Hitting snooze for one hour, twenty minutes until I hear the baby coo. Beeswax candle lit on the stove. Shelley Duvall sings “He Needs Me.” Frost on the burn pile in the backyard. The studio heater is set on a timer so it’s balmy by the time I walk in. A stick of incense, the same burnt at the silent meditation retreat two years ago. Pump: 30 minutes, 10 oz. Coffee top off and steam rising from the dishwasher as it runs. Tiny baby gnome in suspenders, back asleep after less than two hours awake.

Open the novel draft. Then: What is the best cod liver oil for babies? Do babies need a probiotic? How do I help my baby learn to sit up? How can my teenager access the money in his Venmo account? Why does my baby keep gasping? Why is my baby so freaking cute?

Cold passenger seat as the 16-year old drives to driver’s ed. His music (“Archie, Marry Me”) cuts out as he walks away and on the radio, how “I Lied to You” was conceived and written for Sinners in just a few hours. Making anything in just a few hours feels so impossible, the black bag of outgrown baby clothes on the floor of the laundry room, waiting to be washed, the bedsheet waiting to be turned into curtains for the baby’s sleeping cubby, for weeks now, the novel, waiting.

Venmo $230 to someone I don’t know so the 17-year old can run on their Hood to Coast team. A wad of cash I need to remember to take to the bank. No one is in the living room so I turn the heater off. The dog gets up to find a warm body in another room. The baby cackling in his crib. Forgetting to eat until noon and the coffee jitters are bad. The outer wrapping of the sausage pack is a crown perfectly sized to the baby’s head. Starter bread with salted butter and jam. Thin layers of wool under my new Saturday sweats. Bird splat of spit-up down the back of the sweater I knit for my husband. A note on top of the clean pile of laundry on the 16-year old’s bed: Put away, do not push to floor.

Remember the baby is 6-months old today and take a photo. Watch the execution of a man in Minnesota. Baby between my legs on the ground as we practice sitting up and read one berry, two berry, pick me a blueberry. Is the sound machine damaging my baby’s ears? Pump for 30 minutes with the sun through the window warming the back of my neck: 7 oz. Someone else’s novel-in-progress on the ipad.

Bone broth hot cocoa to-go because I have 1.5 hours to go to three stores. Circling and circling to park. These sweatpants are too long and I keep pulling them up. Wanting green apples and green apples only, that sour snap. 2pm frustration that I will not get everything done in the day. A man was murdered in Minnesota.

Chicken feet on a roasting tray at 350, and forgetting they’re in there while chatting about films and TV shows with a friend on the couch as we watch the baby slowly turn 180 on his play mat. The 17-year old is going on a walk, the 16-year old is going to the gym. Adding star anise and clove to the stock pot this time. A burp heard in the other room. A potted attar of roses geranium remembered and brought in from the cold. Pump for 30 minutes: 6.5 oz. Being human in 2026 will break your fucking heart. Brick my phone. Fill the kettle for the baby’s hot water bottle.

Fuzz and whine of the baby monitor. Pick up the stuffed kitty and teething ring and board book with a blue truck on it and pack it all away under the lid of the red stool. Fold up the play mat. See the floor for the first time all day. Every part of my body, in revolt.

Slow, slow stretch with legs up the wall of a warm, dark yoga studio (some Saturday night!). When I lie on my stomach I think: I need to pump, and prop my chest up on the shelf of my arms. My face is puffy and I don’t want to feel so like the cat with her thick winter coat on, so unfamiliar when I see myself in the mirror at class, but also I almost lost my supply and need the calories to keep it up. A full belly is why the baby sleeps through the night. Maybe if I sleep more, do less, ignore the news, my body won’t hold onto it all? Raised bumps on the skin behind my ear, a new rash. The body in revolt. The line spills out of the unmarked club across the street.

Pump for 30 minutes: 5 oz. The last weird pages of Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection, overdue at the library. Richard Kind in my alma mater’s alumni magazine. So many people doing big things in my alma mater alumni magazine. Fingers sticky with grapefruit. The smallest suspenders and a peach snap suit, sour with spit-up. Magnesium capsules in the pillbox (forgot to take). Heating pad under my back in bed. Ant on my neck; is that where the bite on my cheek came from? Every part of my body, in revolt.

P.S. I’m writing a novel and I wouldn’t say I’m stuck, but I do feel resistant. Instead of sitting in that resistance, which was edging in on resentment, I decided to look up and take a weekend inventory of what was already in front of me.

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⭕️ Spinach & Feta Lentil Bowls served with boiled greens and a soft egg. Quick, easy, makes great leftovers.1

⭕️ Red Kidney Bean Curry I used an heirloom bean that we had from our backstock of Rancho Gordo subscription beans, and it was delicious.2

⭕️ Chicken Chili A true throw-everything-in-the-pot-and-go slow cooker recipe, with a short ingredients list and a hearty outcome.3

⭕️ Anylist is an app for collecting and organizing recipes and building meal plans and grocery lists. I love it.4

I don’t want to jinx anything, but…

Cass is now 15 weeks old, and we’ve both been going into the office since early October.

