What Would Joan Didion Do?

On Notes to John 

Am I the next Joan Didion? Are you? No one can be the woman herself incarnate, but perhaps her new avatar awaits. When someone is declared the new Didion or Sontag or Adler, I pay attention, religiously, wondering who is worthy of such proclamations and if such intellectual celebrity can ever grace us again. Hannah Horvath said it best. If we cannot be the voice of our generation, perhaps we can be a voice of a generation. You are not Renata Adler, I repeat to myself over and over. 

I have googled Didion’s packing list more than I’d care to admit. I rarely receive the same flush assignments she did, but when I do travel for work, I turn to her same organizing principle with some modifications: 

Two skirts
Two shirts
Two nice dresses
One sweater
Two pairs of shoes (once nice, one for walking)
Stockings
Bra
Toiletries
Prescriptions
Laptop
Chargers 

It’s a way to make life easier. I never check bags except the two times I’ve traveled internationally. Would the modern Didion take lewd photographs of herself on a hotel bed? Would she enter the classroom a beloved politician was speaking at if she was 30 minutes late because she couldn’t parallel park in Missoula? Would she post about getting drinks with gay guys on X?

Since the evolution of the internet we’ve been incentivized to be vulnerable. Already I’ve fallen into the late personal essay industrial complex style, using myself as a medium through which to understand the world. Didion did this too. Her essays glitter with her signature “I.” But her “I” was icy. Cruel. Reserved. She gave us only as much of herself as necessary, only as much as she wanted to.