February Prompts for Maintaining the Mystique

Leave everyone guessing.

I’ve been picking up and putting down a 1973 book of journal entries written by an Albuquerque graduate student named C.S. Merrill while she was working as an assistant to Georgia O’Keeffe.

Merrill was 26 at the time (O’Keeffe was 85). Her observations largely read as a transcription of her days at work: descriptions of breakfasts, errands, answering letters. Sometimes it’s boring. But I keep thinking about one line, which Merrill mentions as the single piece of advice O’Keeffe’s previous secretary gave her:

The actual purpose of her job, the secretary instructed, was to “maintain the mystique.” To tend to the daily drivel while protecting the larger plot. To resist giving it all away. To let some things rest, or dissolve, or remain undone.

This month’s prompts consider making a place for ambiguity—whether it’s resisting the need to be understood or making things full of mystery for no reason at all. Leaving everyone guessing can be an act of self-preservation.

Prompts for Maintainin…