A conversation with Nada Alić

There’s a lot to unpack when it concerns Nada Alić, author of the story collection  “Bad Thoughts” and self-proclaimed bag-ignoramus.

Interview by Sabrina Roman

Not that she necessarily needs one of those, largely because everything she carries; from motherhood to her upcoming literary masterstroke which is set to be published by Knopf, is out there, in the open. Below, Interior Closure shoulders a long-ranging conversation alongside Nada; rustling through counterfeit designer bags, paranormal activities, and the necessity of time. Through it all, she carries an unconscious pizzazz that mirrors her approach to life.

Let’s start with your childhood: the first day of school, outdoor activities, Polly Pocket-sized worlds, pirate treasure troves, or fully stuffed suitcases.  What were the carry items that marked your girlhood? Were there any items including boxes and baskets that you either fetishized or disliked?

I grew up Catholic, which naturally made me interested in the occult and witchcraft as a child. I didn’t know the word for it at the time, but I believed in a kind of animism, that every object had a soul. I collected rocks and crystals that I believed held special powers. I remember feeling that I could speak to God through the wind. My sister and I were heavily influenced by movies like The Craft and shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. At sleepovers, we would attempt to levitate, playing “light as a feather, stiff as a board” or we’d dare each other to repeat “Bloody Mary” in the bathroom of the church basement with the lights off. We played with an Ouija board once before being punished for it and brought home haunted dolls from an abandoned farmhouse up the street. I now blame all of my adult misfortunes on some portal we must have accidentally opened during one of our seances, or a spell gone wrong that must have cursed me in some mysterious way. 

Then moving onto teenhood, where do you sit on the spectrum, a school bag that’s light and empty or heavy and filled with stuff? Were there any special objects you treasured in this period, inside a school rucksack, boxes at home or during recreational/sports activities? How would you say those items encapsulate and reflect your life back then?

Teen girlhood has often been the realm of paranormal and possession mythology and for good reason; this threshold marks our violent arrival into womanhood, and with it, a surge in an unwieldy energetic life force, which can become malignant and misdirected into intense obsessions (boys, fashion, celebrity, mental illness, etc.) in the absence of a spiritual guide or mentor or an understanding of how to integrate it. I look back at the objects and people I coveted as symptoms of a deeper spiritual crisis, a search for identity in that liminal space where I was, “not a girl, not yet a woman,” in the words of Britney Spears. 

I was a teenager in the early aughts (arguably one of the worst times for women in pop culture) and while I couldn’t articulate it at the time, I had a felt sense that something was off in the insatiability of my desires and it’s incongruence with my soul’s purpose. I’d been mainlining fashion propaganda ever since sixth grade when I got my first job and could afford to buy magazines for myself. Later, I got a job at a drugstore where I would steal them. I hoarded stacks in my bedroom and cut out pages to collage my walls like a psychopath constructing a bizarre shrine to sex and capitalism. 

At 16, I won a Seventeen Magazine writing contest and went to New York to visit their offices and explore the city; the ultimate dream for a small-town Canadian magazine thief like me. While in New York, I went to Canal Street to buy knockoff Louis Vuitton purses, just like the ones I’d seen in magazines. I didn’t care that they were fake; I had no money and I grew up internalizing that only the presentation of luxury mattered, not the truth. The whole thing felt pretty empty and depressing to me, which I blamed on myself and my bad attitude rather than the conditions of my life wherein I was being assaulted by the empty promise of consumerism at every turn. The psychic weight of the emotional baggage I accrued from that time is something I’m still shedding today. 

And finally fast-forwarding to today, looking around your vicinity - what’s the sartorial culture of carrying things in LA? 

As a mother of a toddler, I prioritize ease and efficiency when I’m out in the world. I was gifted a very complicated diaper bag when my son was born that I thought I had to use for some reason, but you eventually learn that anything works as a diaper bag. So now I just use an old backpack filled with diapers, snacks and a change of clothes that I always keep in my car. For myself, I wear a vintage leather fanny pack I got on Poshmark that sits across my chest so I can easily get my phone and wallet while keeping my hands free. When I’m out with friends, I use a small vintage leather backpack that I got on Depop, it’s a little nicer than the fanny pack and I can sling it over my shoulder. If I’m going somewhere overnight, I use a white, oversized Los Angeles Apparel duffle bag that I got at their warehouse downtown for cheap. 

Have you always been able to resist the desire to own accessories? 

After my brief, teenage foray into the world of counterfeit designer bags, I didn’t think much about bags until I started working at Etsy when I was 25 and gravitated towards handmade, well-crafted bags from local artisans. I spent a lot of time around people who made and sold things online and at markets and maybe through a combination of osmosis and boredom from standing at markets for hours on end, I convinced myself that I really wanted and needed $300 leather handbags from the stall next to mine. 

