Joe Pera Talks With You is the best show on TV. It might be the best show that Adult Swim has ever produced. And it’s exactly the show you need right now.
In Joe Pera Talks With You, comedian Joe Pera walks you through the ins and outs of his gentle life. My favorite episode is about the joy of finding a new favorite song. Another brilliant bit is about practicing self-control at the grocery store. But the episode that, to me, is the perfect balm for your social distancing days comes early in the show’s phenomenal first season: “Joe Pera Takes You On A Fall Drive.” Let’s talk about self-care, my friends. Let’s get cozy.
“How come jack-o’-lanterns scare me so goddamn much?”
Things are hard in the best of times, and these aren’t the best of times. Millennials and Zoomers are faced with a world that demands more of us than it did for our parents or grandparents and are given far fewer resources to handle it. It’s no wonder that buzzwords like ‘self-care’ have left the realm of therapy and entered into common parlance. Some people, particularly on the right, tend to make fun of these ideas. But I think a lot of people, regardless of political belief, have a hard time grasping why they’re important.
In “Joe Pera Takes You On A Fall Drive,” Joe tells us about a peculiar habit he has: Every year, after Halloween, he takes a long drive through the upper peninsula of Michigan so that he can put his jack-o’-lantern to rest by sending it hurtling down a waterfall. It’s a… strange custom, to be sure. But by the time we learn what he does with the pumpkins, it doesn’t really seem that way. Before, Joe’s friend Gene tells him that carving a jack-o’-lantern takes a piece of your soul – one-sixteenth. Joe is worried, as he’s carved a lot of pumpkins in his day. Never fear, Gene lets him know: You can grow your soul back.
Hence, the fall drive. Joe’s sweet, gentle routine each year helps him grow back his soul. A long, lonely drive. A small hike to a new spot in the wilderness. And, finally, a warm, buttered apple. That’s all it takes. It gives Joe time to reflect on his family, on his day-to-day life. On the people he has lost over the years. It gives an aimless pain an arc that ends in catharsis. And, at the end of the day, he feels whole again. It’s a form of self-care that allows Joe to come to grips with his complicated emotions around the season.
“It’s possible to regrow your soul.”
I have no idea if Pera meant this story to be a look at the necessity of self-care. But that reading rings true to me. When I’m feeling deeply burnt out, it isn’t a shallow pain. It feels like a chunk of my soul is missing. And maybe it is. Maybe when I have to force myself to get up on a Thursday morning to another day of scrambling to feel busy at a job I feel ill-equipped to do, maybe that takes a piece of my soul. I don’t know what exactly it takes. But it’s something I need to function. And perhaps waking up to a pandemic and facing another day stuck in your home takes something out of you.
A day at the movie theater used to recharge me. There’s just something about a dark room, that feeling of communal isolation. Just the smell of movie theater popcorn helps set me at ease a bit. But as theaters across the nation shut down, that’s not an option right now. Thankfully, I haven’t lost my FromSoft games. Nailing the perfect parry pattern on the Owl in Sekiro, or finally getting through Vicar Amelia in Bloodborne is surprisingly moving for me. Perhaps I should try a nice drive. Windows down, Carly Rae Jepsen’s iconic E*MO*TION album playing as loud as I want. I don’t know if it will help, but it might.
You’ve probably seen the advice about working from home and social distancing: Routines are key! Maybe that’s true. My ADHD ass struggles with that. (I’m working on it.) I have a hard time setting up an effective routine for working from home, preferring to follow my muse and work on the projects that call out to me/have the most immediate due date.
Traditions are like routines for the soul, routines saved from the unsteady tedium of late capitalism. They are helpful in another, more profound way than merely turning in your work on time. I suspect a lot of the problems many of us are having right now is that, well, so many of our traditions are social. Many of us have lost the things that used to regrow our souls. I urge you, though: Experiment. Try that drive. Draw a hot bath on Saturday mornings, or a pitch black midnight shower. Get into painting miniatures after dinner each day.
Just like Joe Pera likes his fall drive and warm apples, we all need to find new ways to regrow our souls. Alone, perhaps, but not lonely. It will take some work, but we need to take care of ourselves if we want to take care of each other. And we need to take care of each other.
