Amanda Palmer Made Me Real

This is the twelfth in a series of guest blog posts by up-and-coming author, Suzanne Hersey. Her first book, Faith, Food, Family, will be available from Iaconagraphy Press in May of 2019!

My book baby is going to be born soon. This has been one hell of a gestation period, full of emotional ups and downs and some really insane moments with my editor. So, I was supposed to be writing about Kitchen Magick and whatever I baked this week and whatever God I have been working with and whatever High Day is happening. But something else happened: I started following a remarkable, weirdly beautiful, talented, sexy brilliant artist on Facebook, then Twitter, YouTube, and finally I purchased her latest album, agonized over not being able to go to the signing locally because I really wanted to see my daughter for her birthday, and started reading The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer. This cold Sunday, while I am preparing Beef Stew with Guinness, Irish Soda Bread, Homemade Ginger Ice Cream and eggs baked into sweet potatoes (not sure I recommend those yet), I really got deep into the book. I am already at page 117 and I had to stop to write this. I read parts aloud to my Beloved, because he is forever feeling like the handful of people he is reaching and really touching with his wisdom is not enough. I choked and cried reading parts of this amazing book to him. I stopped and apologized for crying: “It is so beautiful it is hurting me.” And then his response: “Baby’ah (that is what he calls me), you know who she writes like? She writes just like you do. It is a conversation, reaching her point by way of her story.”

Blink Blink Blink. No, she is so smart and so amazing and wait….

How many damn times has my best friend and editor said to me “You, my Zahnney, draw a crowd and make people listen; you charm them”. I always thought that was strange, because a lot of the time I don’t actually like a lot of people. Strangers annoy me a lot of the time, but some people I start talking to and listening and suddenly we are friends.

I have a paralyzing fear of rejection. I am so afraid that the people I love and admire will think my book is garbage; not enough teaching of Magick; not enough wisdom. They will call me trite or not enough or stupid. It would break me, but worse, it would break my editor, my very best friend who believes in me and has labored to birth this book baby with me like a midwife in ancient Jerusalem. She stands right with me as we live the beautiful pain of bringing Faith Food Family to life.

I fear that I will have to speak publicly; do podcast interviews; make videos of me performing my Magick. I don’t look like I want to; I am fatter than I once was; I am graying, old, ugly. Please don’t let me look like a fool! Then I read part of Amanda’s book. She tells a story of her first memory; what she believes to be the memory that made her understand that sometimes the world is just not okay. And she gets to the heart of it: we all want to be believed; we all want to be real; we all want people to know when we have joy, fear, or pain. Holy Crap! Amanda Palmer has clearly been spying on me psychically and knows my darkest secrets!

I told my Beloved: my ultimate fantasy would be for Amanda Palmer to say “hey, you wanna come by and cook with me?” Because I could spend a moment in her light. Her perfect, flawed, and scorching light would be a moment I would cherish. She is real, she is open, and that is what I want to be. “Baby’ah you are those things,” would be his response, as always, because he believes in me.

I am awfully passive aggressive. I would rather struggle through pain and emotional wreckage than ask for help most of the time. I have to really need the help to ask and I am really working on that. That is why I bought The Art of Asking in the first place. It was not what I thought it would be: a self-help book for anal retentive people like me. It is so much more! It is a look at all of the ways we ask and give help in tiny and huge ways and that help just keeps on giving, and that trust is a big part of asking for help, but it is one of the not so good parts. I am really working on asking for help. “Honey can you please just grab the laundry out of the drier for me so I don’t have to contort my shoulder to do it?” And he does that and he folds it too, even though he is worn out and that one little act could put him on the couch for the day with exhaustion. “Honey will you listen to me, rub my feet, taste this dish, talk to me about something other than this damn book baby?” Those are little asks on the surface, but they are part of the flow of love.

Awhile back, I asked a handful of people to take recipes from the book baby and try them out before the book was born, so that I would know if how I am teaching works. One couple responded and they made beef stew and they gave me really great feedback. For a bit, instead of just being so grateful that I had connected with them, I was instead resentful of all the people I have offered free Kitchen Magick to who had ignored me. No more of that! I will ask and I will accept the responses I get, because that is my audience and I am a writer, an artist of food and Magick, in my own right. I am grateful for my community of Witches and non-Witches, of experienced cooks and beginners, and of those who read and share and comment and those who just read and silently move on. That last one is tough. In the book, Amanda equates that lack of connection and follow-up to having really great sex and then watching the person get dressed and leave, instead of staying to cuddle and maybe for breakfast. For all of my protesting that I don’t want to get out there and connect, I am lying: I do, so badly, but I fear criticism and rejection.

Well: for every ten people that reject me, if one person makes Love Magick with one of my recipes, or finds a path they want to walk, then that is the gift; that is what I am truly asking. That, and the chance to make and share a meal with Amanda Palmer. Damn, people, go buy her book! Go read her blog, listen to her music, scream along with her. Go to a signing and meet her. Go be Magickal; ask; give; be real. I see you, and you are real!