musings on the ordinary

condition and desire

i.

I have been thinking about the ordinary and its synonyms—banal, quotidian—for at least two decades. These words run all through my prose. I am often trying to describe a desire to linger in something utterly present or a desire to escape a present situation. The ordinary names a condition and a desire. Sometimes, these two touch.

ii.

Two books:

Christina Sharpe, Ordinary Notes

Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life

iii.

Yet, it must be said that all of Christina Sharpe’s books muse on the ordinary. Monstrous Intimacies names routine brutalities, so routine they can only be called intimacies. It refuses to remove intimacy from harm. Intimacy is not permitted innocence.

In the Wake named antiblackness as weather. And I think of how I check the forecast to see if rain will fall, if I need to water plants, if my laundry will dry. Even as forecasts can only predict the weather. We can only try to prepare.

A line from affect theory: you walk into a room and can sense the atmosphere.

iv.

I once co-wrote an article with Binyavanga Wainaina titled “The Pursuit of Ordinariness.”

Many computers later, I have no clue what we wrote or how I was thinking about ordinariness.

v.

It feels obscene to write about gardening, cooking, beauty, fashion, photography, celebrity, pets, film, and fitness while we witness images and narratives of genocide and ecocide.

It feels obscene to insist on the ordinary things that sustain us while witnessing homes being destroyed. The brutal ordinaries of mass deaths. The brutal ordinaries of rescue workers and family members holding fragmented bodies.

I want to name this feeling. To be clear that it exists. And that the feeling is part of the ordinary.

vi.

I use the word obscene because I learn from Audre Lorde that guilt is useless unless it’s used to drive action toward change.

Guilt can be a turning inward. A vow to work on oneself. Or the comfort of self-flagellation.

Lorde preferred the energy of anger. The energy that can be harnessed through and from anger. Even as she warned that anger can be destructive. Anger turned inward can warp. Anger against one’s intimates can cause irreparable wounds, fracturing friendships and alliances.

vii.

There’s a demand: How dare you pursue and practice ordinary pleasures when others live with ordinary brutalities?

It is a disturbing demand. It disturbs me. I try not to be defensive. I get defensive. Depriving myself of gardening will not stop mass displacement in Sudan. Depriving myself of cooking will not stop armies in the DRC. Depriving myself of friendships will not stop atrocities.

I am being defensive. I am turning inward when the demand is to turn outwards.

How dare you? is a demand.

Sometimes the demand is clear. Donate to a fund. Watch a video. Share a video. Share a funding request. Boost a message. Call your politicians—in countries where this happens. Show up somewhere.

Sometimes the demand is unclear, but urgent. Witness. Grieve. Rage. Pray. Remember. Create. Sit with.

Sometimes the demand feels substantive. Protest. Strike. Demonstrate. Vote (to divest, to unseat particular people). Donate food. Donate skills. Donate time.

Sometimes the demand feels ephemeral. Don’t forget us. Say our names. Remember us in your prayers.

viii.

We might say that strangers have no right to demand anything from us.

In our transactional times, we might claim that those demanding from us owe us. We might become angry when those demanding from us are not appropriately grateful. When they do not praise our generosity.

I use “we” and “us” to implicate myself. I, too, live in this transactional world. I would be lying if I claimed it leaves me unmarked. It’s difficult to know all the ways we are marked.

ix.

Demands often disrupt our ordinaries. We might resent them for those disruptions. News of ordinary brutalities might sour morning routines. We might be unsettled, unable to focus. Called to witness, we might refuse, choosing the ordinaries that soothe us.

We might turn away from inexhaustible demands.

x.

We might choose one ordinary over another, refusing to acknowledge that all ordinaries are braided. The benign and the brutal, the pleasurable and the monstrous.

We might get angry at those who insist that we see the full braid instead of praising our (beautiful) contributions. We might insist that we bring light and color and texture and style and positivity to the braid, so we should not be forced to contend with less positive contributions.

I might refuse to acknowledge contributions that do not match my aesthetics, my mood, my national affiliation, my sexual politics, or my color scheme.

I think I’ve exhausted the metaphor of the braid.

xi.

But the textures of brutal ordinaries do not leave our benign ordinaries untouched. Something shifts in how we can imagine and practice ordinariness.

A turning away orients us differently. We feel that turning. We are turned by that turning. Turned, perhaps, into different versions of ourselves.

xii.

The ordinary names a condition and a desire. Sometimes these touch. Sometimes they dare not acknowledge each other. Sometimes one must turn away from the other. Sometimes one seeks refuge in the other.