Things I Love Lately

Surviving the Ordinary: Why We Need Memoirs of Ordinary Life – I love this Lit Hub piece about memoir, and the importance, power, and value of stories of regular life. “Imagine we all kept a shelf stocked with sharply written, illuminating first-person accounts of these stages of life—not just the eventful beginnings and endings, but the middles, too. We’d have what amounts to an instruction guide for living. We’d know better how to survive the ordinary things that happen to all of us but which are no less daunting for their ordinariness.” The piece also includes a great list of suggested memoirs, many of which I have read and adore.

Why Men Quit and Women Don’t – This is such a thought-provoking New York Times piece about the Boston Marathon and, more broadly, about how women don’t quit.  There are several theories proposed, among them the notion that people who go through childbirth are, unsurprisingly, tough as nails in athletic contests.  My favorite sentence: “of course, dropping out while giving birth is not an option.”

Sitting Alongside Suffering – I love everything Courtney Martin writes, and this piece is no exception.  I’m guilty of this too, of a deep need to fix, help, advise, rush in – when sometimes what’s needed is silent foot-washing, listening with no agenda to respond.  I’m trying.  I love the way Courtney unpacks the impulse behind the not-helpful behavior, because I do think the behavior comes from a good place.  But I’d like to be better at just being there.  I’ve written about this before, the power of abiding with people in certain moments.  I need to focus on this more.

I Am the One Woman Who Has It All – This may be my favorite thing I’ve read in weeks.  Months.  I’ve read it dozens of times and laugh out loud each time.  So. So. True.  So. So. Good.  Also great was the way this spurred some hilarious text threads among some of my working mother friends about their own working mother moments of hilarity (world-class mute button skills, ending a conference calls with “night night!”, and stray underpants in work bags are only some of the stories I’ve been laughing at).

I update my Reading page once in a while.  I just did so. What are you reading?  And thinking about, and loving?

I write these Things I Love posts approximately monthly.  You can see them all here.