Of Shapes Transformed to Beings Strange
On transformation in (and through) literature
This month I devoured Andrea Lawlor’s novel Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, in which the misadventures of shape-shifting protagonist Paul form a queer coming-of-age story that is so many things at once: a gripping, heartbreaking, and hilarious summer read; an exploration of early 90’s queer history and the devastation of AIDS; super raunchy; a bildungsroman in uncannily precise prose. Paul’s morphing physical form grants him entry into different worlds (micro-subcultures), an elastic premise further stretched (and adorned) with revised fairy tales that riff on Paul’s dilemmas. (For example, a revised Little Red Riding Hood comes on the heels of Paul’s decision to covertly attend the 1993 Michigan Woman’s Music Festival.) It’d been a long time since I’d sunk into a novel, mostly because I haven’t had (or figured out how to have) the space for that kind of reading. After months of picking away at a stack of nonfiction, it was extra refreshing to find myself so engrossed in a book that so fully rewarded my attention.
That a single text can be so many things at once is definitely one of the most exciting things for me about literature. Italo Calvino described the contemporary novel as “an encyclopedia, as a method of knowledge, and above all as a network of connections between the events, the people, and the things of the world.” But Paul also evokes the (super old) Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid, who is mentioned by name at least once. Narrative’s shape-shifting capacity can be profound in a way that feels almost anciently (or timelessly) supernatural.
Reading Paul reminded me of an encounter with Ovid of my own, years ago. In response to an early and rugged attempt at incorporating Ovid’s cosmogony into autofiction, my teacher transcribed the opening of Metamorphoses in the margins of my draft: “Of Shapes transformde to bodies straunge, I purpose to entreate.” Just weeks later I showed up to his office hours with a ream of oddball prose I was stunned to have written, after overhauling my approach led to a massive creative outpouring. He smiled and said, “You know what I think happened? Ovid.”
If it was a gift to experience that psychedelic process of metamorphosis, there was perhaps also a lesson in being its recipient: while I can facilitate a creative process, I can’t exactly manufacture the delivery of a gift. Whether or not that’s an accurate description of art-making, I’ve since found that finally landing on (or making) the form that fits might feel like a revelation, but looking for it (and actually sometimes even finding it!) doesn’t necessarily register as particularly remarkable. The dreaminess of creative work—its alchemical outcome—is paradoxically bound up with the earthly nature of making it happen.
This isn’t a new or earth-shattering idea, but its implications are often easy to forget, especially in a context where mundane, earth-bound work is profoundly undervalued. A possible flip-side of its exploitation (or at least a response to it) is that transcendentalism, where transformation appears as a singular and epic triumph. This is tendency also shows up more obviously in spiritual pursuits. At a 1974 lecture, the Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche told his counterculture audience, “We should not kid ourselves by saying that all we have to do is set off on the path. ‘Now that we have boarded the airplane of Buddhism, let’s turn on the engine. Let’s fly! Let us make ourselves into a cosmic transcendental airline! Let everybody be the passenger. Let’s fly above the sun and the moon and the universe!’”
When I first started taking writing seriously (circa the Ovid marginalia) I wanted it to be my airplane—to lift me out of the intractable contradictions I felt myself facing. I was in my early-mid twenties, and my rejection of certain adult pursuits (namely a career) was no longer as straightforward and without consequence as it used to seem. At the same time, the compromises associated with “growing up” felt just as problematic; my emotional (and political) wounds still made it hard to imagine having anything to authentically offer the world. Writing was the first sincere thing I’d done in a long time that I felt willing to share beyond the small subculture I’d confined myself to. In the wake of this new sense of possibility, I nursed a vision of where my writing could take me and how quickly I’d get there. Writing would let me dump out my damage, so I could levitate to a lifestyle supernaturally shielded from the compromises of late capitalism in a non-escapist way—without letting go of my values.
There are things I’ve done with my writing that I’m really proud of, and worlds it has opened up for me through friendship, connection, and even material opportunities. But I have also long felt embarrassed about not yet publishing either of the manuscripts I’ve worked on—for not getting on an imagined airplane to literary success. I’ve come to understand a lot about why that vision was unrealistic (and maybe that’s for another time!). I also have a hunch that not getting on the (impossible) airplane has been its own gift. For one thing, it has taught me something about being on earth, or at least about what I am willing to work for when shape-shifting doesn’t come so easily. It’s also helped me to see that what I am looking for isn’t out there in some alternate universe or high up in the stratosphere, but is something I get to carry out and create through my body. Similarly, I am not entitled to give my work to the world while also leaving it behind (and being free of its compromises). Instead, I’ve been learning about connecting with the people and things I’m surrounded with as the starting place of the growth and accomplishment I desire. All that can feel underwhelming, but at least there is something to work with there.
It can feel almost sickening to lurch from the bigness of a vision to the small-scale physical labor required to bring it to life. I am learning through my coaching work that it’s very common to feel that a creative project or creative success is this disembodied thing that lies far outside our reach; it would require practically levitating to grasp it. Working with this dilemma (in the various forms it in which it shows up) begins with trusting that the more magical (or exciting) qualities of the process may not always be palpable, even when they are present. It also can look like learning to stomach shaky or humble effort, and being patient and gentle with the physical discomfort that can come along with it—sounding out our bodies as the starting place of the shape-shifting we hope to do through them.
Just a few months after my impactful encounter with Metamorphoses (and my teacher’s gloss of its opening), I found an unexpectedly very cool book at a thrift store called Open and Clothed by Andrea Siegel, sort of an Artists Way about fashion. In its own opening, Siegel tells her readers, “If you’re seeking miracles, look away. If reading this book helps, the change will be so incremental that no one will notice. Except maybe you, sometimes. No one will applaud you on your cool new look. Lovers will not beat down the door, fighting for entry with prospective employers begging to pay you seven-figure salaries. Hollywood won’t come looking for you. Guaranteed. Change that works occurs subtly. It’s hard to create a change that’s big enough to matter yet doesn’t feel so scary that you react by retrenching deeply into old habits. And we are seeking the keys to the kinds of power that make those changes big enough to matter.”
Further reading
Italo Calvino — Six Memos for the New Millennium
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche — Cynicism and Magic
Opening to Metamorphoses — Arthur Golding’s 1567 translation
Andrea Siegel — Open and Clothed
Offerings
Writing in Unknown Shapes — A course for ambitious writers working in ambiguous forms
Practice Space — Drop-in guided writing sessions
Read more Essence of Toast — Archive of past letters
Happiness touchstones
I’ve been having a bit of a bumpy ride these past few weeks—feeling a bit torn or squeezed around what I’m doing and caught up in unexpected problems that need tending (like spending way too much time on an underpaid editing job, and suddenly dealing with a false BED BUGS alarm). Here are some things that are bringing me joy amidst all that:
The picture a dear friend sent me of a giant dollhouse they walked past while we were talking on the phone
Giving and getting postcards
Frozen bananas
Journaling as a bedtime ritual
Listening to the audiobook of Chani Nicholas’s You Were Born For This (back on my astrology b.s.!)
Watching Sweet Leaf, Blue Vervain, Licorice Mint, and Marshmallow seeds sprout and take hold