ephemerally curated: spaghetti on the wall
springtime prompts for wiggling from ephemeral editor, Ali
Lately I’ve been emerging from my hidey-hole of winter to discover that my life is a little in disarray: chores need doing, things need organizing, maybe I should get into bikepacking, no, wait, I should probably think about how to be a better artist, didn’t I string my loom months ago and never touch it? Should I run 10 miles? Maybe I should read The Odyssey; no, it should be a modern translation of 1001 Arabian Nights—no, WAIT, it should be A Court of Thorns and Roses AGAIN because I think it’s funny. Oh, but first I need to do my chores! I’m emerging from winter like how I imagine bears do; I’m lumbering out of hibernation hungry and confused to discover that the world is already blooming around me, that the flowers and plants and sunshine are asking where the hell I’ve been.
Springtime comes fast and slow and slow and fast again; cool mornings followed by t-shirt weather afternoons. It’s whiplash. It’s March 16th being here already. It’s wiggly! I want to grasp it in my hands like a puppy who has slipped her collar and bolted into the great wide beyond; I want to chase after her, heart pounding, and grab her and lift her into the air with a triumphant yowl.
Spring is charging forward, taking us along for the ride, spaghetti-on-the-walls and all. Let’s lean into the chaos, the on and off again, the fast and the slow; let’s chase after it and catch it and wait again for it to sprint past us. Here’s what I’ve been thinking and writing and dreaming about as spring catches me off guard.
March prompts for wiggling
TO MY FUTURE SELF:
Recently I learned that ancho chilis are just dried poblanos: that these chilis I have felt ferally desperate for—these chilis that are the cornerstone of any recipe truly worth making, that I have to ORDER ONLINE? Ugh!—have been in front of me all along, hiding in the produce aisle, if only I have the foresight to dry them out.
What’s something you can do today that will benefit you in a few months?
SPRING CLEANING:
I’m finally getting rid of the giant bean bag that was gifted to me, that fit in a very silly but cozy way in a sunny corner of my old house but does not at all fit in the new one. Here it looks like a bizarre leftover piece of a 12-year-old child’s bedroom, or like three-too-many-bites of an otherwise perfect amount of leftovers shoved and stuffed into a too-small Tupperware. It’s been a whole year and a half in this house and the bean bag has lived in the shed, a terrible place for a piece of furniture that truly belongs in a basement where kids play Wii (do kids still play Wii?). Finally, it’ll be somewhere it can breathe.
What’s the dusty corner of your space hiding right now? What needs to see the springtime light of day?
YOU’RE ORDERING THE WRONG THING:
I’ve been pining for Bawarchi, the Indian place down the street from my parents’ house in Colorado that just barely escaped a wildfire in 2021: I order the saag paneer and the chicken makhani (yikes! this feels vulnerable) and extra jasmine rice and a mango lassi. I haven’t found the same allure from the place in Moab; it just makes me miss Bawarchi more. “But you’re ordering the wrong thing,” one of my friends insisted, when I told him this conundrum. “You have to get the lamb.” The lamb?
He was right.
What’s something you currently dislike, that really you should just change your perspective on?
THE CUP IS ALREADY BROKEN:
Every Saturday morning I read the New York Times Morning Briefing; On Saturdays, the intro essay is written by a fabulously talented writer named Melissa Kirsch. A few weeks ago she wrote a treatise on lost things: on truly losing things, not just misplacing and finding them later. This is the idea of having something one day—a phone, a wallet, whatever—and suddenly having it never, ever again. She quotes a thinking that goes, “the fate of the teacup is that it’s already broken”: “I’m trying to meditate on the things I’m holding too tightly,” she writes, “to loosen my grip a little, to carry a little more lightly the teacup, the wallet or phone, the people and places and ideas I’m clutching, as if clutching will keep them from vanishing.”
What are you afraid of losing? And how can you loosen your grip on it?
MY NEMESIS:
My partner and I do laundry together; we’ve tried separating it out once or twice, but that was more annoying than useful, in having two laundry baskets and beefing over the dryer like college kids. We’re back to doing it together, but there are certain rules: if the laundry is over a certain amount, you have to run two loads, and whoever does the cycle also folds it. A real treat when you’re not the one doing the laundry, but brutal if you are, particularly for him, because I like to wear very tight-fitting tank tops with lots of straps and mesh and what-have-you. Impossible to fold. As he was finishing up the laundry the other night, he held up a particularly tricky one: a cropped number with an inner bra that gets all topsy-turvy in the washing machine.
“My nemesis,” he whispered.
What’s your most hated item that you can’t get rid of?
Happy wiggling!
Appendix A: Announcements
ephemeral gatherings: DRAFT + DRAFT! We all know it can be hard to start writing the first sentence of that poem / essay / story / song / script / that's been simmering in your mind... Fortunately, DRAFT + DRAFT is here to help! On April 16 at 7pm, come down to Moab's newest literary hot-spot, Gravel Pit Lanes, to enjoy some informal writerly co-working time. Work on an existing project, start something new, or, if you're feeling writers'-blocked, respond to some very-optional prompts provided by your hosts. (This event is not just for writers; artists of all types - painters, knitters, doodlers - are welcome, too!)
Appendix B: Creative opportunities and resources
Four Corners Writers is seeking contributions for its 2025 Anthology (due July 1)
Submit your writing to the 2025 Utah Original Writing Competition
Visual arts grant opportunities galore, from the Henry Luce Foundation