HOWSKI OF SUTKOWSKI
  • Home
  • Blog du moment
  • Music
    • My Bands
    • My Album, "Natural Impressions," Lives Here!
  • Books
  • Whoski?
  • Writerly Deets

Spinning off into the ethers: a farewell column

9/3/2017

2 Comments

 
Picture
Illustration by Nico Ecenarro
[This week my final column came out. It is bittersweet, but feels good, too. Without further ado, here she blows (I don't think it blows, actually. Ha! I'm proud of my Mercury writing. Was just trying to do a nautical thang)]:

When I started writing this column 12 years ago (when the Mercury began as a free weekly tab) I would send a copy to my dad every week. He would write me notes or we would talk about it on the phone and he would suggest I be less sharp-tongued sometimes or tell me he enjoyed an insight or two. It’s a weird end-of-era time for me, as this will be the last Full Frontal column since I’ve basically moved across the country and it makes it hard to write about things going on locally. But a piece of my seawater-steeped heart is always in Newport.

So much has changed. I don’t send these to my dad anymore (his dementia prevented him from reading much) and the last time I spoke to him on the phone he was asking his nurse if he was at her apartment. She assured him he was home.

“I built this house?” he asked her. “She’s saying I built this house.”

“Yeah, dad, I think you’re at your house in Saddle River,” I told him.

Things move exponentially quickly it seems, once you’re there. There is an album by Seam called “The Pace is Glacial.” I think about this fairly often. How you don’t realize how much things have changed until something big happens. Or you go away for a while. I’ve been thinking a lot as well about Thomas Wolfe’s book title “You Can’t Go Home Again.” It sure feels that way and in ever-broadening circles.

Anyway, maybe all of that is abstract and me simply spinning off into the ethers. Which I guess is pretty typical. A concrete thing is I’ve loved writing this column. Nico Ecenarro has done a beautiful job illustrating my ramblings and my editor, Janine Weisman, has indulged the living sh*t out of me week after week. Everyone should be so lucky to have someone like Janine willing to publish you and to let you learn and grow. To say, “this is worthwhile,” by putting their hard-won energy and sharp eye on it and making it better. Especially when you write about poop and boobs as much as I do.

Ah, then there is all of the music and getting to write about the folk and jazz festivals! And the now-defunct Newport International Film Festival gave me a place to ache in the dark and be moved and inspired by other people’s art and work. Experiences I will lovingly hold and take with me as I explore the next chapter of my own creative expression.

I wish you all the feeling of freedom I’ve felt writing here. I wish the ability to express yourselves and the space to feel what you need to feel through whatever avenue of creativity you so choose. My prayer is that with the dissolution of this column some of what I’ve felt — the joy and getting to be whomever you are whenever you need to be — might dissipate into the air and you might get to breathe in some of those magic particles. Because here I’ve been able to be me, visible and vulnerable, and I wish you the same.

​Jenn Sutkowski may still occasionally find herself on the pages of the Mercury. She thanks you for your time and energy and she thanks this very space, page 4, and all it has meant to her. Find her doing other stuff (and wishing you health and more than wealth: love) at jennsutkowski.com. (This Full Frontal column originally appeared in the Newport Mercury.)
2 Comments
Jan Branco
10/8/2017 06:46:05 am

Sure do miss your weekly column. I would read yours before browsing through the rest of the paper. It had the feel of when a good friend and I talk about "stuff and shit". And I mean that in a good way! You know, things that may seem mundane to some people, but really are important things in life. The everyday happenings that are the core of our being.
Anyhow, just want to wish you happiness and creativity in your new endeavors.

Reply
Jenn Sutkowski link
10/8/2017 11:28:10 am

Aw Jan, thank you!! I've been working on my book proposal (the book has been done for a little while) and one of the bits of feedback I've been getting from beta readers is very similar to that! I know it's not the same as the paper, but hopefully soon you'll have a whole book to read if you're interested! There's a lot of "stuff and shit" in it, I promise! 😘😉 (Also you're inspiring me to actually get a post up and out once a week on here!)

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    I insisted on having this kind of school photo taken in first grade and believed the serious face was a capture of my very soul. #soulphotobomb

    It's me, Jennifer Bernice (rhymes with "Furnace": it was my Granny's name) Sutkowski

    • More details about my writing here.

    Archives

    November 2022
    August 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    January 2022
    March 2021
    January 2021
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    June 2019
    May 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014

      Sign up and get my free 10K Hours of Getting Funnier in 10 Min ebook!

    Gimme My Funny!
Like a tarot card wrapped in a pierogi swathed in a dream.
©2005-present Jenn Sutkowski unless otherwise noted and linked. No steal-y, no squeal-y. Privacy policy here.
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Blog du moment
  • Music
    • My Bands
    • My Album, "Natural Impressions," Lives Here!
  • Books
  • Whoski?
  • Writerly Deets