SURPRISES, EARTHQUAKES, AND A TOAST

LIFE OF A BOOKMAN

Bookman: 1. a person who has a love of books and especially of reading. 2. a person who is involved in the writing, publishing, or selling of books. Oh, hi that's me!!

Feeling Tilted!!! Ok, I finished Tilt, by Emma Pattee. And wow it finished in such a different emotional place than it started for me. I was moving along in the book, through about 40%, and enjoying the voice and the big questions I assumed would get answered, and the crazy experience of a giant earthquake. And it was around that time that it took a big turn for me into a pretty deep exploration into regret and grief...with a depth I didn't expect based on the first act. I was crying, a lot, in the final 30 or so pages, and I have a lot of feelings about how it ended that I must discuss. A good read that I've been thinking about a lot, which may or may not be because I'm back in the Bay and woke up first thing Monday morning to the aftershocks of an earth quake. Ooof.

What I've been writing: A little here, a little there. But I'm realizing that the best time to write this week has been when I don't feel like writing. It's made me feel better in ways that I cannot directly name.

WOMEN’S STUDIES

What gets passed down becomes our history.

Is Your Social Life Missing Something? This conversation between Ezra Klein and Priya Parker was SO good. It was largely based on her book from 2018 called The Art of Gathering, which I haven't read, but I might now...it hit on so many things I hear us all talking about: how much we want to be with people but how much work it is to find the time, to host, to get people together. How the perception of “ease” of sitting in your pajamas watching Netflix instead of going to dinner, or going to that thing, is actually keeping you from what you want. I spent a lot of years in a role that was explicitly focused on bringing women together, in person, and I've felt a longing to get back to those career beginnings. More on that later, but for now, I'll say that after listening to this conversation, I intentionally went over to a friend's house instead of sitting on my couch, and it made me feel so so much better than wallowing every could.

The Friendship Advice Experts Swear By. OK, so we have a theme here. But WOW did I bookmark this one so hard because so often the advice on friendship is vague. And the bits in here really resonated with me. My favorite was about practicing “aggressive friendship”, which requires not waiting to initiate, and calling/texting/arranging plans without worrying about being a nag. I loved this framework, and immediately texted two “newish” women friends in San Francisco to get a date on the calendar. Because a full social life is a connected life, and we need connection to each other and our community desperately these days.

Sometimes you lose. Mascara alert, wow this 60 second clip on loss and grief from Katherine LaNasa made me downright weepy. It's really hard when you or the people you love are in the bottoms of life's dark moments. We try an assign meaning but really there's no meaning. Sometime you lose, sometimes you win, but in her lovely telling of her pain to Stephen Colbert, she thanks him for his sentiments offered to Anderson Cooper in an interview, which were that in order to love our life we have to find a way to love all of it, even the hardest parts. It's a good reminder if you're feeling like you need a win.

Good Hang with Claire Danes As I mentioned to you last month, I went on a Claire Danes binge. First with The Beast in Me, then to basically all 8 seasons of Homeland. And so this was a good excuse to watch more than Amy Poehler's 60s clips of her podcast, and actually listen to a full episode. It was a delightful conversation on Claire's craft, her upbringing, and how she thinks about time (and there's so much insider chat about Homeland, that if you liked that show you'll like this convo! Saul makes an appearance!)

PASS IT ON

Stories are heirlooms. Here's one of mine:

I got to have the GREAT fortune of helping pull off a 70th birthday surprise dinner for my Dadio. First, I cannot believe he's 70 because honestly aren't I still just 22?? And also, what a gift of time and good fortune to have these moments with him, and to be able to celebrate him. As part of the dinner, which was just immediate family, we went around and toasted him with our favorite memories, as a slideshow of 250+ photos that my sister-in-law put together (shout out to Linsey!!) scrolled in the background. The toasts were unplanned, so we were all just speaking from the heart. But the thing that came up for me, that I'll offer to all of us here reading, is that my dad has been a master of memory-making. Whether that's Christmas family traditions that are fun and sometimes ridiculous, to putting so much time and effort into bringing all of us together for special trips, to the rituals of our childhood like post-mass donut Sundays, to visiting me in any country I've ever stayed in for longer than 2 weeks. It's a super power, and something we all have the capacity and ability to do. Because after all, the actions and generosity and planning that we do for others eventually become their memories. So plan a memory, and if you have the chance to toast your dad either in this earthly plane or the heavenly one, now is as good day as any to do just that.

Woman on xx