The sequoia's secret is a sharp story
and this is the human side of what we write.
The skunk cabbages are knocked down, their season over. A giant mushroom is felled by the path, entirely wet: I kick it gently and it falls apart. For the rest of the day it haunts me: “I kicked a mushroom,” I say again and again, and this human side of me aches in the rain with the memory of leading a girl smaller than me into an old bougainvillea tree, the thorns hurting her, and the truth is that I was young enough and old enough to want to hurt her because I could. I still negotiate harm in every piece of writing – I don’t want to hurt anyone now but I want you to feel and I don’t know how to do both. I want to believe honesty is a wall we can scale. At the top is gentleness. Along the way we grasp the sequoia’s secret: an unbearable need for a sharp story. I’m still startled, somehow, at this blade of hunger, sharp as girlhood, turned on myself, buried in everything we called love. •
“It is the part of you that is so very human.” Alexander Chee, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
That quote by Alexander Chee — “the part of you that is so very human” — feels like a mystery to lean into. What would you name as “very human”? There could be a million answers.
For a while now I’ve been wondering whether North America has forgotten what it is to be human, to be embodied. It’s one of the worries I bring to conversations about AI — that we are already so ill-equipped to live with our human sides, and this new technology will make it even less imperative to find the way back. What do you think?
If you’re a paid subscriber, I’m dropping a writing prompt in the chat that gives you ideas on writing something new from Chee’s quote.
Mentally, I’m beginning to call this series of short blasts of writing the “walnut ink” series. November, and long days of rain in the Pacific northwest, altered something about the way I write. I’ve been writing shorter paragraphs with more hungry sentences. The light is coming back now — the sun finally climbing closer to the centre of the sky. Maybe the longer days will bring longer, gentler sentences.
For now, here are a few of the other “walnut ink” prose poems:
Much like the kicked-over mushroom, your beautiful words linger, Maaike. Thank you. Your exploration of harm and empathy in writing is deeply moving, reminding me that honesty, while sharp and sometimes painful, is always the path that leads us quickest towards gentleness and understanding. Yes, I’m also fearful of AI distancing us from our humanness. I worry that people will stop thinking for themselves and that so much original thought and so many unique voices will be lost. Thank you for sharing 'Falling Woman' too. I look forward to more of your 'Walnut Ink' series.
"AI ~ that we are already so ill-equipped to live with our human sides, and this new technology will make it even less imperative to find the way back." What do I think?
I think, it depends on how you look at it. I like to believe that because as humans we are already so ill-equipped to live with our human sides, this new tech will make it more imperative to find our back (or forward as the case may be) to live and become more fully human.
I believe, a lot of technology has been and is being developed out of a sense of human inferiority. The intention within and beneath and at the root of this development is a desire for superiority. Always a desperate race to the top....
We will not 'win the race' unless we remember our true power as humans, which is far beyond AI or any manmade technology.
I love your work ~ your artwork and writing 💗🙏