Happy Wednesday (Itâs PRIDE Sunday)
Good Afternoon Girls, Gays, Theys & #allies,
There is really nothing like waking up on a lazy weekend morning with your best friend giggling about the antics of the night before and getting downright giddy about the breakfast sandwiches youâre about to inhale together. Married folks, maybe this is what marriage feels like, and if so, maybe you need a new PR person because this is not how it is depicted in media or the lived experience of most people I know. Please consider a re-brand to make the notion of holy matrimony more appealing to me? Thank you in advance!Â
I know Iâve talked about the Best Friend Sleepover⢠before and what a pillar it is in my life, and I think the reason it is so special to me is that it is a relic of a childhood that still feels so fresh, like a tee-shirt youâve had forever that you somehow, magically, never outgrew.Â
This isnât the only example of a quintessentially child-like experience that I have woven into my daily life over the past few years, and Iâve heard that mid-life is mostly about these nostalgic re-discoveries, soâŚbring it on! Maybe, like me, you are discovering some childhood staples for the first time. I, for example, was never allowed to play video games growing up and have only just stumbled across the euphoria that is Mario Kart while watching Formula 1 with some racing-obsessed friends. Mamma-mia!
In addition to a lot of lazy sleepovers, Iâve been collaging, making playlists according to my moods, and putting in real effort to meet new friends, which we can all agree is just weird and difficult in adulthood outside of work or school. I take note from my friend Lea (sheâs eight) who really courageously met a new friend at the park a few weeks ago. I was amazed that Lea had befriended someone in the wild completely independent of her mother and the infrastructure of school. We took turns saying thank you as we shared the zip line, and then I asked her what her name is and if she wanted to play together. It sounds so easy when she says it like that, but when you are twenty-eight, so many boring things get in the way. I noticed that âwhat do you do for workâ or âhow long have you lived in the cityâ werenât part of Lea and her friend-from-the-parkâs conversation. How thrilling? They met each other by doing something alone that brought them each joy, and then they figured it was more fun to do that thing together, and ultimately struck up a conversation about other things they enjoyed. Why have we veered so far from that? Why wasnât I able to have the insatiable wonder and unapologetic confidence of my youth throughout most of my twenties? That question probably deserves a more involved answer, but for now, I think it was hard for me to be present or remember when I was so obsessed with marching forward and becoming somebody: advancing, accelerating, achieving, promoting blah blah blah. Iâve realized pushing forward might be overrated since time is going to pass regardless. Look out the freaking window. Jump in a puddle.Â
Unfortunately, the thing with growing up is that it can feel like year after year we lose more and more. People move, people die, and goodbyes feel exponentially more frequent. After a while, it can feel like these losses are happening to you without your control, and yet any potential excitement or fulfillment has to be entirely of your own making. How exhausting? We are responsible for creating a fun life; it isnât plopped in our laps or constructed for us as maybe it was through school, family, or neighborhood initiatives as a child. Having fun often times requires energy that the work-week doesnât leave us with in abundance on a Friday. Why canât really meaningful, spontaneous, connective experiences happen as effortlessly as pain?Â
To combat these waves of grief, for a while I consciously tried not to get attached to things I was afraid to lose. This is the oldest trick in the book: maybe if I keep my expectations low and disappoint myself first, I can break my own heart before anyone else gets the chance.
All I need to do is think about Lea, my friend who is eight years old, to understand how massively misguided this approach was. If an explanation of how I am living my life wouldnât make sense to Lea, I probably shouldn't be doing it. âBut why would you want to disappoint yourself?â is probably what she would say. Or, even worse, if Lea adopted my life philosophy as her own, and it broke my heart to hear her treat herself that way, I really shouldnât be doing it. If I wouldnât be able to justify Lea treating herself in ways she doesnât deserve, then in the name of what am I rationalizing it for myself?Â
What I learned after spending quite a few years massively unhappy, was that disappointing myself ended up being infinitely more depressing than allowing other people to disappoint me. But in this realization was also endless hope: letting myself down is totally within my power to change. I didnât really know how to do that until recently, however.
