Fish & Chip

I have a confession…

I carry an enormous, petty chip on my shoulder when it comes to my alma mater. I’ve been wrestling with it for about 6 years now and haven’t been able to shake it off. I meditate on it, I offer myself compassion for my inability to let it go, I try to hold equanimity around how inconsequential it is in the grand scheme. But no matter how laughable I know this statement is, it still causes me the suffering of attachment:

Vassar College doesn’t care about my TV show.

The intrusive thought side of me that wants to keep ruminating has perfectly valid [pompous, declarative] arguments for its insistence: “This is an Emmy-nominated program made by not one but TWO Vassar women, concerning the very equity, inclusion, and access the college supports! On Public Media no less, the most noble of the medias!” But the fact is there’s a handful of about 25 alums, making art of various kinds, all over the world, that get mentioned over and over in the school’s social media and in the Quarterly alum magazine, and we’re just not one of them.¹ So what? Why am I so desperate for this particular approval?

Any time a hurt is sticky, I try to intentionally give it a little space in my journal now and again, and about a month ago I landed on the following thought:

Colleges are ponds where some fish grow big, and for a few years after they leave, there is a wake behind them. But when the wave subsides there is no trace left, and the waters are calmed for other fish to grow. The thing about being a big fish in a small pond is that you think you’re taking up space and leaving a mark, but water holds only the shape and form it finds itself in and around at any given moment. Water is absolutely present. It is me, the fish, that clings to memory and the Narrative Of Mattering. How to be more water and less fish?

I was a highly visible fish in a very, VERY small pond. I sang a lot. I performed a lot. People saw me a lot. Big goofy fish. To my credit, when I graduated I was aware that was the case. Especially where I immediately relocated to New York City, I knew I was about to be a minnow. Less - krill. Zooplankton. But clearly the belief that I had left an indelible, permanent imprint to be celebrated and canonized upon major professional accomplishment, has lodged itself quite profoundly in me.

Though this example is about a particular chapter of my life, I think humans struggle constantly with Mattering in larger, existential ways. You could argue that all of reproduction is an attempt at Mattering: to make matter that extends beyond yourself into time and space. I may not have children, but if the institution of college is a psychological parent-proxy, then of course I want it to shower praise on its grandkid, my baby, my show!

In mapping to the greater human struggle, then, to let go fully of this particular attachment is to be willing to let go of any belief that what I do or make takes up any space in the world whatsoever. My knee jerk is to say that sucks. But the lesson just under the surface of that pond is if nothing matters in the great arch of time and space, then EVERYTHING matters in this individual moment. That is more water, less fish.

I’ve been writing “Fish Pond” on my to do list every morning for the last month, unable to get to my drawing board and synthesize these ideas. Normally, when I have a particularly visual thought, I get a drawing done in a couple days. Something’s been holding me back from this one.

Last night, I attended a New Year’s Day dharma talk. The teacher, Josh Korda, had us reflect on the thing in our life we hold in greatest esteem - the thing we’ve created or done that feels the most Right, in the Buddhist sense of Right Livelihood, Right Intention, Right Speech, etc. The instruction was to contemplate the question and allow any images or memories to arise without judgment or forcing, and then to look at the similarities between them.

Not a single moment of my television show arose. No nominations or honors, no paychecks, no premieres. No performing or hosting or producing. No podcast, no drawing, no animation. No successes, even, that I may have had in advocacy or drops-in-buckets of industry change…

What arose were dozens and dozens of tiny instances of sitting with students, looking them in the eyes, and seeing them take in a new idea. Seeing them be seen, and therefore seeing. That does not Matter; it does not take up time or space. But in its moment, it is everything.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that after that class I completed this little cartoon and began to write this piece. I’m not healed of this chip² but perhaps I’ve found just enough space for a little letting go.

So as 2026 begins, as the Quarterly magazines come out and “@VassarCollege” yet again informs me, repeatedly, of the accomplishments of 25 alums, may I return again and again to that water - with compassion and love for my suffering fish.

1. Can you hear the chip?

2. In truth, I’m wondering if anyone at Vassar will read this. Chips, anyone?