intuitive eating, silence, and solitude. Continued journaling and therapy will also help me continue to build and stabilize this bridge.

Creative spirit

My final root is creative spirit, which is essential for imagining the attachments I do and don’t want to have. This spirit drives me to live life creatively and passionately. I’m trying to attach myself to a life that matches this spirit, and this is the ultimate attachment I need to make. I have felt somewhat rootless because I haven’t prioritized fostering a connection between my life/work/desire and this spirit.

My creative spirit is what I’ve been referring to as my “European self,” or my truest self. While this spirit has flourished in Europe, it’s important for me to recognize that it doesn’t need Europe. As I’ve said throughout this post, finding the right place to settle isn’t as crucial as I originally thought. What is crucial to my creative spirit is identifying all my roots and nourishing them, so I can feel settled within myself.

How to become a writer (according to someone who's not)

Based on Lorrie Moore’s 1985 piece. I wrote this piece while participating in a Write It Down! retreat in Spain over the summer of 2021.

Fast forward, then put a pin in this: Book a writing retreat in Spain to help you make peace with yourself. This peace, you know, is what you need to write. To write often. To write well. To write with confidence. To write at all.

Rewind. Childhood.

Be sure to take yourself too seriously, refuse to be a child. Longing for adulthood when it’s 10+ years away will make you feel a desperate loneliness that’s good for writing. Find a way to express this loneliness, to get it out of you, even if it isn’t with pen and paper. Might I suggest pacing back and forth in the family living room, recounting everything that happened in a day while holding a purple jump rope? You’re not talking to this jump rope, even though it looks this way to your family and they like to embarrass you about it. No, you only hold the jump rope because you need to get used to the feeling of holding something in your hand while you try to get these feelings out (one day it will be a pen).

These feelings, this habit, will set you apart from all your friends. You’ll never feel close to anyone. This is good for writing, even if you haven’t discovered writing yet.

In 3rd grade, write a 5-page story using all the spelling words from the week. Mrs. Banko will put the idea in your head that a writer is something you could become. Quickly forget that you ever wanted to be a ventriloquist, an actress, a curator of reptiles. A writer—it sounded so practical, yet so fantastical.

At 9, being a writer meant competing with a boy in your class, Dustin, to see who could write the longest stories, book reports, persuasive essays. The quality of language didn’t matter; just the number of filled notebook pages.

While growing up don’t do any writing, don’t write a word. Let it become the alto saxophone: another instrument you don’t practice. At the same time it’s something you aspire to because it represents culture, sophistication, dinner parties, conversations with other famous writers. It represents a life you’re sure you would have if you could just grow up already, shed off childhood like an itchy sweater.

Might I recommend reading The Diary of Anne Frank at 11 and letting her become the ghost that haunts you for life? You’ll start keeping diaries, filling them with utter bullshit because your own life isn’t anything that anyone would want to read about. You regret this now because when you go back to reread these diaries, you find that your past has been completely fabricated.

Be a weirdo. Actually believe that you’re meant to live out the rest of Anne Frank’s life for her and become the writer she wanted to be.

In high school you’ll read a biography of Anne Frank, and there will be a quote from Miep Gies about how she once walked in on Anne in the midst of writing that really sticks with you. Miep described the look of intensity that was on Anne’s face, like she had a headache. That’s when you’ll learn that writing is work, writing is discipline, writing is intensity.

But you’re getting too far ahead of yourself. You mustn’t leave out the eating disorder that started at 12. It’s kept you from living an embodied life all these years, from discovering who you are and who you can be.

It’s taken years of therapy and many relapses to land you here. In Spain. On a couch in a conservatory overlooking a beautiful hillside in a Spanish afternoon sunset. That’s still too far ahead.

Go back to England. Lewes, England, to be exact. The happiest you’ve ever been. You’re 22, finishing college, not sure if you can write. So you take a creative writing course based on Virginia Woolf’s (who you’re obsessed with) writing schedule to prove it to yourself.

While in England, you write a short story about an elderly British couple. They’re artists. The wife is more talented than the husband, who is a very boring and traditional painter. You realize that you’ve modeled the wife on Lily Briscoe from Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. In the couple’s old age, the wife has taken up posing nude to inspire her husband’s painting. He’s losing his eyesight (his vision), you see.

Your professor tells you there’s something in the story that needs to be developed more. You never revisit it.

You go through more of your life thinking you’ll be a writer, telling other people this, as well. But you don’t actually know how to become a writer. You know less about how to make a living as one.

So you go to China where you teach English, get drunk all the time, earn a Master’s degree in International Relations. You write emails home about your experiences that everyone says they enjoy reading. You think that maybe travel writing is in your future. You could be like Anthony Bourdain. But you don’t stay in China. You go home, lie about being a student to get an internship at CNN, and decide that you’ll be a journalist.

CNN likes you enough to let you freelance, but journalism is all about paying your dues, and you don’t want to do that. You just want to see the world and write about it. So you say.

You publish pieces here and there, you self-publish a children’s book, but you don’t feel like you have any direction. You want the career of every other writer you’ve read about, ignoring the fact that it took them years of work to get those careers.

One drunken Sunday afternoon, you go with a friend to a tattoo parlor to get your very first tattoo. Something small, a little edge that no one would expect from you. your meager savings allow for the word “Write” to be tattooed in cursive on your left wrist. A flesh post-it to remind you to write, or to remind you that you’re not doing what you want to be doing.

You’ll grow to hate that tattoo. You’d rather people not ask you about it and often cover it with a wrist watch.

Forget about writing. Continue to take jobs and start projects that pull you further away from what you want to be your truth.

When people ask you what you like to write, don’t forget to preface “writer” with “trying to be.” Your lack of published work might not seem so unimpressive if you can prove that you’re trying.

Be honest with yourself: How long can you go on trying to be something (you’re not)?

Live through a COVID lockdown.

End the longest relationship you’ve ever had.

Abandon everything and anything that won’t lead you back to writing.

Finally: Book a writing retreat in Spain to help you make peace with yourself. This peace, you know, is what you need to write.

Before long, maybe you won’t just be trying to be a writer. You’ll discover the true meaning of writing.