My Year of No Shopping – I love Ann Patchett’s piece about the year she gave up shopping. I already do very little shopping (and literally cannot remember the last time I shopped for myself in an in-person store), and so many of her reasons resonate. Shopping has always struck me as one of the behaviors people engage in to fill some deep void (that’s not about things, of course) and this article supports that view.
Child’s Pose – This piece by Molly Blaauw Gillis struck every chord for me. Gillis writes about “bowing down both in awe and dismay at the joy and the devastation of 2017” and I shook my head and felt my eyes fill with tears. Yes, yes, and yes. Awe and dismay. Joy and devastation. All of it.
8 Resolutions to Be a Better Parent – I’m not much of a resolution person, and I don’t gravitate towards writing about parenting. This, however, is worth a read. I particularly like the one about being more laissez-faire about some things and less about others. The items in each list make great sense to me (as someone who is and has always been very focused on sleep and somewhat less focused on other things, for example).
Bookclique – I read a bunch of books over break, of which My Absolute Darling was my favorite. I look forward to reviewing it on Bookclique, a new site whose ranks I’m thrilled and honored to have joined. Please check it out!
When Things Go Missing – My sister sent me this gorgeous New Yorker article about loss and the death of a parent, and I read it in one breathless, tearful gulp. So, so true, and so, so beautiful. There are so many lines that resonated. This: “What I miss about my father, as much as anything, is life as it looked filtered through him, held up and considered against his inner lights.” And the last paragraph, which felt so true that it settled into my skin, my being: “All of this is made more precious, not less, by its impermanence. No matter what goes missing, the wallet or the father, the lessons are the same. Disappearance reminds us to notice, transience to cherish, fragility to defend. Loss is a kind of external conscience, urging us to make better use of our finite days. As Whitman knew, our brief crossing is best spent attending to all that we see: honoring what we find noble, denouncing what we cannot abide, recognizing that we are inseparably connected to all of it, including what is not yet upon us, including what is already gone. We are here to keep watch, not to keep.”
What are you reading, thinking about, and loving lately? Please tell me!
I write these Things I Love posts approximately monthly. You can see them all here.
The language in that New Yorker piece is glorious. Thanks, Lindsey.
I’m interested to read your review of MY ABSOLUTE DARLING. I had such a hard time reading that book and ultimately abandoned it because I was so troubled about the abuse of the main character.
I loved that Ann Patchett article too. Now off to explore the rest of this list!