Jennifer Lang Dreams of Chaos
A self-described perfectionist messes with structure — and feels free.
Dreams of Chaos is a series of Q&As with folks about how they engage with chaos in their work. Maybe they love the chaos and use it as an engine for creativity. Maybe they struggle with the indefinite and are trying to wrangle it however they can. I’m interested in the ways people acknowledge the messiness of living in the world, and I’m excited to share these conversations with others who have this messiness on their minds.
I’ve been a freelance writer for more than a few years. It’s a non-stop hustle, which can be overwhelming at times, even exhausting. It’s not for everyone. But one of the fantastic perks of the freelance life is getting to do all kinds of different work. One day, you’re writing a vulnerable personal essay, the next you’re interviewing someone about their work. One of my favorite parts of freelancing has always been the particular pleasure and honor of reading and reviewing new books.
My work as a reviewer (and interviewer) led me to meet Jennifer Lang on a Facebook group for Jewish writers who are women. I was looking for new books to review, Jennifer was looking for folks to read her forthcoming memoir — it was kismet.
My review hasn’t been published yet, but I’ll spoil it for you — I love the book. In it, she writes with great candor about her confusing years of wandering, about the struggle to find a happy medium in a home with differing levels of observance, about what happens when love and life collide in unexpected ways.
Perhaps I loved it because I am, myself, also a wanderer. I’ve lived in lots of places, never quite feeling at home anywhere. I often wonder if I’ll ever figure out where is just right for me (for more on my existential crises, click here). But it’s also the clever weaving of prose, poetry, lists, and other forms that drew me into Jennifer’s journey.
I’m so grateful that she took the time to answer some of my questions. As in her debut memoir, she did so with an openness I greatly appreciated. I hope you do, too. As always, feel free to share this conversation if it inspired you as much as it did me.
How would you describe yourself and the work you do?
A Virgo: anal, organized, structured, perfectionist. Sometimes these traits serve me well (think writing and teaching), others they are my downfall (think raising children).
During my MFA, one of my mentors,
, encouraged me to play on the page. At the time I couldn’t grasp what she meant. Too anal, organized, structured, perfectionist. But then, seven years later, something magical happened. Maybe it came with more confidence in my writing or maybe with maturity (think menopause and I don’t care what the F anyone thinks of me anymore). I began to break free on every level from the rigid alignment yoga practice of the past two plus decades to the way I approached the blank page. And oh, I feel free.Can you share about how your path led you to the work you do today?
First, Barbara Hurd tried to teach me patterning (two long sentences, one short, like this) She told me that if a word didn’t exist, I could make it up and write about it. Then she commanded me to cut up each section of a list essay and put them on my living room floor to move them around and find the right order (talk about messy work). Initially all the moving pieces overwhelmed me, but thankfully, another one of my traits is perseverance, and I stuck with it until I found what is one of my strongest pieces of writing (my first nomination for Pushcart Prize and Best American Essays). Over time, with more stick-to-it-ness and a bold (call it chutzpah) there’s-nothing-to-lose (my mother’s motto) approach to my writing life, I got daring both with content (like this) and form (like this and this). Slowly, I lost my inhibition with the white screen.
Where do you look for inspiration when you’re feeling tapped out?
At the world around me. It’s batshit crazy where I live, in the heart of Tel Aviv, in the Middle East. The real meaning of a melting pot of peoples and the harsh reality of living history in real time.
Within, during moments of quiet and reflection both at the edge of the Mediterranean, a nine-minute walk from our apartment, and on a yoga mat, especially during a vigorous Vinyasa practice.
In other people, friends, writing/yoga students, who share their hearts and souls in words, in stories, over coffee, on or off a mat; from other creatives whether writers, musicians, visual artists, cinematographers, dancers.
What gets you up in the morning?
At this particular moment in time — an ongoing war in Israel — I struggle. It takes me at least an hour, sometimes two, to pull myself away from my phone. It’s when I read the news, when I look at the names of the soldiers who have fallen (those are my friends’/cousins’/brother- and sister-in-law’s/neighbors’/storekeepers’/bankers’/etc children). It is so, so painful and tragic.
What’s something surprising you’ve done or learned that’s changed how you show up in the world?
Accepting and embracing living in Israel surprises me, more so now, during a war, than ever before. I never thought myself capable of living here and feel a strange inner peace. Seeing the world’s response to the atrocities of October 7th and witnessing a cruel unleashing of anti-Semitism makes me cling more strongly than ever before to this little slice of land. It makes me prouder and louder to say I am human. I live here. Please do not judge me or anyone who lives here until after you’ve researched the history and the many-sided, delicate, controversy embedded within the region.
What’s something you wish you could engage in more? Why?
The rich cultural scene in Israel feels untouchable because of language. I understand Hebrew but am not fully fluent so movies, theater, lectures all leave me frustrated. Last week, we went to hear Etgar Keret in conversation with a journalist, in Hebrew, and he spoke race-car fast and I was able to focus for the first hour and then retreated. My brain was on fire. But what I understood about his Holocaust survivor parents and how they each influenced him and his view of AI and how he gets unstuck with writing fueled me and make me wonder if I understand more than I realize.
How has your creative work informed the way you think about the world and vice versa?
When writing, I strive to reveal my underbelly. To bring my raw, real self to the page. To bear witness to the world around me and to bear my inner, fraught, foibled self. In so doing it makes me see the world differently. It reminds me that we are all human, flawed and floundering, trying to navigate the same journey: life. Humanity.
Here at the Chaos Palace, we’re exploring how inviting messiness into our lives can be a vehicle for curiosity and creativity. How does chaos inform what you do, if at all?
Messiness and chaos are two concepts with which I struggle. (Key word: Virgo.) When people enter our apartment, they marvel at the lack of excess, how everything is in its place. But chaos comes in many forms, and where I feel it isn’t in my personal space as much as in the world around me: the shuk1 across the street, the increasing number of homeless, the climate, the already-mentioned, heart-wrenching war. Really it’s everywhere we turn. And it’s enough for me.
When does messiness feel like it’s too much? What do you do to rein it in when necessary?
When I feel bone-tired. Every once in a while, I am exhausted and drained with no energy to sit at my desk and think or sit at a table and eat. From time to time, I need a pajama day to reboot. Inevitably, the next day, I wake up energized, ready to start anew.
Jennifer Lang is a writer and editor living and working in Tel-Aviv, Israel. She is: American-Israeli-French. Writer-yogi and yogi-writer. Teacher of YogaProse. Director of the Israel Writer’s Studio. Author of two unconventional books — Places We Left Behind: A Memoir-in-Miniature (2023) and Landed: A Yogi's Memoir in Pieces & Poses (2024). Instagram: instagram.com/jenlangwrites. You can follow Jennifer’s work on Facebook.
Author’s Note: A shuk (or souk) is an open-air market, usually where people but fresh produce, meat, cheese etc. But there are also plenty of vendors selling all manner of wares, from household items to clothing and more.