I went to a book party last Sunday evening. It was held outside at a private home. There was wine and catering, three dozen people. The event was billed as a private conversation with the author Maggie Nelson. It was Los Angeles literarti: Miranda July and Mike Mills, David Kipen and Colleen Jaurretche, with heat lamps in case it got cold. Nelson sat under what appeared to be an enormous African tulip tree and answered questions from an art critic about her latest book, On Freedom. At one point, Nelson described much of her work, the way she writes, as the act of “thinking aloud with others,” which I wrote down in my notebook because I liked the sound of it, though I wasn’t quite sure what she meant.
So, I read the book. Nelson writes, “Thinking aloud is distinct from mere argument, bossiness, or persuasion.” Meaning, I think, that thinking aloud is not conversation, not storytelling. It’s about being uncertain and sounding dumb. Sometimes questioning, rarely asserting. It reminds me of the better classes I’ve taught, better classes in which I’ve been a student – two things that have often been the same – where people say something impulsively, perhaps regretfully, to test how it sounds. It’s artless and I really love that. “[Thinking aloud with others] does not require that we agree,” Nelson writes. “It requires that we not abandon one another.”
Something I thought later is that most thinking takes place outside of conversation. Which is interesting considering that much of conversation takes place outside language – hesitations, glances, laughter, shifts in heat. Where does that leave us? Personally, I sometimes wonder where my mind ends inside my body, it seems to extend to the edge of my skin.
Has this gotten too abstract? What I know is that humans like to fill hollow spaces; if there’s air to be troubled, we’ll trouble it. “Thinking aloud” is that kind of trouble. It adds a dye to what, at first glance, seems clear, until we try to put it into words. What I mean is that the infinite may exist, but for most of us, myself included, there’s more to be gained, more joy to be found, in messing around with the finite, the semi-knowable, the puzzles that get worked over within solid walls or over drinks. Thinking aloud with others is the kind of messiness I love.
In tomorrow’s Sunday supplement for supporters: podcasts about the serious and the silly, a new book about ghostly cowboys, and a local art show for (potentially) exiting the pandemic. Also, look for the monthly extended essay next Saturday, dispatched from the woods.
If you’re not on the supporter train yet, hit the blue button below (there’s a free trial so you can dig into the archives to see if it’s for you) with my very deep thanks.
“Meditations in an Emergency” is a micro-essay published Saturdays by novelist Rosecrans Baldwin about things he finds beautiful, with a longer essay once a month dispatched from the woods.
Also for subscribers: a Sunday supplement with three-plus ideas for things to love, no paid placements lol 💸
Rosecrans is the bestselling author of Everything Now: Lessons From the City-State of Los Angeles, available from Bookshop, Amazon, or your local store. Other books include The Last Kid Left and Paris, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down. His debut novel, You Lost Me There, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.
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