Ask the Author: Carolyn Zaikowski

Carolyn Zaikowski’s work is featured in the May issue. She talks with us about how she falls, chasing water falls, what she used to have and more.

1. How do you go chasing waterfalls?

There are a few ways I could answer this. The first is that I chase waterfalls by never, ever sticking to the rivers and the lakes that I’m used to. The second is that I chase them in a similar manner to how I chase fireflies: onwards and outwards. The third is that I don’t chase them, I stay.

2. Who would screw a bed in the middle of the room? Doesn’t that make moving more difficult?

It’s an extra step, yes. And you have to have a special bed to begin with, even to be able to screw it in. So that’s a whole other thing. In terms of who would do it, I don’t know, but someone did.

3. Other than words, what else do you used to have?

I used to have lots of things. I had a window that broke.

4. How do you write in such a compact style? Do you write a lot and then chisel or do you go with your gut as you write?

What’s interesting is that I’m an incredibly verbose person who says all my thoughts out loud. Sometimes when writing I try to get as much into a word as I can. I like to saturate words. I think a lot about writing the unspeakable, from massive traumas to more sublime life/time debris, in addition to many wonderful unspeakables. There are lots of ways to write the unspeakable. One way is to only use a few words and see what the silences do and how intricately the words fill up and interact. Another is to write a lot and circumlocute the unspeakable. Either way, all you can do is write around it, to use words as pointers to stuff that’s before and beyond words, stuff that maybe doesn’t exist except through our attempts to point at it. Maybe that’s just a description of writing and life in general. To get to the point: I do both, depending on my psychological state: write a lot then mold, and write a little and try to use the words to meet and map each other in a way that fills them like a pressure cooker.

5. What kind of shoes do you wish you could wear?

Most of my shoe-wishes are fulfilled right now. I appreciate shoes but I don’t relate to Sex in the City or anything. The one time I wore high heels was in a friend’s wedding and I felt like I had a different body in a drag-type way. I’m practical and thrifty. I wear canvas because I’m a vegan. I have a lot of canvas shoes that have holes in them, it’s hard to throw these away because I wish they were how they used to be. I have one pair of really expensive vegan winter boots that have lasted forever. When they are gone I will wish to wear them again. In the grand scheme, shoes probably aren’t so tumultuous to have wishes about, unless you are very poor and live somewhere without access to shoes, or unless you have displaced an untouchable existential crisis onto their material, in which case cognitive behavioral therapy or mindfulness meditation might be in order. I don’t mean that in a condescending way. I’ve got lots of wishes for things that people might consider symbolic shoes. I also collect vintage coats.

6. How do you fall?

I had never broken a body part until 2008, when I fell and broke my hand. Then in 2009 I fell and broke a toe. I was really impressed with myself that it took so many years for me to finally break some bones. I have really bad depth perception because I am severely near-sighted. On the day I broke a toe I also had to get retinal surgery. The retina explosion didn’t have to do with the fall but it was a really absurd day. All this is to say, despite myself, that my falls usually sound like a lawnmower or pots and pans clanging to the floor.