I'm Drunk on Desire All the Time
I want the world back the way it was before we invented the machine.
Often I am beset by a powerful emotion that I have come to recognize as desire.
It’s an energy that circles my root chakra. Most of the time it coils around my belly until I feel there’s a hole in my gut, and sometimes it radiates down my legs. This is when I begin to think something is wrong with me.
So much of my life has been swept up in desire.
Meanwhile, the spiritually advanced preach contentment, happiness, and joy. Rocking on the front porch. Accepting what is. Letting go and letting god. Being at peace.
No.
I am not at peace. I am an agitator, always wanting the world to be better.
Wanting. Longing. Hoping. Visioning. Comparing. Craving.
Desiring.
Desiring life. Desiring meaning. Desiring beauty. Desiring to see the invisible realm. Desiring to manifest. Desiring peace. Desiring wildness. Desiring to see an ivory-billed woodpecker. Desiring black bears cruising along the riverbank. Desiring a body politic bent toward love.
Desiring even desire itself.
*
We look upon desire with suspicion,
we lump it with greed and irrationality,
we're skeptical of it,
and too often we associate it with romance.
But desire is a gift. The more intense, the better. How few ways we get to really desire something (or even somebody), to be swept up in desire, to have desire transform our life completely.
Between desire and nothing I’ll take desire? Yes. Is it also possible that between desire and contentment I’d take desire?
Or is there really a civilization where we could, possibly, feel complete contentment? Is desire an ugly side effect of capitalism?
*
In pre-dawn coolness I am sitting on the back deck with a coffee. I am watching young mockingbirds. Two of them hatched in a nest in a skein of coral honeysuckle growing up a heart-pine snag.
I remember when they began to fly. One launched into the air and made an awkward landing five feet away, close to the ground. That was two weeks ago.
For two weeks their parents have been caring for this pair of nest-mates, bringing insects, hovering nearby as the babies riskily and loudly expand their range.
Now I watch a parent land near a fledgling and rapidly pass a worm into its beak. The baby teeters, shockingly unsteady. The other shrieks.
A river of desire rises around me. I desire the mockingbirds to stay safe, swamp mallow to flower, tiger swallowtails to land, hummingbirds at the Cracker roses, lines of white ibis to pass so close I feel their wings like 50 hand-fans rustling my hair.
The two mockingbird babies are consumed with a desire to live. Their parents are consumed with desire to raise them. Their desire is so palpable I feel it on my skin.
Their longing.
Their yearning.
Their hope.
*
I've experienced intense desire a number of times. For one, I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write books. I wanted to see my books on library shelves. I wanted to get up in front of people and read stories that moved them. I wanted to win big prizes. I wanted to earn big royalties.
Oh, sweet desire. It is like a river in flood, pushing you on, and the river is made of wine, not floodwater.
You're drunk on this thing all the time. Like the mockingbirds are drunk.
*
Can you imagine a life without desire? How quotidian it would be, I’m thinking. But to want something, to get carried away with wanting it...I'm serious. That is an effing gift.
To understand something you/I/we don’t have and to want it is a gift.
To understand something you’ve lost or are losing and to want it is a gift.
To understand that you could have more or better and to want it is a gift.
*
What do I want?
I want the world back the way it was before we invented the machine. For one.
*
Another thing I’m thinking about is, Can desire be created or does it just happen? How does a person create desire?
Desire can’t happen unless you see how things could be. If you drive along Highway 341 in the south of Georgia, from Atlanta to St. Simons, you see the roads lined with pine plantations. Those look normal and natural unless you know what used to be there—magnificent old-growth longleaf pine forests carpeted with wiregrass, meadow beauty, pine lily, and milkweed. You need to be educated to know that history. Suddenly you are no longer at peace with the destruction wreaked by clearcutting and pine plantations. You want the Bachman’s sparrow landing on the wild quinine.
Why do abusers control what their victims do and see? So victims cannot understand what they do not have, so they cannot desire what they do not have. Or not desire what they do have.
Why do we keep salaries quiet? So the laborer doesn’t understand what the administrator or the owner or the corporation is making.
