The Era of Why Not?

The power of reframing or... I voluntarily eat kale now?

Sorry this week’s stack is late — I kept starting it and then getting pulled in another direction or three.

The more days I exist on this earth, the more I’m convinced that reframing things has a great power. Now, obviously, this can be taken to a ridiculous extreme, like anything. Saying “I’m not out of milk” will not change the fact you have poured a bowl of cereal and have no milk, and would like milk. BUT there are a lot of times that our brains, in their total jerk way, supply us with stories that aren’t any more true than a more useful way of seeing things.

I’ve been thinking about this not just in terms of my own immediate situation with its upheaval and emotional gobbledygook, but in conversations I’ve had with friends about other things. A BRILLIANT friend was saying that they worried their best work was behind them, and essentially what would they do now that being young up and coming hot shit wasn’t a possibility and wasn’t that just depressing. Me, I’m looking at this person and saying, “But isn’t it just as accurate to say — hot DAMN look at all the amazing things you’ve done already…and now you have all that experience and you know more because you’re not so young…what work is going to come from you now? I can’t wait to see. You shouldn’t be able to wait to see either.” (And yes, it’s not all about work, but this conversation was.)

Let’s reclaim the idea that our best is yet to come, my friends. I believe it, even while I will allow that parts of aging suck and it’s a simple fact of life that the longer you live it, the more you will lose people and things you love. But you will also still always have the richness that comes from having had them in the first place, from all your experiences and hard-won and more easily-come-by lessons.

Early on in this whole divorce era (she said haha, when it’s still early on ;) PERSPECTIVE!), I had this thought which I’m sure a million others have had and you will comment to tell me who they were. But I’m going to say it anyway, because it was new to me and related to this idea of reframing.

When we’re children, we all go through a “why?” phase. It makes every adult nearby crazy. “Why does red on a stoplight mean stop? Why does green mean go? Why is green? Why is red? Why? Why? Why?” We are intensely curious about everything, and have this childlike confidence that someone around us knows the answer. (Spoiler alert: Neither adults nor AI have all these answers, not to kid questions.)

And it would be easy to be stuck in the adult version of the “why?” phase, right? At any given time. Why isn’t this working out how I wanted? Why is this project hard? Why is this happening to me, etc. etc.? But I have instead decided to seize “why not?” as my framing. Why not go out and take a photo of the moon? Why not try ketchup? I have been saying for years that kale is a pyramid scheme, and yet, my go-to meal when I have company right now is ordering the DELICIOUS kale salad and whatever the pizza special is from Pearl’s (via the Delivery Coop, for local folk, which deserves your support!). (The kale salad is, well, kale chopped small and pistachios and scallions and miso dressing and it RULES.) So, hey, if I can why not my way into becoming someone who eats kale salad and has plants inside my home that stay alive, why not other things?

Why not try my beloved omniscient POV on this new project I’m working on? I think it might finally be The One that lets me use one of my favorite POVs as a reader. Why not go meet my friend for a cocktail she’s making with dry ice for her fabulous newsletter (yes, it’s

The Mischief Maker

AGAIN, go subscribe)? And the beauty of this is that unlike a year of yes or no, you’re not locked into anything. If the answer to “why not?” is that I don’t want to or I don’t feel like it or no, that just isn’t the way my day is unfolding, then that’s the answer. That’s the why I will not.

Already, I can see the serendipity of this. Last weekend, it was gloomy as a horoscope written by Eeyore outside and I was visiting Mom at the rehab hospital*, and I realized I was only about 10 minutes away from the Henry Faulker 100th birthday exhibit at the Headley-Whitney Museum. Why not pop over to see it? Good art always makes me want to make more art. It makes me feel hopeful and see possibilities and what we’re capable of producing even when the world is bleak. Maybe especially when the world is bleak. On a gray fall day, I needed that.

(What a magical approach, yes? No photos allowed inside.)

What I didn’t expect was to utterly fall in love with Faulkner’s art. I had been aware of him, but not fully in the know, and I certainly had only seen a handful of pieces. I loved learning about bits and pieces of his eccentricity and flamboyant personality, of reading and hearing about how he became a memorable part of so many people in the community’s lives, about his goats! But I loved seeing through his eyes in his art. There are a lot of pieces that are of the neighborhood I walk the dogs through every day in the show. The shapes recognizable, even painted longish ago, but the non-naturalistic color palette and sly whimsy of the compositions made me see it all in a completely new, delightful way. I came home with two prints that were really too expensive for me, but which I’m now glad I bought anyway, because they give me that frisson every time I look at them in the entry room. (I did only get cheap buy one get one floating glass frames, because I’m not made out of money, I’m a divorcee in training here.)

I should have a stronger conclusion to this, but I’ve gone on long enough. Take your “why not?” into your week and maybe ask, when you’re telling Eeyore horoscope stories to yourself about something in your life, whether there is a just as accurate version that might actually help you get to the better truth of you in that moment.

More soon,

G

*Mom is home now, staying with me for a few days before going home home. YAY.