Everything's Possible, When You're an Animal

In defence of slow walkers

The Reader by Emma Amos

The Sunday Letter #18

I like to call my grandma on my lunch breaks. I’ll wander through the food court, shouting into my phone because she is losing her hearing and her short-term memory. I try to be patient, I try to fill in the blanks for her without shame or judgement.

I’m embarrassed to say that I haven’t always been a patient person. My biggest pet peeve used to be repeating myself—I’m a notorious mumbler, and I hate being reminded of it. I grew up around loud, impatient people, and I sought refuge in solitude and silence. When I moved out at 19, I was shocked at how quiet living alone could be.

Within a few years of living together, my then-boyfriend (now husband) and I came to learn that his hearing was worsening due to a genetic condition. I had to learn to be comfortable with repeating myself, to always sit on his right side, to face him when speaking, and not to even bother trying to convey any messages from another room. Likewise, I was born without a sense of smell and he teaches me new things about the world of scent every day, from picking out perfume and deodorant for me to sniffing clothes that I fish out from the bottom of the laundry hamper. These are small levels of care, bare minimums, that I didn’t quite understand until I left a loud family home and entered into a quiet home we were building together.

When I call my grandma, she asks me to come visit. I can tell that fifteen minutes into our calls, she doesn’t quite always have a full sense of who she is talking to, my personality becoming an amalgamation of my other female cousins. But that’s okay, because there’s still so much love in that feeling. Sometimes I just want to hear her talk, even if it’s a repetition of the same stories. One of the most interesting things about watching her enter into this stage of life is that the stories I’ve heard her repeat over and over for decades, sometimes in the same breath, take on new subtext with each retelling. Sometimes she’ll tell the same story about her late husband wistfully, sometimes mournfully, sometimes humorously.

We talked a few days ago, and she asked me again to come visit. Why haven’t I? “Time, that’s what’s missing,” she says. “Of course, I have lots of it. I watch a lot of TV and talk shows. I don’t like movies…I like talk shows, I like things with feedback.”

*

I was re-reading a personal essay I wrote eleven years ago, when I was 17, for an AP English class. The essay was about my struggles with perfectionism, procrastination, and depression. I was surprised to read a reference to my early hobby, which I still have, of collecting words and phrases in digital folders: “During periods of worry, I read them, feeling them all over again. They are messages to myself from the future and the past.”

17-year old me was going through it. I was dealing with lockjaw, I couldn’t figure out why I was so tired all the time, and I was going through a near-constant existential crisis, but I was buoyed by that class, the literature we were consuming. I wrote:

“I believe with my entire being that love, knowledge, and truth are all human concepts that have evolved with us over time as a response to suffering; so I pray to those human things, and count on them to keep me warm.”

*

A few weeks ago, when I was flying into Ottawa, I overheard a father telling his impatient young son that he’d have to wait until everyone in front of him had departed the plane before he could stand and get his luggage. “You’re not more important than anyone else here,” he gently informed the boy. What a beautiful life lesson to learn. My dad had a limp, and it wasn’t until I was older that I learned to slow down, to walk beside him instead of in front of him. If we’re lucky, the people around us will be there long enough to see us transform, to grow into more patient people, to be able to extend that patience outwards in return.

When I visited Maman, I wanted a photo with her like everyone else. I waited for the tourists to disperse so I could stand beneath her, and as we watched smiling families take their turns, I remarked to my friend, “I love humans.” She may have thought I was being sarcastic: she’s known me for twenty years, including in my impatient, cynical pre-teen years. But no, I genuinely love humans. I love watching them stop to take pictures, to take care to compose an image, to imagine who they might want to send it off to.

Sometimes, when I’m walking or driving somewhere and my route is delayed by a few extra minutes because of slow walkers, I fight that momentary impulse to feel anger or entitlement and instead I just think, “God, I love humans.” I mean, truly! Thank god for people who still want to hold hands, walk leisurely, and let their day pass by just enjoying each other’s company. My time isn’t more important than theirs, and thank god for that.

This week’s recommendations

Still on a Wes Anderson kick after watching Asteroid City last week, so last night we watched and very much enjoyed Moonrise Kingdom. My husband, L, remarked on how it was darker than he thought it would be, at which point I shook my fist at the sky because this is what I’m always saying about W. Anderson: he’s not afraid to throw dead dogs, dead parents, ravaged teenagers, or impossible, incestual relationships into the mix. He can do it all!

We also watched The Bear season 2, which suffered from what L called the “Ted Lasso fate” of creating great characters and then being afraid to hurt them. I gotta hand it to The Bear, though—in this day and age it’s actually kind of impressive to make a season of television in which nothing really “happens.” But Olivia Colman stops by, so it’s not entirely a wash.

*

Why are short books so popular these days? In Esquire, Kate Dwyer argues that the rise of the novella is due in part to “dwindling attention spans, less leisure time, and price hikes across paperbacks and hardcovers.” Dwyer points out that Annie Ernaux’s recent Nobel Prize win was a boon for ‘slight’ volumes, with readers learning to “appreciate the intensity of it and the luxury that is concision.” Combine the romanticization of a writer’s writer like Ernaux, with the rise of Bookstagram, BookTok, etc. (i.e. the commodification of “performing” reading, of which I am certainly a part) and you have swaths of audiences clamouring to raise their reading numbers by reading a book a day.

I saw a few writers on Book Twitter comment on Dwyer’s piece, decrying the rise of a “post-literate” society. I understand the concern—will readers lose the capacity for longer work? Are novels going the way of longform digital content, which has been obliterated by TikTok and the attention economy? Or is it all just a cyclical moral panic, in the vein of of Virginia Woolf’s Oh, to Be a Painter!, a collection of essays written in the early 20th century, in which Woolf argues that eventually all colour will be drained from the world because people’s attention spans won’t allow them to look up at buildings any longer?

Revisiting this interview with Scaachi Soul in Room, on writing about family:

There’s an understanding that this work isn’t for them. There are going to be narratives that they don’t agree with. The truth is subjective in these cases. I can say that I wrote honestly. But is it the truth? Depends on who you ask, I think. I’m sure there are people who read it and disagree with my interpretation of what happened.

And finally, in Harper’s, Alexander Chee on life and drag: “I was raised with drag, by drag. We all were. By comedians, by entertainers, by brave friends who were afraid and still did what they had to do anyway.”

*

Reading: “Tirza by Grunberg — the protagonist is despicable but the writing is beautiful and moving and bright. L.A. Woman — classic Babitz — whimsical and playful and formless. Absalom, Absalom! — stunning. Needed time to process it after because it was that good.”

Watching: “Saint Omer — saw it on a first date weirdly enough. I cried, he didn’t. I honestly don’t watch a lot of TV, even though I’ve been meaning to watch more. I feel like it balances me out mentally. I got a TV and mounted it thinking it would help, but I mostly use it for Spotify lol.”

Listening: “I don’t really listen to podcasts anymore. Been obsessed with Car Seat Headrest. Their lyrics are amazing. I’ve been getting into Future (yes, I know). Something about his music just makes me do a little head bop. Been on a little Beach Boys kick too. Also Alice Phoebe Lou. She has a new album coming out and I’m counting the days. Paris Texas! They also have an album coming up soon. They’re a super cool duo at the intersection of like rap and alt.”

Life, etc: “Friendship friendship friendship — I live in the same city as my two closest friends now and I feel so lucky. Ridiculously long walks. Not asking for other people’s opinions before doing things.”

P.S. You can find Hailey on Instagram, TikTok, and here on Substack @

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