Desire can’t happen unless you feel that more and better is available to you specifically. That you deserve it.
And desire can’t happen if you give up. If you’d rather take a bullet. If you’d rather avoid being canceled. If you’d rather not lose your standing. If you’d rather not be known as a bish, agitator, outlaw, or shrew. If you’d rather not shock folks.
In order to be filled with intense desire, I think you’ll have to
Keep educating yourself about what the scenario around you really means.
Keep trying to understand it.
Keep paying attention.
Keep watching other relationships, other places, other lives.
Keep believing better is possible. For you.
Start believing that desire is not a chore but a golden opportunity.
Phenology: A Natural Calendar
Early July—The elderberries are ripe at last, and it’s time to make medicine. The figs are ripe too. Chimney swifts are fledging. Fawns are starting to wander around with their pods. Most importantly, my partner Raven spotted a tegu lizard today. It’s the first either of us has seen since a pair was released into the wild near us, an act that started a panicked attempt by the Georgia DNR to rid the environment of them. The problem is that tegus eat native species like quail and other birds, gopher tortoises, insects, mammals, other reptiles, amphibians, and the eggs of various species. I called the wildlife officer and reported the sighting, but the dispatcher didn’t seem very concerned. These babies can get 4 feet long, and the last thing I want is to run into one while afield.
Farm Report
The no-mow plan is going well. The yard is looking wild, and the paths mown through it are very inviting. Down in the barnyard, chicks are hatching out on a regular basis. The Anatolian pup Levon still wants to chase them, so until they’re pullet-sized he has to stay inside during the day. He definitely doesn’t mind lying around on air-conditioner vents.
We made our first call to order hay for next winter. None is available from our regular guy because we haven’t had enough rain for him to do a cutting.
The garden desperately needs weeding. We’ve had an infestation of nutgrass for 10 years, and no matter how hard we work to eradicate it, it repopulates. I’ve had many plans to tackle it seriously, including most recently a determination to weed 6 feet every day. Unfortunately I don’t stick to my plan.
Radical Sustainability
What I’m Reading
You won’t believe it. I’m reading The Hamlet by William Faulkner. I just ordered Joe Wilkins’s new novel The Entire Sky, and I’m looking forward to digging in. I’m also reading Good Eye Bad Eye, which Jeanne Malmgren is serializing on Substack, a fine memoir about disability and trauma. I read a lot of Substacks, plus everything folks write in the Journey in Place course.
If You Desire to Write or Write Better
If one of your yearnings is to write great essays, stories, and books, let's work together. I love nature writing best, but I teach everything. Currently there are 6 (six!) ways to work together. You can find more information at the registration links, or be in touch and I’ll send you info.
Sunday Journaling Sessions | Journaling Fools | July 7, 14, 21, 28 | 7-8 pm Eastern Time | By Donation—You Decide the Price | Register Here
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Course | Magical Craft of Creative Nonfiction | Tuesdays 7-9 pm Eastern + Social Hour | Sept. 3, 2024-Oct. 22, 2024 | $500 | Register Here
Writing Prompt
Continuing our theme of desire—This prompt taps into the opposite. Set your timer for 5 minutes and see where it takes you.
I can live with this…
I love the idea of being drunk on desire. But I wonder, is it not possible to have both - desire and contentment. I can't imagine being content without desire. That would feel lifeless and flat to me. Can I not be content with what I have, but still desire more? A more beautiful world, perhaps? I like the mantra, "Thank you, bring me more", which to me expresses gratitude and contentment in the present, but also a desire for more in the future. Maybe I'm overthinking it. Much love...
I wrote long and hard about this essay, which I say again is one of the finest I’ve read in a long time; on a subject with which I identify and occasionally gets me into trouble. Both times it leapt away like sparks into the Ethernet. Perhaps they will find a place to burn beneath the asses of inertia which prevent us from acting. Thank you, thank you. My god, you’re just so damn good when you burn. I dare say the river of desire that floods you and pushes your hand across the page is made of blood, your blood. And you’ve got the fire of desire in your veins, Janisse. Rock on, write on.