everything winter

rats in my kitchen, The Testament of Ann Lee, Things in Nature Merely Grow

Well, Old Womyn Winter really kicked it up a notch around here. We got 16 inches of snow last weekend—a pretty normal amount for a winter storm, but the biggest one we’ve had this year nonetheless. The roads were a little scary for a few days and the hardware store ran out of ice melt, but nothing catastropic. Since then, the temperature hasn’t gotten above 10F. It’s mostly the cold that fucks me up. When it’s in the negatives like this, I can feel freezing air seeping through my walls. I can’t walk around barefoot in my own house. I have to sleep in a sweatshirt and sweatpants and wear socks at all times, and you know I hate constriction!! Also, signs and sightings over the past few days have led Liz and me to a horrifying conclusion: RATS ARE LIVING BEHIND OUR DISHWASHER!

the RaV after the big storm

My first clue of the rats’ presence was that Louis kept whining and pawing at the dishwasher. Louis is part pitbull terrier and I wondered if he could perhaps catch a rat or two, but then Liz pointed out that Louis sleeps 16 hours a day beneath 2-3 blankets, and is not particularly fast. The most terrier thing about Louis is that he cannot be trusted off-leash—despite years of intensive recall training, he will bolt if he sees a deer or literally any animal.

would you hire this dog to kill a rat?

Weezy is 15 and does not care at all, despite looking like a big rat in certain lights.

Due to the rats, I have lost all will to use my kitchen. I don’t want to cook. I don’t want to make a cup of tea. I just want to hide in my bedroom and eat Newman-Os for dinner. Last night I forced myself to disinfect the counters and pre-wash a pot in order to make lentil soup. This morning I toasted a bagel and mashed some avocado on it—partway through I went in to another room and realized, the rats are going to get my bagel and ran back. I felt so harrowed like, Papa can you hear me??? It makes me wish that I still lived in a big city with a robust food delivery culture, or at least the existence of good, casual restaurants. One of the many joys of friction-maxxing, or as I like to call it “living in Vermont,“ is how good it feels when you accept defeat and order pizza, eat off a paper plate, go through the drive-thru, etc. I suppose there’s always Domino’s.

This week and always, I’m sending love and solidarity to everyone protesting, observing, organizing, donating money, and calling their representatives about ICE. I’ve been finding it almost impossible to stop doomscrolling and focus on my work, so please know that you’re not alone in your fear and despair.

Below are a list of everything I’m reading and watching lately. Quick content warning for suicide, under the heading Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li. Nothing graphic, no ideation! xoxo, Maddy

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The Testament of Ann Lee

If you read this newsletter, you know I freaking love Shakers—a sect of Christians who live communally and don’t believe in sex or marriage. In the early to mid-1800s, there were an estimated 6,000 Shakers living in more than a dozen villages across the northeastern United States and as far west as Ohio. They were famous for their raucous worship services that included freeform dancing, singing, and speaking in tongues—though as they became wealthier and more established in the 19th century, their dancing became more choreographed and line dance-y with designated parts for men and women. The Shakers were total sickos for architecture, craftsmanship, and design, as evidenced by this next-level barn in Hancock, MA. They were the first people to sell garden seeds commercially, and invented items that we still depend on today like condensed milk, an early version of the washing machine, the buzz saw, and the flat broom (before the Shakers, brooms were round straw around a pole, cartoon witch style). They are probably most remembered for their minimalistic, eerily beautiful furniture.

If the Shakers have no stans, I’m dead. So two years ago, when I found out there was a real-deal movie about Shakers being made, I was very hyped. When I learned it was a musical starring Amanda Seyfried as Mother Ann Lee, the founder of the Shakers, and the score was mostly Shaker hymns with new, modern arrangements, I was like, “Huh, weird“ but then I was like, “OF COURSE.” The Shakers loved to sing and dance, it’s literally how they got the name Shakers. Also, if you saw Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes in The Dropout, you know she knows how to play a really intense woman. This week, I took the first possible opportunity to head over to my local arthouse theater and take in The Testament of Ann Lee and wow, I love a movie that just goes for it.

Ann Lee was born in 1736 in Manchester, England. She never learned to read or write, so most of what we “know” about her life comes from writings composed decades after her death. The movie is narrated by a future believer, so there’s a sense that we’re seeing is more lore than truth.

