When depressed I find it difficult to connect to my creativity, my muse, or my dæmon—whatever you wish to call that spark that makes creating possible. Though I did not miss a blog post during my most recent depression, there were many weeks when I barely finished one. And this is writing that is entirely about my own experiences and thoughts alone—subjects I should be able to expound on quite easily. Yet I found it very difficult to complete several posts. Some gentle cajoling from Tiffany or Jennifer got me over the hump a few times. I even had a hard time starting some weeks. I had to borrow a little extra inspiration from Jennifer—marrying a brilliant writer was definitely a good decision. Even though I sometimes found writing this newsletter difficult, I found it impossible to write anything else of substance. Emails, texts, tweets, status updates, and other digital ephemera, sure, but no pages on a screenplay, no essays, nor any book chapters. And for once it wasn’t writer’s block. There was nothing to to block. I simply had no ideas.
That is not like me. I may have well-documented problems following through with. . . anything, but I usually have a lot of ideas. Great ideas, good ideas, meh ideas, and bad ideas—all kinds of ideas. Ideas I got. The charitable may call me an idea man, the less charitable, a dreamer. I’m probably 90% Dreamer, 9% Idea Man, 1% Old-Timey Huckster. When I could not even dream up bad ideas, I began to be afraid that I had lost a load-bearing part of my self-identity. Over the past couple of weeks I have started to feel that part of my brain come back online. What a relief. I have even begun jotting down some of these ideas.
My new project is not my idea, but it was indirectly inspired by this blog. Two weeks ago I wrote about the passing of Tiffany’s mother. That led me to talk about funeral foods and how food and death are intertwined. At the end of the post I published a recipe for a favorite food of mourning of mine, King Ranch Casserole. On Tuesday, my good friend Wally sent me this picture:
Later that night, after he had eaten the casserole with his family, Wally suggested that we should write a cookbook on the foods associated with funerals and mourning. Foods for funerals, wakes, memorials, and Shiva et cetera. From the tone of some the messages, I feel like he did not think that I would like this idea. Well, he was right, I don’t like it—I LOVE IT! Down to my marrow. It’s got everything that my brain likes, morbid shit, food and food history, a little anthropology-lite, and a chance to cook and eat a lot of new and old comfort foods. A chance to learn about traditions and cultures that are new to me. You have no idea how many switches in my brain this flips into the happy position. So many! We are just in the very beginnings of this project, but we already have an outline with twenty-three potential chapters. I haven’t outlined a piece of writing in decades, but I knocked one out in a couple of hours. That is not like me. I feel truly energized by this project, and we could use your help with it. Below is an embedded tweet that I made a couple of days ago soliciting for information about how people use food to mourn. I am asking you to join the discussion. You can click on the tweet and answer on the tweet thread or you may email me at the address below the break. If we’re Facebook friends or Instagram followers, you can contact me those places as well.
I will talk to you more about this in the near future; now I have to go get ready for my Zoom party (to which you are totally invited).
Thank you, as always, for reading.
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This sounds like an amazing project! It immediately made me think of two related internet spaces that I follow which may or may not be useful to you as you work on your project. Ignore as needed!
Tasting History with Max Miller: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsaGKqPZnGp_7N80hcHySGQ
Caitlin Doughty | Ask a Mortician:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi5iiEyLwSLvlqnMi02u5gQ
Good luck on your project!