The Size and Shape of It
Somehow two months of 2024 have passed by already.
When life is unpredictable, it’s hard to write into the chaos. Even when I was a single whirlwind with a suitcase, I liked my little routines. Unpacking as soon as I arrived. Coffee as soon as I wake up. An egg and bread. I’ve spent the past six months rebuilding my writing and my routines both, but the reality is that it feels like the ground could drop away any time. Waking up in the morning to watch the sun rise with a book is an anchor. It’s worth going to bed early for, to get an hour or two in the morning of solitary quiet. It’s a much healthier vice than plenty of my old ones.
When I started this installment of the newsletter, the first real blanket of snow had fallen in Massachusetts. Eighteen inches of it settled into every brown and dried corner of the landscape like a weighed blanket, and I felt myself exhale a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Finally, winter. February was young and cold. Just a few weeks later, we already had our first peek of false spring, a string of days where every morning was filled with bird song and I left my coat open as I walked the dog. It’s no longer dark when I wake up at 6 am — I put away the beeswax candles I lit in the winter mornings, and have moved on to new rituals. It’s certainly easier to wake up this way, but part of me wishes the dark and the quiet had lasted a bit longer. I needed it. February went fast.
The size and the shapes of grief are uneven things, knocking us off balance and taking us by surprise. My personal life has its own griefs at the moment, both active and anticipatory, falling right alongside waves of joy. I find myself losing chunks of time if I’m not careful, caught between routine and its interruption. Every day I wake up to the darkest news I can conceive of, and am bolstered by the passionate commitments of my friends. There’s an enormous amount of uncertainty I simply have to sit at the table with every day. I can’t fix it. I just have to let it live in my body, or at least alongside me. Something I did not anticipate about working hard to heal my neurons and nervous system was how deeply moved I would be by both sides of the coin, joy and grief, how sharp and newly tender every emotion feels. I try not to chalk the good things up to false springs, or worry about timing. I just wake up each morning and do my best.
In preparing to let winter go with an open hand, I’m letting the houseplants grow wild, even though I know I should contain them. It’s a taste of what’s coming as they climb up the walls. It’s also a reminder that I’m doing it, remembering to water them on schedule. I channel my joys into care for the people and things around me to take the edge off my grieving. I include myself in that at least sometimes. Getting dressed in the morning occasionally feels fun, not just an exercise in layering long underwear. I even made a new set of mood boards, after a full year away from a practice I’ve done diligently every 3 months since for almost a decade. It’s like decorating the inside of my skull for a new self, still emerging. I might even let the morning birdsong crack open something joyful in my heart so there’s room for whatever new shapes emerge with the spring.
By this time next month, it will be here, in the way the sun rises if not the temperature in the thermometer.
A bit from my month for those who like to be nosy — this is my favorite part of newsletters, so you’ll simply have to be subjected to it once in a while.
What I’m reading:
The Convivial Society, especially the recent installment on the Wisdom of Daybreak.
A La Carte, a newsletter by a fellow creative director. I love the way her newsletter is structured, and seeing someone else’s process.
I’ve been rereading one of my favorite books, Changes in the Land, absolutely obsessively. I’m also enjoying The Light Eaters and Lessons for Survival, both of which are excellent and worth pre-ordering.
Worth waking up for:
In the mornings I have increasingly been starting my days with half-caf espresso, thanks to a Christmas gift from dear friends and the fact I can barely tolerate caffeine now with my migraines. I switched to oat milk for my lattes and got a cheap little steamer whisk and like them with a dollop of tahini in the mix. I’ve also been using oat milk to concoct this treat. (I also highly recommend a phone call with a friend and a wander around World Market to gossip.)
Finally, I am on a “secondhand only” year for buying clothing and I am beside myself with joy about it. If you are someone who made it this far and would want to see more of that side of my content live somewhere, drop me a line, would you?
I love you so much