Things I Love

On Losing a Husband – This beautiful piece by Ben Loehnen resonated deeply with me, and I’ve heard his heartbreaking story from mutual friends several times.  I love his evocation of those first, foggy days and weeks, and I also got goosebumps because one of the first things I did after my father died was bring a chain over to my mother so she could wear his ring around her neck.

The 100 – Whit and I have been watching this series together for months, and we both find it riveting.  There are echoes of the Hunger Games and Lost, and references to a wide variety of literary and mythological tropes.  Super interesting.  I love the strong female characters.  I will say that the series is pretty violent.

Tell Me More: Stories About the 12 Hardest Things I’m Learning to Say – I loved Kelly Corrigan’s newest book.  I love everything she writes, and this book is no exception.  There’s something about Kelly’s voice, which is at once matter-of-fact and overcome with wonder at the world, which I adore.  This book brought me to tears several times.  Highly recommend.

The Finnish Olympic team and knitting – I heard a story about this knitting when I was driving home from Grace’s school on Sunday evening.  I just love that they are all knitting to calm their nerves, and especially love that after the Olympics they will take the individual squares and make a blanket for their presidential couple’s new baby.

Less things I love as things I hope to love, but there are a lot of books I’m looking forward to reading as soon as they come into the library: The Power (Naomi Alderman), Mrs. (Caitlin Macy), The Immortalists (Chloe Benjamin), The Female Persuasion (Meg Wolitzer), and Red Sparrow (Jason Matthews).  Have you read any of these?  I look forward to thoughts!

I write these Things I Love posts approximately monthly.  You can find them all here.  What are you reading, thinking about, and loving lately?

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.

Raising Dudes that are Manly in All the Right Ways – This piece on the Good Men Project is resonant for me in general, and in particular right now as I think about the fact that my son has lost two grandfathers in two months.  My husband, and his father, is a good (great) man and I know he’s paying close attention, but this feels like a particularly salient list right now.

Books I’m Giving this Holiday Season – I write a post like this every year but this year it got a little lost in the shuffle of my Real Life.  My father loved books, and I know I inherited my passion for them from him, so it feels appropriate to re-share this now.

Little Fires Everywhere – I loved Celeste Ng’s book and will review it more fulsomely before long.  This story is entertaining and thought-provoking at the same time, as well as beautifully written.

OK, fine.  I’m not loving a lot lately.  I’m sorry.  It’s been a difficult few weeks in an already-difficult season.  But I would really welcome your suggestions for things I should read, watch, or listen to over the holiday break.  What are you loving lately?

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

Practicing Who I Will Be When my Kids are Out of the House – I love this piece by Lauren Apfel (whose work overall I find particularly thoughtful and thought-provoking).  Now that I have one child out of the house, this topic feels resonant and clsoe to me.  This is the line I can’t stop thinking about: “Because I can’t help but wonder if the sense of loss one experiences upon the children’s leaving is proportionate to the amount of identity given up through their raising.”

Between Me and You – I started reading Allison Winn Scotch’s latest and it grabbed me immediately.  Not only because the epigraph is one of my all-time favorite quotes, but also because of the story, and the voices.  I can’t stop thinking about the characters.  It’s out in January but you can pre-order now!

Roxane Gay Lists 13 Rules for Female Friendships – What a wonderful list by Roxane Gay.  My favorite is #1.  And 5C is good too.  Oh, there’s just so much richness here.  Amen.

Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process – I love this book, which is full of short, lovely essays by some of my favorite writers. I find myself an uninspired season writing-wise and this book reminded me of why I sit at the computer on a regular basis.  Now I just need to find my words again.

52 Mondays – I found this blog through an illustrator I love (Sujean Kim) and the “backstory” page really resonated.  I love the posts, but even more I love the notion that the practice of writing (like the practice of meditation, as she mentions in one post, and like life itself) is about showing up.  Just doing the work.

What are you reading, thinking about, and loving lately?

I write these lists approximately monthly.  You can see them all here.

Night Walks With My Teens (Who Are About to Leave Me) – My adoration and admiration of Catherine Newman’s work is not a secret, and this may be my favorite piece of hers I’ve read so far.  To say it resonated, as I faced a daughter leaving, is an understatement.  This is a must read.

Sophie & Lili watercolor portraits – I love these portraits, fro photographs, and it’s possible one will be under the tree for a family member.  It is getting tight for the holidays, but what great gift ideas these are for birthdays, mother’s and father’s day, and, really anything.

Lovebug priobiotics -I’m a big probiotic fan and have long taken them myself as well as made sure Whit and Grace do.  This new line, whose name I adore (my mother called me “lovebug” when I was a child) is my new favorite.  We are all taking them.  Marvelous.

With Love, from the Naked Ladies in Goggles – I love this piece in Lenny by Susannah Meadows, because it so gorgeously captures everday life and the ways in which female friendship can sustain us.  I wish I had a locker room like this.

The Unfeathering of the Nest – Oh, my.  Weeping.  So much of this resonated when I read it, 1.5 weeks before Grace left, and does still, now.  I have known this day was coming and still, it feels so, so hard.

I Am the Keeper – Every word of this is familiar to me.  I’ve written before about being the filler (of the Britas, of the gas tanks, of the spirits, of the lunch boxes) and the emptier (of the backpacks, of the outgrown clothes, of uncomfortable emotions).  I wouldn’t want any other primary role in life, but it’s a lot.

I write these Things I Love posts approximately every month.  All of my previous posts are here.