On Noticing Love & Studying It: Ross Gay poetry notecard
The story behind making an original letterpress art print of an excerpt by Ross Gay, from "The First Incitement," Inciting Joy: Essays, Algonquin Books.
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"...noticing what we love in common, and studying that, might help us survive."
— Ross Gay, from Inciting Joy: Essays
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It's hard to be human. We go along feeling able and apt and loving and then bam! A bad feeling hits, and you say something hurtful, which makes you feel worse which then makes you realize you were hurt in the first place, deeper than you knew. Now you're alone in it too because you alienated someone you love.
Ever happened to you? Happened to me this week.
I feel humiliated in this sort of situation, and childish. I'm hard on myself. I get shocked at the intensity of my feelings and I try to control them by hardening. I go harsh, inside and out. I get mad and then sad and then mad and then really, really, sad. And the sadder I am the harder it is to accept a hug. Which is maybe the worst part of all. Oh, love. It's hard, right?
Meanwhile I was printing these words by Ross Gay, who offers up so much bright human light I felt blindsided by my own shyness when I met him two weeks ago at Third Place Books, where he read from his latest work: The Book of (More) Delights. And delightful it is! Achingly so, because he holds his light to great sorrows, illuminating them from within and giving us this glowing look at how being with your pain, and other's pain; being tender and being open; being, in fact, loving, is beautiful because we hurt, not because we don’t.
I agree with Ross that if we can focus on what we love instead of what we hate, we have a chance. The line in this print is half a sentence from the first essay in his book Inciting Joy. I first saw it not in the book but on his website last fall. It was excerpted in bold type on the front page. I read the line, wondered at it, and kept working. It kicked around in my mind the whole past year, through big shows, faraway travels, daily too-long commutes and the very giant shop move.
I realized it was with me for good when I could picture it printed, so I went back looking for the text and couldn't find it. The website had been updated! By the marvelous Vaughan Fielder, who designed it and picked this quote in the first place. Turns out my memory was wrong. I'd substituted the word "have" in place of "love" — wow does that change it! When I asked permission and was greeted with that correction the power of the words hit me all over again.
This line is an act of noticing itself. It's not a demand, nor a command. It feels like an invitation and one that I can say yes to no matter how bad or hardhearted I feel. I can notice. And I can study what I notice. Choosing to notice love leads me back to the actual feeling of love. Once I'm there, I'm able to act from there. And acting from love always feels the absolute best. When I can do that, I am being the human I want to be.
Wishing you much noticing in your loving. And if you need the reminder like I do, you can get the print here.
About Ross Gay
Ross Gay is a poet, essayist, editor, and teacher. The author of four books of poetry and three collections of essays, he is a winner of the PEN American Literary Jean Stein Award, the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award, and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award as well as the editor of several chapbook publishers. You can learn more about him and his work on his website.
Credits
The quoted lines are from "The First Incitement," Inciting Joy: Essays, Algonquin Books. Copyright 2022 Ross Gay. Used by permission of the author.
Thanks to Ross for being — for being! So warm, and present, and invitingly human. For piercing through to love and generosity with his language every time. Thanks too to Vaughan Fielder for facilitating the project and extending such ink-loving solidarity.
