fog could have no better defense in your own uniquely capable (and literate my god what words i learned) hands-- artistic questing and sensibility of this sort is a gift
don't ever let me "forget" to remind you of that 🤗🙏
Gosh Apple, you sure know how to make me smile. Thank you for your kind encouragement. I bumble my way through these but they always open my synapses up to new ways of seeing, thinking, breathing. :)
What a beautiful meditation, Kim. Fog has always been enchanting to me, also night time, when corners are blunted, details blurred. I've noticed shrubs and trees look larger at night because there's less visual information to compete with. When things really get crazy, you'll generally find me hiding under the covers. 😶🌫️🤍🌫️
"Like one giant tongue, a mushroom’s fruiting body is mostly water and will begins to shrivel in humidity less than 90%. And just when you think you’ve had enough tongue, fog licks back—it’s a French kissing orgy out here—tiny molecules of water washing the air clean from fumes, particles, and airborne contaminants. Go ahead, stick your tongue out and join us. The fog might lick you too." Such a wonderful passage—one of many in this astonishing essay that somehow, to use your lovely expression, "smudges us whole."
Unamuno's classic novel "La Niebla" (Fog) is about questioning our existence. You have gone a step further and made fog a celebration of it.
I would like to live inside your brain for a day Jeffrey, you are incredibly well-read, always making connections that leave me wondering, “How did I live without that bit of wisdom or knowledge?” It sounds like I need to pick up Unamuno’s La Niebla. Questioning our existence and then celebrating the questioning, that just about sums up my entire life!
Thats was such a pleasure that was to read, thank you Kimberly. Laughed out loud at "The stoner surfer dude of meteorology," which just shows my shallowness because there weere so many beautifully constructed thoughts and description :)
Ha!!! That was one of my favorite lines too.:) Nothing shallow about a good laugh. Fog sure hangs around a lot over here in Oregon so I couldn’t resist the Mary Jane metaphor.
I’m in awe of your abilities and I’m even more impressed with how well read you are. So many interesting references in this piece as you explore and illuminate the fog. I love the image of you communing with the deer in the fog.
Can you please perhaps compile all of your "In defense of..." posts into a book please. It would be most excellent to have on my coffee table.
Gorgeous pics, too.
I think this was my favourite point: "Like swishing a gauzy net around a pond, spacing out can surface “great ideas buried in your unconsciousness,” so with bathroom dramas behind me and a more playful obscurity on my brain, I ask not Who am I, but What color am I? What shape is my name? The same synaptic-fuzz answers but this time its smiles and invites you to join."
Funny you should mention that, I literally just started a pitch to a friend’s agent. Never done anything like this before so I’m venturing into the unknown but it’s fun to try! Thanks for the generous encouragement friend.
Oh wowow! That’s so amazing. Crossing all my fingers and toes. It is surely a sign, though, that I left this comment and you were approaching an agent. The universe knows and the tendrils are all positive. ;)
Thank you Deborah. I love photographing fog! So much more storied than a green summer day.:) And wow, I had not heard of this film or the young man’s work. I just followed him and am eager to learn more, but that link you shared moved me to tears! 🙏
This was beautiful, Kimberly. I really enjoyed the different notions of fog you explored and how you celebrated them. And I loved how personal it got at the end about your Mum — truely moving words.
Also, these two sentences especially stuck out for me:
“But aging flirts with nothingness. Impermanence promises banishment.”
It’s such a fun exercise! Digging into a topic that I have an emotional connection to (good or bad) and then building a universe of celebration around it has turned into a very rewarding endeavor. Though I wasn’t certain about this one. I can’t stand brain fog, so it was especially challenging to convince myself it was worthy to defend!
I think that’s great. I mean, opening yourself up to a topic or idea you’re not particularly inclined to, has to be good for adopting a more nuanced view of things. :)
Gah! You make my knees weak Alisa! I sure do appreciate your feedback; I still have your agent pitch sitting on my desktop awaiting my attention. I very much would like to compile these essays into a collection someday and your nudges are wildly encouraging!
