What is this, and why?
Shit's rough out there, y'all, but you already knew that.
Like a lot of you, I've pulled waaayyy back from my old social media habits and am trying hand over fist to get my news in one daily dose instead of doomscrolling until I die on the couch. Also like a lot of you, I'm doing what I need to do to stay involved without running myself into the ground, which is antithetical to staying involved because lying face-down on the floor doesn't help much of anything, except when it does.
In an effort to keep my own lights on internally, I'm making a point of reading things with longer word counts*, continuing to unpack the garbage we've been conditioned to accept all our lives, and learning to be a more present neighbor, gardener, and community member. I'm also tuning back into the parts of my brain that find wonder to be a marvelous full-time setting: what is this, and why?
So, in the spirit of staying connected with the broader world in a way that feels... nourishing?, I thought I'd try this platform the great Rebecca Solnit recommended when she started her own site not long ago. The plan is just to pass along a handful of things each week (or so) that I find fascinating, heartening, or otherwise worthy of sharing with people who care about some of the same things I do.**
Each week, you'll find a brief selection of bright things—music, new and old; exquisitely-written essays, stories, and poems from an assortment of established and emerging literary magazines and other places; mostly (but not always) plant-based recipes I've tried and loved and made more than once; concepts and ideas I find enlightening or encouraging or both... things like that. When I say "things," I don't mean crap you can buy... I mean things you can experience: songs, scents, writing, concepts, conversations. The exchange, as my kooky Aunt Frances*** likes to call it. Invitations for expansion, maybe.
If I get it right, you'll find delights for every last one of your senses (even proprioception and chronoception, two underdogs nobody ever talks about even though they're keeping us upright and on time, although ymmv). You'll find things that give you ideas. You'll find pockets of joy and moments of connection and encouragement to keep your faith in whatever you keep it in: dogs, kindness, humor, Robert Smith's affable grumpiness, or whatever else gets you out of bed. And unlike this post, I'll try to keep it short.
Hang in there, friends. Here's some joy for you.
* Did you know the audiobook of Bram Stoker's Dracula is 19 entire hours long? Well, it is, and it still flies by. Also, he tried to publish it with the title "The Undead," which made sense given that DRACULA HARDLY EVEN HAS ANY SCENES OR DIALOGUE, but his publisher made an eleventh-hour switch.
** These include but are by zero means limited to empathy, compassion, mutual aid, community care, sensory delights, synesthesia, dark-painted rooms, curiosity, soft goth aesthetics, whiskey gingers, biophilia, humor in unexpected places, salty/briny/pickle-y foods, the intersection of scent and memory, words that feed the brain and soul in one shot, nuance in general, and Patti Smith's whole thing.
*** McDormand, that is. Not my aunt in real life, sadly.
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24 February 2025