Crashing at Your Parents' as an Artistic Practice
Maybe reverting to being a moody teen isn't all that bad
I had no plans to travel for the remainder of the year, after my August of Doom, but due to a number of circumstances I won’t get into here, I found myself spending the past month in Peru. For most of my adult life, I have absolutely chafed at having to go to Lima so often, even though I know it sounds absolutely adventurous and unconventional to most of you. “But Incas! Ceviche! Ayahuasca!”, said breathlessly by whomever I was grumbling about. Yes, I know! But Lima is my hometown and I have long noticed that everyone has a toxic relationship with their hometown, not just people who grew up in some quasi-Pawnee, Indiana snore. Like, I have yet to meet a native New Yorker who doesn’t dream of a life elsewhere. About the only people immune to this are Chicagoans, and even some of them manage to flee and make weird comments to me in bars about how they hate Chi Town because their high school bully lives there or something. (Just kidding, the only people who do this grew up in Naperville, not real Chicago.)
ANYWAY, TANGENT.
But what I mean to say is that for many years, Lima represented the place where I would spend exorbitant amounts of hours watching TV reruns, praying I didn’t run into embarrassing crushes from my youth, and engaging in exactly ONE annual battle with my parents over politics. I resented having to go, considering that I either had no leftover money to go elsewhere (cause grad student) or vacation time to use on other places (cause American Office Life exploitation). At some point, pre-COVID, I made the executive decision to only go every other year so I could explore the world. My commitment to the freelance life has a lot to do with my need to not use up every vacation day possible just so I can hug my mom and tease my brothers.
My attitude, though, has drastically changed over the past years, mostly for sentimental-getting-old-reasons. My parents are aging, I have nephews now, and since I actually like my family, I value the time spent with them. I’ve spent the bulk of my life apart from them and the panini has made me acutely aware of everyone’s mortality. But, more than anything, Lima has become a place where I can just write in peace.
At the risk of sounding like a spoiled brat, I have way more unobstructed writing time in part because I can be a spoiled brat. Cooking, cleaning, errands, bills are the domain of my extremely generous-with-her-time-and-energy mother, my father’s hard-earned retirement, and la Señora Beatriz’s work at our home during the week. It’s amazing how many hours I have left to do whatever the fuck I want when I don’t have to make three meals for myself every day of my life. This is why every literary nightmare of yore had a devoted and usually long suffering wife. It’s probably good for the world that I was born female and lived in places where I was almost always part of some frowned-upon demographic lol because, if not, I’d probably be THE most toxic literary dude of all. The amount of mental space you get back by not having to do domestic labor is intoxicating! (Here is where I express my utmost gratitude for my parents’ labor, la señora Beatriz’s labor, privilege caveat, you fill in the blanks with whatever intersectional Marxist interpretation is coursing through your body.)
This is only one part of the puzzle though. Other than a flurry of family events, my social life in Lima is akin to that of a particularly nerdy teen. I have exactly five friends in the city—my four bffs from high school and one friend from my Peruvian college days. FIVE. LIKE THE NUMBER OF FINGERS ON MY HAND. Actually, scratch that, cause one of my bffs now lives in Switzerland. So I legit only have four friends. And they all have bustling, full lives that they cannot drop just because I found a good deal on a plane ticket. I will see them approximately once per trip, maybe twice if I’m lucky.
Therefore, my time is up to me. What I usually end up doing is retreating into words. I brainstorm, I read, I revisit drafts. Because so much of my current output right now is focused on Peru, I walk among its streets, trying to conjure up hazy or blocked memories. I do weird shit like visit a tiny museum on pre-hispanic textile art or attend a free play about the South American independence movement. I take myself out to new wine bars and chat up bartenders about the State of Things in a country that is mine, but which I find to be a perpetual mystery. And then I go back and process and write because I don’t have to call my health insurance about paying for my contact lenses. Future Ines will. But the Ines in Peru lives suspended in another realm, an altered state where she truly believes “things will work themselves out.”