Kimberly, this completely blew me away. I kept highlighting quotes I wanted to share/comment on but then completely lost track as there were too many. Your writing is so gorgeous - it pulled me in, curled around me, folded me into the fog. And yet I leave feeling like the world has a slightly new orientation, rather than being disoriented. Thank you so much for this tender and beautiful piece. "She's not empty, she's overflowing" - yes yes yes x
Oh Rebecca! My heart! To feel seen by one of my favorite writers here on Substack is beyond thrilling. Like Christmas morning and sunrise and my kitty's belly all balled into one. And your insight is profound, something I will carry with me whenever I feel "disoriented" in life... that perhaps it's only a new orientations, and never a dis. ;) Thank you thank you for taking time to read this essay. My little defenses of the easily maligned are a fun exercise in bringing balance back to my inner world so it delights me to no end to hear when this balancing is mirrored by the outer world.
I feel exactly the same when I see your comments on my work, Kimberly! so much joy in this space, and in sharing words with people (often oceans away) who feel them so deeply. So glad to have found you and your words, here! xxx
I had so many thoughts, so much to say, and then I got to, "—she’s not empty, she’s overflowing, she’s not disappearing, she’s everything" and I realised that all the things I was going to say were essentially embellishments upon - I love you, and thank you.
And sometimes nothing more needs to be said. I think we need to invent a new kind of bowing. I always want to bow to you after everything you write, but with you, I think I need to bow upwards, an unfurling instead of a descending. So there. I unfurl to you. ❤️
Kimberly, what a divine witchery of words you conjure in your fog.
Here "When I’m foggy I think more like a tree and listen more like a leaf. And if I surrender my need for it to be any other way, it’s quite lovely being tree and leaf. So I step into the fog and the fog steps into me. No hard lines, only voluminous shadows forgetting their form. My hand reaches toward the blurry shape of a deer and we erase into one another." you mirror how those grey days matter to the grey matter so precisely I feel as though I wrote them myself. I didn't and couldn't as eloquently but wish, oh how I wish... on the bright side, my vocabulary expands!
Your last paragraph too, thoughts I have been pondering deeply during these, perhaps my last, in my present state... "—she’s not empty, she’s overflowing, she’s not disappearing, she’s everything." I hope, I pray, I am.
Thank you always and always - with or without fog, for your insightful messages of transition. xx
Gorgeous, my friend. I love thinking about fog sustaining massive trees—about how they (like us) know how to pull from the universe exactly what they (we) need to thrive, to drink its marrow.
And of course I love the French kissing orgy. Can’t wait for the next foggy day. (Heading back to Oregon soon, so shouldn’t have to wait too long😉.)
Isn’t that a crazy little fact? I had no idea the Redwoods attribute a lot of their grand vitality to wee little fog droplets! Hope to connect with you someday soon, and if we’re lucky, perhaps we can even share a hug through the fog.
The bathroom drama! Ha. I think in my house growing up, a few times it was the basement drama. Love how each room has its own conflicts and action that expand the meaning.
KIMBERLY. This is MAGIC! Sorcery! A weaver of celestial light from the heavens straight into the deepest part of my being! This Sunday is about to be the best day ever since I’ve started it like this. What a ride!
I will never tell you enough how grateful I am that you exist and how lucky I feel to be able to experience the warm glow of your light. That picture of you and your mama is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen and I am so sorry she is experiencing post anesthesia brain fog. I didn’t even know of that risk factor with anesthesia. That’s terrifying.
There is something special about bathrooms. They were my angst place when I was young. The bathtub is where I would go to weep. I loved the solitude.
You gorgeous human, you. Sorcery?! Ha! That's a bit of new feedback that I will hold near to my heart. I know how much you cherish the inward pull of grey and darker seasons so it makes sense that this one spoke to your soul.
Yeh, the post-anesthesia stuff is really a bummer. I don't know how much of it is reversible either, though we're trying a bunch of things. The most frustrating part is that it's totally unnecessary! A spinal block or opiate would do the same for minor surgeries. I wish more people knew about this until it's too late.
Sending you a big, foggy hug on this unusually sunny day. Oh how I wish we could go for a long stroll down your beach and conjure grey together.
fog could have no better defense in your own uniquely capable (and literate my god what words i learned) hands-- artistic questing and sensibility of this sort is a gift
don't ever let me "forget" to remind you of that 🤗🙏
Gosh Apple, you sure know how to make me smile. Thank you for your kind encouragement. I bumble my way through these but they always open my synapses up to new ways of seeing, thinking, breathing. :)
i feel like im watching you do all the work in that vague bumbling that overwhelms me lately as i seek to do it for myself
What a beautiful meditation, Kim. Fog has always been enchanting to me, also night time, when corners are blunted, details blurred. I've noticed shrubs and trees look larger at night because there's less visual information to compete with. When things really get crazy, you'll generally find me hiding under the covers. 😶🌫️🤍🌫️
Yes! This distortion of size is such wild illusion, or is it? Maybe everything of the night and fog grow larger as we shrink. ;)
"Like one giant tongue, a mushroom’s fruiting body is mostly water and will begins to shrivel in humidity less than 90%. And just when you think you’ve had enough tongue, fog licks back—it’s a French kissing orgy out here—tiny molecules of water washing the air clean from fumes, particles, and airborne contaminants. Go ahead, stick your tongue out and join us. The fog might lick you too." Such a wonderful passage—one of many in this astonishing essay that somehow, to use your lovely expression, "smudges us whole."
