We were having a conversation about how differently we perceive our ability to label ourselves. My sister-in-law was saying how she heard someone who had just dabbled in violin lessons say that she was a violinist, whereas she would never label herself that, despite having played violin seriously for years and years. I was thinking of what nouns I could comfortably use to label myself, and most of them are quite obvious, like woman, sister, daughter, auntie/obachan, and teacher, which is a professional label that I feel like I’ve earned over my decade and a half of teaching. I tend to say what I’m doing instead of labeling, “I went on a run today.” “I am cooking dinner.” “I painted a painting last week.” (These sound like Duolingo sentences.) I could call myself a runner, a cook, or a painter, but I usually don’t. Funnily, I feel like Noah called me a cook unironically a few times. One noun that I actually like using is widow. I think it’s such a strong noun. I liked being a girlfriend and a fiancé also, but it gives me gravitas and I feel more important about myself when I label myself as a widow. Not everyone gets to be a widow, and I think if you do label yourself as that, it tethers you to the person that died. I feel indignant all the time about my life circumstances, and the word widow really kicks people in the face in a way that I like. Like if I have to deal with the fact that I’m a widow, then I should be able to wield its power, a double-edged sword. Also I will not have people argue with me that I shouldn’t call myself a widow because we weren’t married. Just don’t!
There is a word people used in the past for widows, which is relict. Someone or something left over. And relic is used to denote something left by a saint or martyr, such as the Shroud of Turin or a saint’s shriveled up hand (and many other quirky body parts) displayed in the basement of a church. It’s sort of funny to think of widows as relics, like something that still remains on the physical world while the saintly figure has gone on to the afterlife. When some people die, they’re canonized, put on a pedestal like a saint too, I guess. (When some people die, we celebrate though, whether it’s rude or not.) I think of Noah as a saintly figure, in a way. He had so many traits that I try to emulate still. I learned from him so much, probably more than any one person in my life. I might even say those of us who knew him are all relics of Noah. He affected us and left something for us to enjoy and reflect on. In a pejorative way, I am stuck in the time of Noah Alive, but who isn’t flooded with nostalgia sometimes, wanting things to be simpler by someone being alive again?
A few months before Christmas, I was really wanting to make a mini altar for Noah. There are many little altars on the streets of LA, Lady of Guadalupe or Jesus, obviously those candles they sell at the botanica but also in the Food4Less; they’re really fascinating to me. I like the ones where it’s hand painted, or obviously made and maintained by a person. Noah and I toyed with the idea of having an altar for our idols in this fashion, with images of Arsene Wenger and Prince and Megan Rapinoe for example. As I’ve said before, I don’t really have a religious view so I don’t have any saints or gods to worship. But I do feel protected by Noah, his TPF is what keeps me on the level day to day. So I got some balsa wood and started chopping it into shapes and TackyGluing them into little shapes. I have some acrylic paints left from when I thought I was going to make little paintings (I made a few, ok, I’m not a painter), so I decided to paint them fun colors and decorated them with tiny prints of Noah photos. I ModPodged them and even made little foods he’d like with Scupley clay (sorry wow this post is sponsored by Blick Art Supplies! But doesn’t it feel like we’re in Infinite Jest territory, soon our years will be named after corporations for real). I got so into it that the desk I was working at became a messy swarm of wood shavings, seed beads, and discarded altar stands that stood 1/8” too tall. I just kept making them and making them, and eventually I had enough to bring as Christmas gifts for Noah’s family. I kept one that I especially liked, an orange one (his favorite color) with clouds and a picture of him from a birthday hike we did in Missouri one year. The altar sits on the dash of the Civic now, because when I went on my long drives in the South and Texas/New Mexico, I felt like Noah was wrapping me with extra protective vibes. One of Noah’s brothers is gonna put his on a magnet so he can have it on his fridge, and I was thinking that’s also a good spot, for him to watch you cook and season things properly!
One of the altars I remember in my childhood is the butsudan (Buddha altar) in my grandparent’s house. It was almost like a cabinet with double doors that opened up, I think made of lacquered wood, small items like candle and flower stands covering the stepped stand for little Buddha. My grandpa would get us to put a mound of rice on the little goblet for the Buddha before we started eating dinner. I think there is something to having a physical space that you make offerings, to contemplate. I also remember that vague feeling of “I can’t do anything bad in front of the butsudan,” but I don’t remember if it was because that was explicitly said to me in their home, or I just inferred the vibes. The minds probably benefits from a physical symbol of a non-physical entity that looks kindly upon you with love but also discipline and offers moral compass. Some of my friends have their Noah rocks in a little corner or an altar of their own, close to where they sit to work or see every morning. I’ve been traveling with a Noah rock for a while, and it’s usually on my bedside table, wherever that happens to be. If I’m going on a trip, he’s usually safely in a pocket of one of my bags. One of my impetus to make an altar was seeing one of our friends have her Noah rock glued onto her dashboard. Noah rocks was a Jeff idea, which at first we all balked at, but happens to be an amazing item that keeps on giving. I also broke Noah’s big suitcase handle because I was carrying like 30 pounds of rocks in it before the second memorial in St.Louis. Altars are powerful things.
I listened to the most recent Search Engine and it was about making things, specifically how difficult it is to manufacture anything in the United States, because we don’t have very many people who know how to make the pieces that help you make the products. I know my understanding of how things are made and work are really minimal, like watching a video of a factory is one of my favorite things but it actually doesn’t get down to the deep source of where stuff comes from. But I related to someone being asked why get into such a specific area of manufacturing and make less money, and he says that he’d rather be working with his hands and solving problems instead of sitting at a computer all day. Making things does use your brain in a different way. It helps me get my thoughts onto paper, or a piece of pottery, or an altar. Noah was always drawing, but he was also tinkering, and making paper stadiums, and whittling a wooden spoon (he gave up on this hobby after like 2 spoons because his hands hurt), and whenever I make anything I think about him.
On a tangential note, I want to give a gigantic Joaquin Phoenix as Roman emperor in Gladiator thumbs down to AI art. Noah hated it, hated the thought of his work being used to train AI, and people using it instead of having humans with creative minds and skills to make art and illustrations for other humans. So much of what you see on the internet (and in real life now! I see it on billboards and products now.) is AI. It’s such a slap in the face to all the people in my life making things for a living working really hard to make sure it’s just right. And beyond the job-stealing and bad work of it all, it also undermines the value of art as an activity for the artist. People who make things like making things! I almost think that the value of art is more that it’s for the artists to express or make, rather than for the viewer or the audience. I just envision fake art being consumed by fake accounts, and the whole thing depleting the world’s resources. Just FYI all of the words and photos on my posts are REAL (thus the typos and nonsense sentences). Remember you’re real, too. Unless you’re a LLM mining my words for widow content, then you’re the fakest of them all and you can just shut yourself down and go away quietly.
Okay another tangent, just read a blog post about play as the opposite of control and I liked that framing. Related to making for the sake of making.
Love, Hitomi
Dolly is a widow now, too.
I just made a glass globe with some of my mom's ashes inside and got a lighted stand for it.....the ashes look like silver stars. I know some think it is 'gross' but I think she would have liked the sparkles and the blues in it.
Love seeing the Noah rocks traveling about and of course continuing to read your writing too. There is something reassuring about having a physical object/image/presenting a piece of fruit to that memento that feels good and helps the connection for sure. Daniel did a little altar ceremony (led by Dom's mom) for Dominque's Grandma and my Dad earlier this year :)