Lit Chat

Inspiration for being human.

Exploring the Blues, Parenting Ourselves, Venturing Beyond, and Finding a New Song  

Thursday April 23, 2026

Happy Thursday humans! Here is this week's literary inspiration for being human...

Let's explore the blues...

What if human beings were amphibious? Hear me out: when we're stuck on a tiny island with no boat, what if the vast ocean surrounding us is not a barrier, but rather something we are capable of swimming through? 

Leaving our island worlds and the assumptions upon which they are built involves sadness and grief, emotions which most of us would rather not feel. When it comes to the blues, we are often afraid to explore an ocean of sadness and loneliness because we assume we can't swim. We don't know what to do with ourselves. The characters in Woman Outside the City also struggle to navigate new worlds with new rules... but what if we have the potential to create more harmony if we learn to navigate an ocean of blues? How can we overcome a fear of the blues?

How will you navigate deep and lonely waters in order to explore the world beyond your island? How will you find beauty while exploring deep emotions? How will you learn to swim?

Let's discuss parenting ourselves...

“Old religion, old money, old shelters, old schools, all
maintained by a retrofit mindset...

... Try to go

against the gravitational pull of a mother. Impossible. Not without
self-destruction. Even though she pushed you, parted

her flesh to separate your soul incarnate from her own bloody pulp
you tide toward her.”

—"Retrofit" in Woman Outside the City)

There is a great amount of parental comfort we gain from doing the same things we've always done, using the same language we have always used, living within the confines of the same structures we have lived in and worked in for so long. Even when try to think outside the box, the tendency to fall back on habitual patterns of thinking and behavior is natural. Ingrained habits are reliable and allow us to navigate a complex world without constantly confronting the paralyzing anxiety of indecision and problem-solving. Force of habit pulls us back to our original ways of coping with chaos and uncertainty. 

But what happens when old paradigms and habitual approaches cause us to repeat the same mistakes over and over again? What happens when—even though we are presented with new possibilities and new perspectives—we continue to cling to our old old habits and assumptions and we end up creating new iterations of systems that perpetuate the same old problems?

How can we learn to parent ourselves in new ways? 

Let's venture beyond our rooms...

"Shooting Script" by Adrienne Rich offers a metaphor that gently helps us see how we often project a single memory onto our lives, and that projection keeps us fixed in states of being that prevent us from venturing out into the world. As the speaker in Rich's poem begins to notice the fractures of her environment, she also notices that she has the tools she needs in order to navigate beyond it. Even the fractures have value; they are not something to be ashamed of, but rather offer a special kind of knowledge that will be helpful for her journey.

What is the memory that stops you? What image do you keep projecting onto the empty wall? When you start paying attention to the room of your life, what do you notice? How will you navigate beyond the room?

Let's listen to contemporary blues rock...

I'll admit, I was never a huge fan of the blues. But since I’ve been using jazz as a metaphor for life—and jazz has its roots in the blues—I’m giving the blues a chance. Exploring contemporary blues music led me to Joe Bonamassa’s 2014 album, Different Shades of Blue. I was looking for new music to listen to when I need to work through the blues, and this album is absolutely perfect. It's bluesy, it's rock & roll, it's soulful, and it's a welcome wake-up call for that part of my mind that normally shuts down when I am overwhelmed with grief. Instead of trying to make sadness go away, this album takes my sadness by the hand and tells it to get up and dance. So I'm still sad, but all of a sudden, I'm not the only person who has ever felt sad, and it's not the end of the world. It's possible to find beauty, rhythm, and poetry in the blues.

Bricolage Lit Adventures