Unamuno's classic novel "La Niebla" (Fog) is about questioning our existence. You have gone a step further and made fog a celebration of it.
I would like to live inside your brain for a day Jeffrey, you are incredibly well-read, always making connections that leave me wondering, “How did I live without that bit of wisdom or knowledge?” It sounds like I need to pick up Unamuno’s La Niebla. Questioning our existence and then celebrating the questioning, that just about sums up my entire life!
Ah, you might find lots of fog in my brain, Kimberly, though more likely it's just
"Mad as the mist and snow. "
https://www.poetryverse.com/william-butler-yeats-poems/mad-the-mist-and-snow
(A lovely poem which I think goes well with your beautiful essay).
Oh my! Shutter those shutters Jeffrey! The mist and snow of time are indeed mad. I shudder with you, 😉
Thats was such a pleasure that was to read, thank you Kimberly. Laughed out loud at "The stoner surfer dude of meteorology," which just shows my shallowness because there weere so many beautifully constructed thoughts and description :)
Ha!!! That was one of my favorite lines too.:) Nothing shallow about a good laugh. Fog sure hangs around a lot over here in Oregon so I couldn’t resist the Mary Jane metaphor.
I’m in awe of your abilities and I’m even more impressed with how well read you are. So many interesting references in this piece as you explore and illuminate the fog. I love the image of you communing with the deer in the fog.
Brilliant, poetic, calming and thought-provoking.
Can you please perhaps compile all of your "In defense of..." posts into a book please. It would be most excellent to have on my coffee table.
Gorgeous pics, too.
I think this was my favourite point: "Like swishing a gauzy net around a pond, spacing out can surface “great ideas buried in your unconsciousness,” so with bathroom dramas behind me and a more playful obscurity on my brain, I ask not Who am I, but What color am I? What shape is my name? The same synaptic-fuzz answers but this time its smiles and invites you to join."
Funny you should mention that, I literally just started a pitch to a friend’s agent. Never done anything like this before so I’m venturing into the unknown but it’s fun to try! Thanks for the generous encouragement friend.
Oh wowow! That’s so amazing. Crossing all my fingers and toes. It is surely a sign, though, that I left this comment and you were approaching an agent. The universe knows and the tendrils are all positive. ;)
Beautiful, raw and absolutely love your images. Especially with your mom. My mom has her fog too. It is a transitional season that startles me too.
Btw, have you seen this beautiful young man and his work?
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DALupjKIRjJ/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Thank you Deborah. I love photographing fog! So much more storied than a green summer day.:) And wow, I had not heard of this film or the young man’s work. I just followed him and am eager to learn more, but that link you shared moved me to tears! 🙏
This was beautiful, Kimberly. I really enjoyed the different notions of fog you explored and how you celebrated them. And I loved how personal it got at the end about your Mum — truely moving words.
Also, these two sentences especially stuck out for me:
“But aging flirts with nothingness. Impermanence promises banishment.”
:)
It’s such a fun exercise! Digging into a topic that I have an emotional connection to (good or bad) and then building a universe of celebration around it has turned into a very rewarding endeavor. Though I wasn’t certain about this one. I can’t stand brain fog, so it was especially challenging to convince myself it was worthy to defend!
I think that’s great. I mean, opening yourself up to a topic or idea you’re not particularly inclined to, has to be good for adopting a more nuanced view of things. :)
Kimberly, this is so gorgeous. The artistic, scientific, and personal 'questing' as noted below is masterful. This belongs in The Best American Essays (https://bestamericanessays.substack.com/p/nomination-guidelines) but *first* it should be published in https://granta.com/ It's THAT good!
Gah! You make my knees weak Alisa! I sure do appreciate your feedback; I still have your agent pitch sitting on my desktop awaiting my attention. I very much would like to compile these essays into a collection someday and your nudges are wildly encouraging!
…and I’m checking both of your links out now!
