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I have an irrational fear that I will have too many candles. Or that I will not have enough candles? Or that it’s wrong to have too many candles? Or that I am getting the wrong kind of candles? I don’t even know what my own stupid “fear” is, but it’s just…there. For the record, I do not have too many candles. I have a very normal amount of candles. I buy candles very sparingly, considering how much I like them, because of these very thoughts. My first instinct when I see a candle is usually simply and primally “Candle! I like! Should get! Would be good for house and cozy. Very normal to get candle.” And instead of just picking it up and purchasing this normal and reasonably priced thing and moving on with my life, there seems to be lingering behind every TJMaxx, artisanal or thrift store candle my fingers reach out to a crescendoing: “Ahhh….Are you suuuuure? you sure you want this candle? and what kind of wax is it? Is there palm oil in it? Isn’t beeswax kind of bad to get even though bees are going extinct and actually there’s a type of mutual relationship between beekeepers and bees and yeah I think beeswax kind is okay. Oh googled it and it says no beeswax is actually really bad and it’s bad to breathe in those carcinogens in your house anyways and what? you’ve never thought about the carcinogens that get released from candles burning in your home? Yeah maybe you should think about that and not get candles and also why would you get a brand new candle when there’s probably a ton of candles at the thrift store that are gently or half used and just as good and hey probably cheaper and oh yeah! Money!! Did you forget about that? Because isn’t $9.99 for this candle actually kind of expensive? and how long do candles last anyways? but then again, if you get that candle from the boutique you can support a local artist and fair trade yadayada and “vote with your money” thing. But I bet you could find it somewhere else for cheaper. Yeah cheaper. Because remember again - MONEY. MONEY MONEY MONEY. You want to save for a house, don’t you? you don’t want to have to clock in and out your whole life, right? We’re not gonna get there by buying candles willy-nilly, missy, are we? maybe if you just wait to buy a candle till you’re at the thrift store it’ll be better and more sustainable anyways right? ok yeah at thrift store now staring at all of the half used candles. but they don’t smell right. should it smell like that? why do they all smell like sad cappuccinos? oh but remember the carcinogens! should you even be burning candles at all? yeah you should probably just stand in this aisle for 20 minutes touching and smelling every half used candle until you’re fully paralyzed and leave with one single tea light.” ***** The end of Part One of this loose exploration of “what is a civil war and how do we practically contend with it in our own homes in the US in 2020?” ended with this excerpt from Slavenka Drakulic’s book of essays written during the Yugoslavian Civil War (1991-2): “As the war goes on you create a parallel reality: on one side you neurotically cling to what used to be your everyday routine, pretending normality, ignoring the war. On the other side you are unable to deny the deep changes in your life and yourself, the shift in your values, emotions, reactions and behavior. (Can I buy shoes, does it make any sense? Am I allowed to fall in love?)” -Slavenka Drakulic The Balkan Express
Now I don’t want to entirely conflate the experience of those on an immediately violent warfront, such as in the Balkans then, or what is happening now in Artsakh (Armenia) where physical bodies are vulnerable to hourly violence without regard, with what may “comparatively” be a “milder” “warfront” here in the States. Yet to think that we are not living in a state of crisis is delusional. To think that we are not living in a world that could implode (is imploding) on itself is crazy. You are not crazy for realizing, knowing, shouting that many bodies (most bodies) in our country are being treated with complete disregard. You are not crazy for being tired or unable to do it all! The 40 hour work week was designed with two different roles in mind: one to go out and earn wages to pay for the land and resources you live on, the other to stay in and create a comfort of home and raise the next generation - ideally. Gender roles and Mad Men visions aside, in 2020 this is a very rare and hard option for most households even when they want to try to live off of one income. It requires a lot of effort to navigate as a human of modest means, not to mention if you have any other qualifiers to add onto your identity that makes it that much more of a wading through molasses. But that query: “Can I buy shoes, does it make any sense? Am I allowed to fall in love?” seems to follow us around pervasively, doesn’t it? I have always been well-acquainted with Guilt. I had a Catholic upbringing which then evolved into an Evangelical adolescence and young adulthood. This, paired with a natural disposition to please and desire to make the least amount of spectacle possible, makes me the poster child for a quivering, desperate image of “AM I DOING THIS RIGHT?”. When I’m minding my own business, in my own home, watching my TV, reading my book, cooking my food, Guilt doesn’t even knock on the door - she lets herself right in and plops her loud self down at the table. And then she just starts criticizing everything I do. Giving her unsolicited opinions on what kind of milk I bought - and that I even bought milk! You’re a millennial, don’t you know you that’s a sin against your kind? And how long have I been watching that Netflix show, and if I’m going to be watching, shouldn’t I be watching something different? And don’t you know you have to fix all the failures of capitalism and your ancestors with every careful choice you make? Penance always seemed like a relief to me. As a child, I would go into the confessional, tell the Priest my “sins” and leave with a reasonable penance to absolve me from my wrongdoings. Usually 10 Hail Mary’s and a “help your mother with the dishes” type of thing. I qualify “sins” because, in the spirit of a confessional, I admit that I would often replace my real sins with ones I deemed comparably fair. Even in a veiled confessional I was wary of revealing my true nature so readily. But I justified it by knowing in my heart that my penance was accounting for those sins, and I would add a little extra Hail