Category — Uncategorized

I read a Substack a while back that I’m still thinking about — well, two ideas from it — which means it’s probably ripe for analyzing in a post. Mari Andrews wrote five things she learned from her work in the ICU.

The first plays with the thought of admitting what you don’t know when hearing about someone else’s situation. She writes,

My mentor, a no-nonsense Blundstones-wearing rabbi who was easily exhausted by hubris and certainty, constantly reminded me, YOU DON’T KNOW.

“Even if you had the patient’s exact illness, or you’ve felt the same way, you don’t know what it’s like to be them. Enter their room only with questions, never answers.”

I love that idea of entering with only questions, never answers. And using that as a guide to help anyone through a situation. Really, as humans, our role is to abide. To ask questions that will get people talking through their feelings or ask questions to let them know that you’re remembering with them. You are not meant to have answers. You are not them. Even if you’ve gone through something similar (ahem… infertility), you have not gone through their experience. So while you may be asked a question — how did you get through X? — it’s not your place to think you need to offer them how you got through X because you’re not there for answers. Only questions.

I especially loved this reminder: “I was so frustrated that I didn’t have the opportunity to blow everyone’s minds with my yet-to-be-discovered miraculous superpower to have the perfect words for every occasion.” Isn’t that impulse so true? But being there for someone is not about flexing your superpower. It’s knowing that no superpower can remove the weight of the other person’s grief. We can add to it, but we can’t remove it entirely. Only lighten it a bit by listening.

The absolute worst scene in Jodie Foster’s Contact, one that has stayed with me for countless years even though I only saw the movie once, was the scene on the beach with her father. She’s actually talking to an alien, but rather than scare her by appearing in its own form, it takes on the shape and sound of her father to put her at ease. But all I could think when I watched it was that it was so cruel because she knew she had this limited time with the alien/father, and then she’d have to leave, and she was aware of this the whole time she was with him.

Senior year is like living that scene of Contact every day.

I want to enjoy the time. I can often set the idea of limited time out of my head and enjoy the time. We lounge on the bed, talking about nothing. ChickieNob and I exercise and listen to audiobooks. The Wolvog and I critique video games. We all have dinner together every night, and everyone lingers at the table.

But then, the reminder that this limited time will all come to a halt in August. They will go live at a college. We will continue to live here. My heart starts pounding as I think about this, and I often have to escape the room to cry. Each time, I think about that scene, about being in a place you want to be, with the people you want to be with, and realizing that it’s all limited. It all comes to an end.

This transition has been hard for me; it has been building for years and has become an enormous hole in my heart this last year. Thank you for reading it and abiding with me.

I was between books, wondering what to read next, and the ChickieNob gently recommended that I finally read my copy of Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls. I was saving it for a rainy day because I love his books and wanted it in front of me (vs. already consumed). But it’s about the summer after high school and growing up and leaving, and she suggested that if I didn’t read it now, it might get harder to read in the spring. And maybe even impossible to read for a while in the future.

It was absolutely the right call.

I started the book, and my heart immediately hurt. But the writing was so good that it was soothing it as it was agitating it. Like a really good cry. A cathartic release.

I’m reading it slowly to savour it, reading other books in the between, but it raised the whole idea of what we save to read, eat, watch, and use in the future because we want it in front of us and not behind. As I was thinking about it, I received a sign from the universe in the form of a newsletter exactly on this theme. She writes:

So when we moved to the US last year, I began actually using everything. Candles, snacks, plates, creams, clothes. Use-over-hoard became the mantra because my time here is short … And I like this—books are getting read because I know for sure I cannot take with me most of them, skin care bottles are actually becoming empty (I’ve never had that happening before expiry), new recipes are being cooked simply for a reason to celebrate on new serve ware, puzzle boxes are being opened and completed, fancy soaps are torn open from their packaging.

I’ll replace this unread (now being read) book with another unread book. But to never read it at all would feel like the saddest story.

I definitely hoard vs. use in the moment. How about you?

Remember months ago when I mentioned that I had to chaperone the ChickieNob during her research slot at the British Museum, and I got to throw on a pair of nitrile gloves and hold the medals, too?

It turned out that the medal we were holding had a whole pregnancy loss backstory.

At the time, I didn’t realize it was the only copy in the world. I thought it was a known copy, and the British Museum had one, and perhaps another historical society had one, but it turned out to be the only copy, and that’s the story.

Anne Boleyn had her court medal made to celebrate the fact that she was pregnant. They were often handed out in court to show the person’s connection to the royal family.

Anne’s medal is a picture of her — I believe the only true, created in her lifetime picture of her — and the words “The Moost Happi Anno 1534.” But she miscarried before they could make the medals beyond this one template. Her most happy year turned into the worst year due to her loss.

And I got to hold the medal after ChickieNob sketched it for her capstone project.

I didn’t realize that story until we got home and were watching an Anne Boleyn documentary. It makes the whole thing — that connection of pregnancy loss over almost 500 years — all the more poignant.

I read the loveliest book over break; so special to me that it deserves its own post rather than get squished into the roundup of monthly books. I ordered Jonathan Coe’s new book, Bournville, from the UK. I chose it because the person who writes the Blackwell’s newsletter said: “Whenever I read Jonathan Coe (and I look forward to each new one!) I am always struck by two things; firstly, just how very English his writing is, and secondly, just how enjoyably readable he is. It is too tempting to say that he is my Dairy Milk.”

Yes, Jonathan Coe IS my Dairy Milk.

And like a Dairy Milk, I devoured this book in a few brief sittings because it was too delicious to put down and savour. I’ll reread it slower after everyone else has gotten a chance to experience it. It’s a gorgeous story following six generations of a family, set against the backdrop of seven major events in British history — VE Day to Charles’s investiture to Diana’s funeral — bookended by the pandemic.

I was always going to love this book just because, but the pandemic portions made me feel like crying because we had this great trip planned for that first pandemic summer—almost three weeks in Ireland, Isle of Man, and Northern Ireland. We were bringing an empty suitcase because we planned to go to a bunch of bookstores and buy the Jonathan Coe books that we couldn’t get in the US. The pandemic canceled that trip. So it was bittersweet — like a Bournville! — to be reading this book set in the period when I was supposed to be in the UK (albeit Northern Ireland), reading Jonathan Coe books.

I loved this book so much. It made my break that much sweeter.