Kimberly, this completely blew me away. I kept highlighting quotes I wanted to share/comment on but then completely lost track as there were too many. Your writing is so gorgeous - it pulled me in, curled around me, folded me into the fog. And yet I leave feeling like the world has a slightly new orientation, rather than being disoriented. Thank you so much for this tender and beautiful piece. "She's not empty, she's overflowing" - yes yes yes x
Oh Rebecca! My heart! To feel seen by one of my favorite writers here on Substack is beyond thrilling. Like Christmas morning and sunrise and my kitty's belly all balled into one. And your insight is profound, something I will carry with me whenever I feel "disoriented" in life... that perhaps it's only a new orientations, and never a dis. ;) Thank you thank you for taking time to read this essay. My little defenses of the easily maligned are a fun exercise in bringing balance back to my inner world so it delights me to no end to hear when this balancing is mirrored by the outer world.
I feel exactly the same when I see your comments on my work, Kimberly! so much joy in this space, and in sharing words with people (often oceans away) who feel them so deeply. So glad to have found you and your words, here! xxx
I had so many thoughts, so much to say, and then I got to, "—she’s not empty, she’s overflowing, she’s not disappearing, she’s everything" and I realised that all the things I was going to say were essentially embellishments upon - I love you, and thank you.
And sometimes nothing more needs to be said. I think we need to invent a new kind of bowing. I always want to bow to you after everything you write, but with you, I think I need to bow upwards, an unfurling instead of a descending. So there. I unfurl to you. ❤️
Oh, and I to you! 🌀 I to you ❤️
Grateful for your beautiful soul in our foggy world 🕊️
Kimberly, what a divine witchery of words you conjure in your fog.
Here "When I’m foggy I think more like a tree and listen more like a leaf. And if I surrender my need for it to be any other way, it’s quite lovely being tree and leaf. So I step into the fog and the fog steps into me. No hard lines, only voluminous shadows forgetting their form. My hand reaches toward the blurry shape of a deer and we erase into one another." you mirror how those grey days matter to the grey matter so precisely I feel as though I wrote them myself. I didn't and couldn't as eloquently but wish, oh how I wish... on the bright side, my vocabulary expands!
Your last paragraph too, thoughts I have been pondering deeply during these, perhaps my last, in my present state... "—she’s not empty, she’s overflowing, she’s not disappearing, she’s everything." I hope, I pray, I am.
Thank you always and always - with or without fog, for your insightful messages of transition. xx
Gorgeous, my friend. I love thinking about fog sustaining massive trees—about how they (like us) know how to pull from the universe exactly what they (we) need to thrive, to drink its marrow.
And of course I love the French kissing orgy. Can’t wait for the next foggy day. (Heading back to Oregon soon, so shouldn’t have to wait too long😉.)
Isn’t that a crazy little fact? I had no idea the Redwoods attribute a lot of their grand vitality to wee little fog droplets! Hope to connect with you someday soon, and if we’re lucky, perhaps we can even share a hug through the fog.
The bathroom drama! Ha. I think in my house growing up, a few times it was the basement drama. Love how each room has its own conflicts and action that expand the meaning.
I would LOVE to hear you write a few snaps about your basement!
KIMBERLY. This is MAGIC! Sorcery! A weaver of celestial light from the heavens straight into the deepest part of my being! This Sunday is about to be the best day ever since I’ve started it like this. What a ride!
I will never tell you enough how grateful I am that you exist and how lucky I feel to be able to experience the warm glow of your light. That picture of you and your mama is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen and I am so sorry she is experiencing post anesthesia brain fog. I didn’t even know of that risk factor with anesthesia. That’s terrifying.
There is something special about bathrooms. They were my angst place when I was young. The bathtub is where I would go to weep. I loved the solitude.
You gorgeous human, you. Sorcery?! Ha! That's a bit of new feedback that I will hold near to my heart. I know how much you cherish the inward pull of grey and darker seasons so it makes sense that this one spoke to your soul.
Yeh, the post-anesthesia stuff is really a bummer. I don't know how much of it is reversible either, though we're trying a bunch of things. The most frustrating part is that it's totally unnecessary! A spinal block or opiate would do the same for minor surgeries. I wish more people knew about this until it's too late.
Sending you a big, foggy hug on this unusually sunny day. Oh how I wish we could go for a long stroll down your beach and conjure grey together.
Sending you and your mama all the healing energy. I wish we could take a beach walk too! We would have the time of our lives 🫂