The June Dispatch

The weekend after the wedding we pool at the place known as the farm—even though the only thing this land has consistently produced over the years is good water from the well and appropriately sharp-tongued people who love a good wordplay or puzzle.

The newest child sleeps in the room where my triple great-grandfather finally passed away after surviving the Civil War, Andersonville prison camp, the explosion of the Sultana, and a chopped tree falling on him. He died peacefully in his bed at the age of 82.

I pass his portrait on the stairs amongst faces of other bygone family—including versions of my own, which feel as familiar and strange to me now as theirs. I see the unformed self in my expression, the hope for external approval to confirm if I was or was not OK.

When I look in my grandparents’ mirror, I see a woman more at ease in her being and body, who all those other iterations broke open in order to be.

Now I can love them too.

- - -

I’ve been writing and rewriting a piece in my head called The preservation of voice in the age of artificial sprawl. Subtitle: It’s not just X, it’s also Y.

But maybe all I really want to do is explain how carefully I worked to cultivate my writing voice—how I utilized my mockingbird-esque gift of mimicry to try on different styles. I’d find myself speaking in staccato sentences after watching West Wing, I wrote versions of my novel in the manner of writers as distinct as Victor Hugo and Annie Dillard.

One day, after a lot of exploration, I wrote pages that finally sounded like me. As if all the components had simmered down into their own new thing—which has, of course, continued to refine and mutate. I am conscious of that and try to be selective with my influences and input.

But I hadn’t realized that variety in voice might become a retro thing, along with faces that can still move and wrinkle in movies. Even though I’ve chosen to not sow my own field with ChatGPT, the winds keep blowing it over from other farmers.

Leave aside the quality of AI “writing” (which trust me, is hard to leave aside), imagine if one writer was responsible for almost every ad … if the same voice was encountered everywhere.

The homogeneity would be distressing enough in the external world, but it doesn’t stay outside. When it’s the rhythm of so many things, it seeps into my own thinking, so my thoughts take on that cadence too.

Instinctively now I draw back whenever I pick up its scent. It is, like most instincts, a matter of self-preservation.

Didn’t I learn that monocultures deplete soils and are susceptible to disease?

Anyway I love my heirloom words, and planting them by hand. I don’t mind that it can take them longer to grow, that they require pruning and attention.

What else was I out here for?

PS — a little harvest (coming soon)