As a young woman, Ann joins up with a rogue group of Quakers who believe that the second coming of Christ would be a woman. Ann is like, “Wait, are you talking about me? Because I’m Christ.” and starts calling herself “Mother Ann.” Unsurprisingly this doesn’t go over well with the Church of England and the local authorities so in 1778, in the middle of the American Revolution, Mother Ann, her gay brother, and a small group of followers emigrated to New York City. They eventually travel up the Hudson and settle in Watervliet, NY, where they form a commune where they can worship freely and attract new converts.

Mother Ann experienced a lot of violence and trauma in her life. She lived in an age where marriage and childbirth were unavoidable for most women, and lost all four of her children as infants. She was a victim of state violence and incarceration. She used dance, singing, and prayer to feel regain agency and control over her own body. There’s an urgency to the dance and hymns in Testament. There’s a lot of screaming, a lot of heavy breathing. It rejects this music as pretty and clean and reimagines it as Mother Ann’s survival.

one of the dance sequences; photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

Testament commits the very biopic-y crime of feeling rushed, especially near the end of Mother Ann’s life. The movie also throws in many anachronistic Shaker technologies and items that wouldn’t have existed in her lifetime, which I can forgive because how are you going to make a movie about Shakers and not feature their material culture?? There’s even an appearance by my favorite Shaker invention: the adult cradle, which they used to care for elderly and ill. The rocking prevented bed sores and provided comfort. There’s something so vulnerable and tender about a cradle meant for adults, and it really fucked me up to see it being used in the context of the movie.

The most moving moments of Testament are when Mother Ann has visions of girls playing in a forthcoming Shaker village and being carefree in a way that she was never allowed to be. By insisting on her own divinity, Mother Ann created a space where women and girls could receive an education, hold leadership positions, and were allowed infinitely more power and agency over their own lives than their non-Shaker counterparts.

photo courtesy of the Hancock Shaker Village

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Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li

In November, I learned that my friend Sylvie had died from suicide. I met Sylvie ten or so years ago, when I lived in Madison, WI. Madison is a small city and Sylvie showed up to everyone’s birthday party, art show, and miscellaneous event. Sylvie had so many friends; I don’t think there’s a universe where we could have not met. She was an exceptional artist, teacher, and LHB. She was a great listener, even if what you were saying was stupid and made no sense.

I was telling Liz, who has lost several friends to suicide, about Sylvie and how she died. I asked if there’s a comfort in knowing that when someone commits suicide, at least they chose that for themselves.

“No! The choice makes it worse,“ she said.

And of course, what even is “choice” in the world we live in? I was thinking aloud, but there is a unique grief when you lose someone to suicide. The “why“ feels so much louder.

Luckily I found my way to Yiyun Li’s new memoir, Things in Nature Merely Grow about the loss of her son, James. James jumped in front of a train at the age of 19. Several years before, James’ brother and Li’s older son, Vincent, had committed a very similar suicide. When her sons were in elementary school, Li herself attempted suicide and survived. This memoir isn’t interested in diagnoses or therapy jargon. Yiyun respects her sons and her own free will. She writes that despite being young, James and Vincent had the intellectual ability to make valid, thoughtful decisions about whether or not to live. This radical acceptance made me trust Yiyun, and offers a directness and acceptance re: suicide that I don’t think I’ve read anywhere else.

Although this memoir is mostly a reflection on the limits of language and what it’s like to experience a tragedy that others cannot easily relate to, it’s also an adoring portrait of James and everything that made him him. The writing in this memoir is so sparse, I was like, HOW IS SHE PACKING THIS MUCH OF A PUNCH? My socks were fully knocked off by the final page. Instructive for anyone who has ever lost a friend or loved one to suicide, or has felt the limitations of a culture that doesn’t know how to talk openly about death.

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Less Instagram, More Websites

In researching solutions to my rat problem, I found myself on ratbonerescues.com, a Geocities-era website of a rat terrier rescue in Florida. Rat terriers are small dogs that were initially breed by farmers to catch rodents, and the menu bar on this website even has a little rat that appears as you hover!! This website brought up my very first memory of the internet—I was 6 or 7, in the children’s section of the Appleton Public Library. I logged onto a computer with my library card number and looked at a sherbet-colored, gif-ridden website about guinea pigs. And while it’s not practical for me to drive 24 hours due south to adopt another dog, I spent an hour reading this entire website. No AI!!

Now that social media is on the cultural decline, I’m wondering if websites will be coming back? My friend Kyle recently re-did his website in a similar web 1.0 style and I’m really in love with it.

Let me know if you know of any other cool, time capsule websites that I should look at.

Little Pinto yearns for a home