Astrologically, I’m all air signs, and I’ve been told by psychics that I’m fairly porous to other people’s energies so if I’m around something for too long I might start merging with its energy, for better or worse. Knowing this, I try to safeguard myself by spending a lot of time alone or in my home where nothing can seduce me unless I permit it. The internet makes this tricky, but as I’ve gotten older, I can better discern what I want vs. when I’m cosplaying as someone else, and what I want most is peace and freedom to make art. That extends to my personal style in that I don’t adorn my body with jewelry or makeup (I have a semi-autistic, tactile sensitivity, I always have to cut my nails down to the nub) and I have a very boring, utilitarian mom wardrobe of plain sweatshirts and sweatpants and as I mentioned before, two bags. 

(I will caveat all of the above by adding that I sometimes wonder if my entire personality would change if I had money.)

I read your ‘BABY BRAIN’ piece that you wrote for Beyond Noise, and I was particularly moved when you said, “before I exploded my life with a baby, I spent a lot of time in my head, daydreaming and contemplating the nature of my own mind."  If you could unpack the contents of your mind and shove every thought into a bag, what items would you pack and how would the inside look? Do you think the interiors may be structured or would there be scrunched-up receipts and forgotten pieces of gum? 

I often say I’m a shell of myself now; an apt symbolic image of early motherhood. It’s the feeling that you’ve literally been hollowed out, and you’re sort of just dragging this husk of yourself around, haha. I know that my mind has been restructured by motherhood, assigning primacy to the urgency of care as expressed through thousands of micro tasks and plans and repetitive labor throughout the day. The ghosts of my old self, or my true self, still stubbornly attempt to occupy the small spaces in between, resulting in a painful collision of two selves with competing agendas, both operating at a deficit. I have hope that in time I will find space for both selves to dwell in harmony. 

From this piece, you’ve also said, “I preferred exploring my inner world over being in my body, that fragile animal: vulnerable to the elements, disease, and certain death.” This quotation in particular, made me consider that, perhaps, the wear and tear that a bag inevitably undergoes, worn handles, sagging, and discoloured leather, isn't that different from the marks the human body carries. What do you think? 

In a metaphysical sense, our physical bodies are containers for localized consciousness; they are vehicles that allow us to have a human experience. Ram Dass says that death is like “taking off a tight shoe.” This is a good reminder for me whenever I find myself horrified by the aging process. 

Do you feel that people recognise this discoloured, disjointed facet in motherhood? Or are they perhaps folded neatly into various compartments? 

No one can know until they go through it themselves. This is the very alienating part about motherhood! Before having a child, I was so naive, arrogant, and preoccupied by my nothing problems. I rarely ever thought about the world of children. Of course, I love my son, and I find the daily experience of motherhood to be exceedingly difficult, painful, feral, boring, exhausting, intellectually deadening, sexist, etc. But I’m also a product of my environment which is America, where there is no support for mothers, work is precarious, healthcare is astronomical, and we have no family nearby to help us. There’s a huge difference between people who have or can afford help and resources and those who can’t. 

The strange thing about Los Angeles in particular, is that different socioeconomic classes mix in creative circles. In no other place will you find such income inequality than among artists in large cities like LA, where a broke artist with internet clout will occupy the same social circles as a multi-millionaire tech entrepreneur and a famous actor. So there’s this bizarre cognitive dissonance that occurs when you’re navigating parenthood in the midst of all that. It’s hard not to compare my experience to someone who has full-time nannies, daycare, house cleaners, shops at Erewhon, and can afford to travel, etc. Meanwhile, my husband and I are taking on everything by ourselves. It’s given me a lot more compassion and empathy for families who are also struggling under the weight of capitalism. 

Of course, it’s a huge bummer to hear mothers complain, but the tradwife fantasy currently being sold to us is a perversion of the reality of motherhood, and everyone should be more transparent about the economic circumstances of their lives when presenting theirs as idyllic and easy and beautiful. Show us the receipts, babe!   

Whilst we're on this point of our conversation, I'd like to point out that over two years ago, you were writing about “searching for exchange rates, custom cardboard cutouts, and Nick Cave's wife”. Is there anything in particular you've been searching for since having your baby and where have you found it in your writing?  

Since having a baby I am searching for time. Time to work on my book. Time to rest. Time to think. The only thing that can be found in writing is myself, and for that I need time. My refined and sophisticated wants and needs from the before time (whatever at-home laser facial wand, socks from SSENSE, a new restaurant I want to try, an eagerly awaited email response about some professional news, etc.) have been reduced to very base, primal essentials: time, food, sleep, escape, order, silence, safety. In the absence of those things, I will sometimes go to ichingonline.net and search for clarity, wisdom, and guidance via the spiritual authority of the virtual flipping of the coins. It’s right every time.