Something strange happens in my virtual life too. Because my VPN? Wifi? 5G-wired brain chip? I dunno, signals to the mighty algorithm that I’m somewhere else, all the usual din of the US gets shoved to the bottom of my feed. And because I so rarely interact with the Peruvian accounts I do follow, the ones that get pushed up tend to be the largest and most benign. Restaurants. Bars. Cultural organizations like museums or folkloric ballet troupes. For several days, sometimes weeks, I’m not part of any discourse. Friends from the US will mention some scandal or other and it will take me a while to fully understand what they’re referring to. Peruvian friends will gripe about one shocking event and I too will only be mildly aware.
Before you come for me, this was pre Everything that Happened in Israel and Palestine, so I’m not advocating for disengagement or ignorance. I’m talking smaller stuff. Like the redemption of Julia Allison or whether trad-wives will lead to our democratic demise (US). Or how Sound of Freedom is sweeping movie theaters and what to do about the congresswoman who was partying the day our VP died. (Peru). It’s not that I won’t later look this shit up and have an opinion, it’s just that my response is slower, less urgent. And also, I’m busy reading up on potatoes for this essay—I’ll get to it when I get to it.
There are, of course, other distractions. Family meals. Parents bursting in to see if they left that thing in that drawer. My nephew bursting in asking if I want to play. There was that one time I arrived in Peru and the then-president went for the brilliant self-coup political move LOL. I’m not saying being in Peru is easier, categorically-speaking. It’s not easy, as anyone who lives there will tell you. I’m saying, for me, being in my parent’s home is. It’s the closest I come to being an independently wealthy monk and I’m grateful for the time I get to pretend that every need is magically met, the material realm does not exist, and all I have is art, sublime art, to tend to and make.
Homework
Some people have seen their home torn apart, some people cannot go home again, some people have never lived a life of peace. If you’re looking to me for political guidance, I kindly ask that you go and read the way more thoughtful remarks and analysis that academics and writers who are from the region have been producing throughout their entire lives. If you’re looking for a handy place to find links where you can donate, I can be a little bit more helpful:
Palestine Children’s Relief Fund
That is all I’m saying on the newsletter on the matter—emphasis on newsletter, which is not the entirety of my life or actions.
State of My Wallet
September Invoiced: $2,780.72
September Received: $2,171.68
Eeeek, it’s here, it’s here! The final stretch of all the savings I amassed throughout the year. Low numbers also due to several projects that were pushed back into October. I’m not panicking, you’re panicking. I’m not panicking, I’m sending emails to leads. I’m not panicking, I’m wondering if I can pitch my way through this.
Progress Report
Pitches: 1
LOIs: 2
Commissions: 0
Residency/workshop applications: 0
Events submissions/requests (everything from readings to classes): 3
Contests: 0
Rejections: 2
Acceptances: 4
Total number of submissions for the year: 29
Total number of job-related applications for the year: 27
I’m currently killing it at the residency game—I got accepted into two! I’m definitely attending Wedding Cake in February. As for the other one, I’m no longer available for the dates they assigned me, so I’m waiting to hear back from them about potential availability for another date. Not killing it in the gig game, waaa. I got a form rejection for one job I really wanted (but was a stretch) and was passed up for another short-term position that would have given me some stability in the next few months. Oh well! Such is life. These rejections used to plummet me into a fetal position, unable to do much for weeks while I recovered. Now, I just kind of nod and move on. Exposure therapy really does seem to work when it comes to the writing life.
Shameless Self-Promotion
For Saveur, I wrote a mini-restaurant guide of Lima! I actually started working on this piece before my trip, but it was serendipitous that I got to go and revisit some of my favorites.
You can now pre-order Gabriela Mistral’s Desolación, the poetry collection I co-translated!
I have availability in November and December for new clients or projects. Hit me up! My services include content writing (articles, blog posts, web copy, newsletters), internal communications (toolkits, reports) and English<>Spanish translation and copywriting. If you’re an editor, my usual beats are food, culture and personal essays.
My donation-based virtual Tarot card readings have officially re-opened and I’ve added Saturday availability. The half-hour sessions are a great way to gain some insight into whatever pressing question you may have or to simply ask for a vibe check. I swear they are not scary at all—I am simply not that powerful lol—and my way of reading is more about talking through what you already know is going on, deep down inside. Suggested donation is $30.00 but you can give as much or as little as you want. Books yours here.
Angsty teen Ines surveying her empire! Loved this. <3