Mary and good deed for my fibbing to a Priest. But the idea of Penance for my Guilt-ridden soul was truthfully a type of balm. One that was ripped away from me when transferring to Evangelicalism where Catholicism was talked about as a religion of idolatry and empty rituals and I was left to fend for myself, holding my Guilt that seemed to keep compounding in my body with no release. It’s why that scene in Fleabag, Season 2 hit me so profoundly. (The whole show hit me so very profoundly, but that’s a whole other topic). The character of Fleabag is on one side of the confessional after-hours with The Priest on the other, whiskey in hand: PRIEST Ok, now you say ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned—’ FLEABAG I’m not going to say that. PRIEST Very good! It’s been - enter days, years, months since my last confession. FLEABAG (Shakes her head) Nope. PRIEST Then I say that’s OK, blah blah blah, ‘till you tell me what’s on your mind. Tell me your si— FLEABAG Sins? PRIEST Sins…If you want. Because it will make you feel better and because… I want to know. FLEABAG Ok. She takes a swig of her drink **** FLEABAG I’ve stolen things. I’ve had a LOT of sex outside of marriage. And…once or twice inside someone else’s. There’s been a spot of sodomy…There’s been much masturbation. A bit of violence and then of course the endless fucking blasphemy. PRIEST Laughs. And? FLEABAG And — PRIEST Go on. FLEABAG AND — PRIEST It’s Ok, go on. FLEABAG Frightened. PRIEST of what? FLEABAG Not easy for her to say. Of forgetting. Things. People. Beat. People. Beat. She drinks. And I’m ashamed of not knowing what I- PRIEST Want? It’s OK to not know what you want. FLEABAG No, I know what I want, I know exactly what I want, right now. PRIEST What’s that? Pause. FLEABAG It’s bad. PRIEST That’s ok. FLEABAG I want someone to tell me what to wear in the morning. PRIEST Ok. Well I think there are people who can do that — FLEABAG No, I want someone to tell me what to wear every morning … I want someone to tell me what to eat, what to like, what to hate, what to rage about, what to listen to, what band to like, what to buy tickets for, what to joke about, what not to joke about. I want someone to tell me what to believe in, who to vote for, who to love and how to…tell them. Beat. I just think I want someone to tell me how to live my life, Father, because so far, I think I’ve been getting it wrong. Beat. And I know that is why people want people like you in their lives. Because you just tell them how to do it. You just tell them what to do. And what they’ll get out of the end of it. And even though I don’t believe your bullshit and I know that scientifically nothing I do makes any difference in the end anyway, I’m still scared, why am I still scared? Beat. Just fucking tell me what to do, Father. Silence.
I find myself wanting someone, some Priest, who can answer that question - “Can I buy shoes? Can I fall in love?” This question has dragged me into a lot of trouble and trauma when finding Priest-figures in my life, who I then allowed to manipulate me and my questions and seeking. But I was - always am frantically looking around to gauge the temperature of the climate. Is it okay now to enjoy tiny luxuries? Is it okay to leave my family and California? Is it okay to pursue things that give me pleasure? These questions sit so deeply within me, I am constantly doing work to sift through what is worthy of consideration and what is of no real consequence. These questions all feel so very amplified now, here in this rapidly changing, yet so historically unchanged, landscape. And it feels like more and more of us are asking these questions, quietly to ourselves and out loud into the ether. I am waiting for someone to give me permission. Always waiting for permission. For what exactly? If I really sit and ask myself that, specifically, it becomes so vague. Why do I need permission? Why do I need validation? What will really happen if I am “exposed” or do “wrong”? What do those words even mean? What does it mean to feel like the world is on the brink of collapse and still want to kiss somebody and enjoy a pie? Where do all of these feelings fit? And are they contradictory? Is there room for pursuit of pleasure in an uncertain world? In the past couple of years, I have learned to take comfort in my smallness and my insignificance. Because ultimately, truthfully, I am that. A blip. Singular humans can affect a lot of good and a lot of bad. But looked at closer, they never act singularly. They are a part of the humanity and culture around them that facilitated them to be so. So once I establish my smallness, I can look at myself and think: What now? The question in this time then transforms from - “Can I?” to one more helpful, more life-giving; one riddled with much less Guilt, and therefore much less wasted time. Now that I know that I am small, what might I dare to do? Now that I know that I do not need to save the world, nor will I singularly destroy the world with my candle purchase, which candle smells the best to me? (Hint: it’s never the ones from TJMaxx. You think it’s going to be. But it isn’t. You smell it in the store and you think you like the smell of patchouli sunrise catnip, but at home, it will always always just smell like bad housecleaner). ***** MFK Fisher, one of the best food writers out there and a woman who knew how to live abundantly and joyfully during wartimes even with the smallest of means, and wrote a book on it, said: “Since we must eat to live, we might as well do it with both grace and gusto.” - MFK Fisher How to Cook a Wolf
Since we must live our small lives at our own disposal and with our means, we might as well do it well and learn to infuse as much joy with what we have. I’ve had many discussions with the people in my life lately on what they think of indulgences or luxuries and whether they associate any guilt around them. I always turn to my Taurus friends for the most assurance on these topics, the ones who place moral value on good materiality, a value Evangelical culture shuns. Materialism is seen as a stumbling block of sin, so there is no need to waste time on it. I am constantly having to re-establish these values, be convinced again and again of its merit. The place where I find myself always re-invigorated in life, in body, in soul, in community, is with food. Part Three will continue with this series of “Setting the table in wartime” with Getting the Food on the Table.
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