Sometimes you have to throw out the first pancake

And a note on the title

Hi, hi! You’re here! Thank you so much for subscribing. It’s easy to get lost in the numbing numbers of social media and forget there are real people out there on the other sides of these screens. But when I imagine these posts meeting each one of you (with your full lives and limited time), like we’re one-on-one over coffee, it’s actually really…quite special? I’m very grateful.

There’s a concept I’ve heard Mike Schur¹ (creator and showrunner of Parks and Recreation, The (American) Office, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place, among others) talk about several times over the years. Basically: in an ideal world, a person would make the first season of television, trash it, and debut it for consumption starting with season two. It makes a lot of sense to me with any creative endeavor, really. Particularly if you hope to be creating something serially. It’s about getting your reps in, finding your voice, groove, tone. And that can be embarrassing, make you feel green. But I also equally believe in the special something that happens when art meets patron, that little sparky intersection that is unique to each reader or supporter. Even when, maybe especially during the early embryonic days.

And you cannot create that relationship in a vacuum. These words need eyeballs. So here I am, tap dancing my way through writing my first post, getting my legs under me. Let’s treat this one as the first pancake; shake it off and go up from here.

But before we retire it altogether, a note on the Subtack title and why I chose it. When I was in college I was lucky enough to have a professor who would eventually become a dear friend and mentor. Professor doesn’t really cut it but it’s definitely on the list. Jill Godmilow is a filmmaker, writer, lecturer, Guggenheim fellow, and Oscar-nominated (awards among many things she has no use for.) As recently as 2022, well into her retirement, she published a book called Kill the Documentary.

Back when she was my professor, her classes were held in what was essentially an attic space of an old building. You climbed dark, winding stairs and came to a landing where her office sat to the right, her classroom straight ahead. The classroom mostly consisted of a mishmash of couches and chairs. There were a few scattered desks in the back usually taken by the students new to her world, the desks a flimsy defense to make yourself feel some academic normalcy. I know because I started back there. It was an intimidating space to walk into because she was intimidating. It was dark and murky. She’d always walk in last, lit cigarette in hand, behind you and up to the front. Like a movie theater, like a stage. It didn’t take long for me to get a space on a couch.

She rarely sat, was surrounded up there by the projectors, VHS and DVD players, the various technology to put on her show. She’d pace back and forth and then you’d just spend hours crushing tape and listening to her go. I do not exaggerate when I say I should have written down every goddamn thing she said. She changed and challenged the ways I looked at the world, she taught me how to write - when I’m doing it well, when I’m doing it with maximum purpose and punch. Eventually I lived above her because she rented the apartment in her building to grad students. We’d go on daily walks together, go to the movies, go get Mexican food in our neighborhood, take coffee breaks together in late mornings and late nights. One moment at a time, we built our connection, and she never stopped blowing my mind. I have much more to say about her and I will, but for now:

She’d say the phrase many times over the years but my first memory of hearing it is on that couch. Usually she’d utter it when technology was acting up. A VHS tape that kept stubbornly spitting itself back out, audio that wouldn’t sync with the projector. Her hands raised, cigarette almost down to the filter. “Like the Buddhists, right? No hopes, no fears.” The little things - computer issues, cars that won’t start, broken washing machine. To the big things - her first cancer diagnosis, a bad fall, any number of social and political issues that enraged her to no end.

It’s in my body now, all these years later. I say it all the time. To myself, my kids, in everyday minutiae and big, scary life things. It is a very, very small space, a tricky one to stay in for any significant amount of time. To live without wishing and praying for the good; to live absent of anxiety, dread, pain. It’s a tall order and perhaps just another way to acknowledge the gift of the present - not the moment before, not the one comes after.

I’ll leave you with a photo. Jill used to split her time between Indiana and New York City. She eventually retired full-time to NYC. We moved to Connecticut a few years ago and took the train to visit her last fall. She adores my husband, calls him Jiminy. Looks at the faces of my girls and shakes her head in awe. (Then I corrupt them forever as they watch me give her a light, one after another.)

Nothing changes, nothing stays the same. Lit cigarette, black coffee, ashtray on her lap, watching a film 4 feet away from her face at a deafening volume. No hopes, no fears.

More soon. Thanks for reading.

xo,
Kate

1. I spent a frustrating 90 minutes trying to find the exact quote to no avail. I swear, he’s talked about it in podcasts and print interviews particularly regarding Parks and Rec.