Obviously, age isnât a universal indication of where people are in their personal journeys or milestones, but I can attest to a certain overarching feeling of being in my twenties. This decade has felt a lot like frantically throwing spaghetti at the wall, trying on a lot of different selves to see if they fit: will new cities, new apartments, new jobs, and new relationships get me what I want? What do I even want? Maybe we choose these new experiences one right after the other because, for the first time in our lives, we have the autonomy and means to do so. Alternatively, perhaps we pursue these new experiences out of necessity because we have more responsibilities to manage than weâve ever had before and we need to find a way to make ends meet. In any case, my twenties have felt almost like a second adolescence â a time of a universally acknowledged increase in societal pressures but not an immediately clearer picture of who I am or how I am supposed to respond to new challenges. I have had a lot of empathy for teenagers as I near the end of my twenties because of how close I feel the times of being passionate-as-hell-without-a-freaking-clue-where-I-was-going.
Each year of my twenties has felt so different from the others that itâs almost hard to believe such few months separate them. Although there are a few milestones I havenât hit (Iâm not married, I donât have children, I donât own a home, I donât have a pet, Iâm not advancing a career etc.), I am ALSO not searching desperately for the thing that will make me feel better. Only as I approach thirty do I feel like I kind-of-sort-of-maybe-halfway understand who I am a bit, and Iâm really excited for my thirties if this feeling is any indication of how that will go. I got a lot out of my system in my twenties, and the achievements of which I am most proud havenât been met with a promotion or an audience of praise. They have been acknowledged in quiet moments on my couch where I feel lucky to be alive, reading in the sunshine. They become clear in waking up without a tight chest or an anxious belly, and not checking my phone to immediately put out someone elseâs fire.Â
Recently I was talking to my sister who had just returned from a work conference in Palm Springs, and she was telling me about a phenomenon I had always noticed but had never heard put to words before. Though many people her age attended this conference, and she could have been networking with any number of thirty-somethings, she found herself connecting more with women in their 50s and 60s than anyone in her own age group. We got to talking about how it was that there seemed to be so much similarity between her and the sexagenarians, and my sister shared that there are really beautiful parallels throughout these seemingly different developmental times. Our twenties and sometimes forties seem to be decades focused on growth; there is an awareness that there is so much you do not know and you feel like you should be learning and developing faster than your circumstances will allow. There isnât a massive amount of time spent on reflection or pacing when you are just trying to get some ground beneath your feet. Our thirties and sixties provide a synchronistic time of slowing down, understanding that there is still much to learn, but acknowledging that youâve built a foundation to explore from. There is a certain security that comes with these times of life that the fast-paced years of career building and family planning do not readily allow for. (Obviously, these are generalizations, donât hate me!)
Talking with her made me remember one of my favorite metaphors. As a plant-mom, I can sometimes be frustrated and confused about why certain plants arenât producing leaves as readily as they should despite adequate light, ample fertilizer, and near-perfect humidity conditions. I have to remember, plants grow in ways theyâll never let us see. Sometimes, plants will not produce new leaves because all of their nutrients go to growing their roots, digging in, and securing themselves to something solid. They are not sick, they are not dying, and they havenât stopped growing. They are just diverting their resources to nourish what most needs tending to, and that isnât always externally obvious. I spent my twenties obsessed with producing my own leaves for everyone to see, but if a strong enough wind came, Iâd buckle, bend, and blow right over. The years that have given me the most joy are the ones in which I grew my roots and anchored myself to what brought me the most nourishment â investing time in people I care about, making art, losing myself in music, being honest about how Iâm doing, beginning new hobbies, and sharing it all with you all.Â
Itâs never too late to approach life like an eight-year-old. Follow your curiosity with a whole lotta love and youâll find your people. If youâre here, youâve already begun.
Here are some things that brought me joy this week. Happy exploring and much love!
Podcasts
đ§Literary Friction by Carrie Plitt and Octavia Bright  (Podcast / Books & Writing) âď¸âď¸âď¸âď¸
Upon looking for an interview with Carmen Maria Machado for the I Have No Milk newsletter / pride episode (out, if all goes according to plan on Tuesday, June 27), I came across this podcast, which I had heard about before but never took the time to listen to. I got downright giddy when I heard it was hosted by an American and a Brit both living in London because Iâm manifesting that for myself đ. Anyways, the podcast is about âbooks and ideasâ from the perspective of a literary agent and a writer/academic. They are warm, kind, curious, and incredibly knowledgeable about books and the landscape of publishing. I also love that itâs a part of NTS, a radio station and broadcasting company founded by Femi Adeyemi in 2011. (NTS stands for Nuts to Soup, which I think is hilarious and also donât want to know the origins of).
