On Unwritten Essays

And my new favorite podcast

There is a book by the playwright Sarah Ruhl called 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write, which she put together in the years when she had small children. It is a great book (a book full of small potatoes, in fact), but it is the title that I think about all the time. There are so many essays I’ve almost written this month -- one on not hanging up my coat, one on the idea of a new desk, one on calling the insurance company. Maybe I’ll really write them someday, maybe even soon, but there is also something about almost writing them, about the essays being right there on the tip of my tongue, that has its own set of qualities.

They bring to mind a diagram I once saw in my high school physics textbook of a ball, cross-hatched to give a sense of heft and roundness, perched on the top of a simple line drawing of a cliff (was this picture in all physics textbooks? I assume so.). It is a rendering of potential energy, a concept that even now seems mystical. Can one measure it? I remember that yes, one can. But the ball isn’t doing anything. It is just sitting there. It could sit there forever. My unwritten essays are like that, all potential with the grand, thrilling possibility of the kinetic. They aren’t bad yet, because they don’t exist. And I suppose they aren’t good either. I have felt no excitement or shame in sharing them. And while potential isn’t entirely satisfying, my little essays sit there on the edge of the cliff, vibrating and agitated, alive in their own way. They might shrivel up, or disappear, or roll down the hill, or even grow a pair of wings and fly away.

That is all to say: this month got away from me, friends! I’ve been deep in book research, and missed writing my usual mid-month meditation on a small potato. I won’t make a habit of it, I promise. I’m sorry if you missed it, and I’m also a little flattered if you missed it!

Here are some things I’ve been loving this month:

We All Eat Dinner

Over the last month, there has been a bit of a debate in the world of children’s books about the place of didacticism in children’s books. Clearly, I love children’s books that show rather than tell, that offer a bit of enchantment and humor. Almost everything I’ve recommended in this space falls into that category. But because kids need to learn concrete things like how to pee in the toilet or what to do when they feel angry, didactic kids books have a place. The recent kerfuffle made me think about which ones I actually like.

A couple of years ago, my friend Ashley, a preschool teacher with excellent taste, gave us a book called Children of the World. It is a large, vibrantly illustrated book about the many ways children live in different parts of the world. There are pages about daily routines, chores, bathing, family structure, languages, and even the various forms of funny hats children wear. It is didactic in the sense that it is intended to teach a kind of common humanity, but it does that job using the classic writing advice of “show don’t tell.” Some kids eat pizza for dinner, some eat borscht, and some eat juriltai shul, a hearty Mongolian noodle soup.

Looking for Witches

Speaking of research for my book, I recently listened to all thirteen episodes of the BBC 4 podcast WITCH, made by India Rakusen, for the chapter I’m working on about girls and witches. I loved this podcast. Rakusen tells stories about the massive popularity of Wicca (the fastest growing global religion!), talks to practicing witches, explores the long legacy of the witch trials, interviews Silvia Federici (swoon), discusses the relationship between our ideas about older women and our ideas about witches, and much more. It’s also beautifully made and entertaining. Maybe you have a summer road trip coming up or you like to listen to podcasts while you cook like I do. May I recommend that you take a break from all the podcast chatting about the current atrocities and engage with this series about a very old atrocity and the people trying to make sense of it.