đ§The King Road Killings by Kayna Whitworth via ABC News (Podcast/ True Crime) âď¸âď¸âď¸
Like a lot of folks, I was really in to True Crime podcasts and documentaries a few years back, but started to get really queasy thinking about how an entire industry crept up around the exploitation of victims and their families. Iâm also not a huge fan of American policing in general and have a lot of critiques of the criminal justice system, so listening to glorified cop-a-ganda with fairly black and white, punitive, carceral logic never sat quite well with me. The cultural fascination with True Crime podcasts and documentaries seemed to really take off with The American Lifeâs production of Serial in 2014 (which I listened to religiously), however salacious headlines and sensationalized violence have been the name of the game since the dawn of journalism. What I appreciate about this podcast so far is how respectful it seems to be of the victims and their families. If you followed this case as it was transpiring at the University of Idaho in November 2022, you may familiar with the media frenzy. I think ABC has produced a decent series whose goal seems to be inform, rather than entertain, and I think itâs quality journalism all things considered.
Music
đľStrong Hands by Taylor Ashton (Song / Folk)
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At this point, I feel like a T.A. Evangelical, proselytizing the masses and inviting them to the church of happy-to-be-alive-and-loving-folksy-indie-earmagic, and have I any shame? No. I am 5 converts deep, and I couldnât be more thrilled.
Taylor Ashton could play an Altoids can and sing his CVS receipt, and I would fully stop my day to listen. Thank HEAVENS this glorious person is touring this summer. Is California on the list? No. Will I be taking trains, planes, and automobiles to make sure the sweet honey of their voice and the soft twang of his banjo chords reach my ear drums? Yes. If Taylor Ashton is playing anywhere in the 500-mile vicinity of you this summer, do yourself a favor and go. Just go. I swear I didnât even know I liked the banjo before I heard him play.
đ§NTS founded by Femi Adeyemi (Radio station, music mostly but also bookish)
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Itâs a 24/7 station that seems to be a hub for upcoming music from all over the world. It has all of the passionate creativity and grassroots urgency of university radio, but with the infrastructure and resources to reach millions all over the world. This is perhaps my favorite vibe of any organization or movement â one that feels intimate and deeply human but has the reach to impact so many.
đŹRide the Eagle (Hulu, 2021)
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It doesnât get much better than Jake Johnson, Susan Surandon, DâArcy Carden, and J.K. Simmons. If you are like me and refuse to watch trailers but love seeing new films, the Sparknotes version of this is: Leif (Johnson) is a bongo player who lives in a less-than-legal ADU and receives news that his estranged mother (Sarandon), who left him to join a cult when he was a boy, has died. In order to inherit what she has bequeathed to him, he must complete a series of tasks that his mother left behind via pre-recorded videos. Itâs endearing and sweet and every performance from these actors is lovely per usual. ***If you have dogs or are a dog lover, heads up there are some tense moments with his dog though it all turns out okay in the end.
Jake Johnson is one of my favorite actors. Maybe thatâs a hot-take, but I really love watching interviews with him where he explains his process of seeking out and accepting work and his relationship to the roles heâs had in the past. I find his performances compelling and honest, and every single character he portrays feels flawed and deeply interesting. There is a homeyness to his films that feels really comforting, like I am invited into or perhaps already live in the same world as his characters.
Iâm happy he is stepping into writing and directing more and am looking forward to his next project, Self Reliance, which just debuted at SXSW.
đŹShiny Happy People (Amazon, Docuseries 2023)
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Because I donât love reality TV and am not religious, fundamentalist daytime programming on TLC was never for me, but if you were living in the US in the aughts, The Duggars were a cultural phenomenon that was hard to escape. They captured headlines of People and US Weekly magazine at check-out counters and were on almost constant rotation at doctors and dentist offices. Anyways, the children that grew up in the Institute for Basic Life Principles cult that The Duggars were a part of now tell their story in this short docu-series. It touches on the connection between fundamentalism and American politics but focuses mostly on the stories of the survivors of IBLPâs abuse. I never watched 19 and Counting, but I am a sucker for a story about people leaving high-control groups and finding their freedom, so I liked this documentary more than I thought I would. All the necessary warnings that go along with religious abuse are applicable here.
đ Linguists have identified a new English dialect thatâs emerging in South Florida by Phillip M. Carter (article, The Conversation)
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I follow a few linguists on Tiktok and took a few linguistics-adjacent courses in grad school, and I wish I had had more flexibility in my schedule to nerd out on words while I was there. Iâve always been fascinated by the stories languages can tell, the histories that hide underneath languageâs construction, and the identities formed by what culture does to it. Like culture, language is dynamic, and Iâll leave it to the academics to parse apart its intricacies, but for the laypersonâŚwords are just cool, straight up. The way they fit together, the way they surprise, the way they cut and color our world. Iâm a word-nerd through and through, and was immediately fascinated by what I read in this article. For my more academic-leaning friends (*cough cough Lyric and *cough cough Joy) check out his research published here!
đThursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
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A whodunnit but make it a band of octogenarian misfits solving the murder from the confines of their retirement home. If you liked Only Murders in the Building, but wished the main characters were even older and even less agreeable, and there were even more of them and that they were also BritishâŚthis book might be for you.Â
Itâs clever as heck the way Richard Osman has done the POV shifts. Weird comparison, and not at all similar in writing style, but if you like how Emily St. John Mandel plays with multiple POVs and time jumps, youâll love this. There is a certain rush of excitement I get when I meet someone in one characterâs POV and then they pop up again in a different context in another POV. The puzzle pieces are slowly identified, and I feel like I am a part of putting the whole thing together along with the characters. I also LOVE old people, so if you do too, youâll love these geezers. Thank you, Lana for the recommendation and for sending me a physical copy of this book all the way from England.
đ§ Smoothie
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My friend Hilary is obsessed with smoothies. I donât use that word lightly. Iâve known her for three years, and Iâm not sure there has been a day during that time in which she hasnât 1) had a smoothie or 2) deeply regretted not having a smoothie. To Hilary, clandestinely throwing in kale is not the motive of the smoothie endeavor. You will not find her âsneakingâ greens in there to âtry to be healthy.â In fact, Hilary is unashamed about how much she dislikes kale and is under the impression that anyone who voluntarily eats it and enjoys it is, in fact, delusional. In honor of my dear, anti-kale and pro-smoothie friend, here is a summer smoothie recipe. Measure with your heart.
Ingredients:
Almond milk
Peaches (frozen or fresh)
Strawberries (frozen or fresh)
½ Acai pouch (Trader Joeâs â if you donât have a TJâs or frozen acai, use blueberries or blackberries!)
1 spoonful of nut butter (I use peanut butter because itâs my favorite tasting nut, but some people are very anti-peanut so, you do you)
1 Banana
*Pro-tip: if you are blending frozen and fresh fruit, make sure the banana touches the blade first so it all blends easier. (If you have a Magic Bullet from your college years like me, put the banana in last because youâll flip it upside down, obviously. You would be shocked at how long it took me to learn this technique. I am a slow learner).
I know itâs bad, but itâs so funny and perfectly captures how I approach most tasks.
Ending Note & Acknowledgements:
As always, I love hearing what youâve enjoyed about this newsletter and if anything resonated with you. We have a lot to celebrate this round so letâs give it up forâŚ
Joy, my TA from Grad School who for some reason chose to become my friend after I graduated, thank you for reading these and for your sweet email after the last edition. Iâm sorry I havenât responded LMAO, but know that your words made my day and I will be returning them soon :) Thank you to Aryeh, another friend with whom time and distance have gotten in the way of quality hang-outs, thank you for reaching out and reading! College nights reading and writing together are some of my best memories. It brings me so much joy to know something as silly as this newsletter can help us stay in touch. To the freaks that Iâm in Discord and WhatsApp groups with (you know who you are) â stay freaky and thank you for stoking my confidence. To Lea, congratulations on your art show! You made such incredible work. To Leo and Arina, our scenarios and movie nights across time zones are so special to me. Thank you for co-creating a space that makes me feel so connected and so silly. (Leo, I canât even get into thanking you for such a thoughtful piece of mail last week or I will cry on Devonâs keyboard that Iâm borrowing to write this newsletter). To Cassidy and Melanie, this week has been so hard, and I hope you feel proud of what an incredible home you have built for all of your family â animals and sisters included. To Toni, congratulations on an incredible promotion and exciting travel opportunity! Iâm so proud of you. To Yuli, happy birthday! I hope it is full of devious fan fiction and sunshine. To Gem, congratulations on your new job â you deserve it! To Amanda, congrats on graduating from business school! Iâm so proud of you. To Camille, who has recently learned how to say ânoâ to that which does not fill her cup â you go, girl. To Alicia who helped me after a particularly dicey toilet situation at an intimate partyâŚnot unlike this oneâŚnot all heroes wear capes. And you are, without a doubt, a superhero. To Lana, my best friend that Iâve never met. You know the words already, you hold them in your hand. And lastly, to Devon, the girl I met on the rec center basketball courts when we were 13, happy 29th birthday. You are the light of my world, and you deserve to feel that way always. All love to all the people!
XO,
M