One of the reasons I thought it might be a good idea to have a baby, now, at almost 40, with two teenagers edging in on adulthood, is because my employer has a bring your baby to work policy. Before my current job, I hadn’t even imagined that it could be possible to keep my career tracking forward, sustain financial stability, and also be a present participant in the early months of my baby’s life in the ways I wanted to be.

I’ve always wanted another, for many reasons. I wanted the opportunity to do it with all the perspective gained over these past 17 years, with financial and housing security, with a solid partnership and the community we’ve built. I wanted it because babies are delicious, toddlers are grounding, kids are magic, and teenagers are so so fun. I wanted it because it’s hard work, but it’s work I know how to do and embrace fully.

But it never felt like something we could do without completely shaking up the order and ease we’d finally found.

I don’t mean to be disingenuous — life absolutely looks different than it did four months ago. But not so different that I don’t recognize us in it. Not the way it did the first time around, when Sebastian and I had hardly known each other a full year and I was just out of school (for the first time in 18 years) and neither of us had real jobs.

I still read myself to sleep at night (while feeding Cass) and wake up early to write (while Seb gives him a bottle). We jog along the cross country course to cheer Pan on (with Cass in the baby carrier). We give Orion rides to the Goodwill bins when it’s late and raining (with Cass in the carseat, sometimes cooing, sometimes screaming). Yesterday, I went to the Portland Book Festival (and pumped in the basement junk room of The Old Church).

And, Monday to Thursday, I go into the office downtown with Cass in tow.

We have a room dedicated to feeding and pumping, and I spend a lot of the day there, doing those two activities. Cass cycles through napping in the carrier, tummy time on the floor next to my desk, and distracting my colleagues with full body smiles. If he’s fussy before falling asleep, we go on a walk (which is usually more stimulating than sleep-making, but at least we’re getting the noise out of the office).

Some days, Sebastian keeps Cass at home all day. Most of the time we split the day, with Sebastian either bring him to me or picking him up midway, so we can both get things done with baby-free time. This works because Seb is currently doing project-based work and makes his own schedule. We’re still figuring out what we’ll do when Cass ages out of the bring your baby to work policy.

In six months, four babies were born at my work. Two more are on the way. It’s a baby boom! And it’s also totally normalized bringing your whole life into the office with you, in the sweetest way. The other day, there were two babies, two dogs, and a kid out of school. Meetings still happened, calls were taken, emails were sent.

Am I as productive as I was before? Hardly. But I feel deeply content with how things are. I do what I can, with the time I have, and then I get to walk into our living room to the delightful sight of a chubby baby naked on a blanket, trying his darndest to roll over.

And I happily drop everything to get down on the floor and watch.

P.S. While I was writing this, he rolled!

He’s here!

Cassius “Cass” Cosmo joined us at home at 1:35 am on July 24.

He was born surrounded by people who were already madly in love with the idea of him, and we’ve been surrounded by that love and support ever since.

Orion was able to see him born, cut his cord, held him in the birthing bed shortly after he arrived. Pan was a way at running camp, but they had a beautiful meeting a few days later. Both of them have taken it all in stride, asking frequently to hold him and taking him to their rooms to hang.

His already great talents include cycling through a dozen different facial expressions (including glorious openmouthed grins) in seconds, sleeping 4-6 hour stretches overnight, eating all day, making tooting adorable, and being just so, so cute.

All is well.

With love from babyland,

The state of things, at 38 weeks

I haven’t been this pregnant in the summer before. Both boys were born in the short, dark days of winter. It will be above 90 degrees most days this week. At 38 weeks, physical discomfort is the base state. But the heat gets in my head, makes everything feel swampy.

I still find pleasure in the novelty of this big belly, in the way it hardens throughout the day, and squirms as he adjusts in an increasingly tight space. I like getting dressed, making outfits that amplify what the bigness of this temporary shape signifies. My hair is thicker than ever, my skin clear — the gift of third trimester hormones and months of prenatal supplements and nettle infusions.

The first two trimesters of this pregnancy — while not without queasiness and fatigue — were steady. I felt a persistent ease and contentment that are not familiar to my typical inner state, solidly planted: in my marriage, in my friendships, in my work, in my finances, in myself.

My first two pregnancies were colored by so much uncertainty. I was 22 and everything was new: my marriage, my adulthood, the town we lived in, the people who made up our community. I was five months pregnant with Pan when I graduated from college in Chicago; we moved by train to Spokane two months before he was born. We didn’t have jobs, or a place of our own. I was scared, but also also scared to let on how scared I was, like saying it out loud would be enough to topple the whole precariously stacked thing.

I wonder about how my anxieties throughout those pregnancies may have impacted the people I was growing before they ever made it earthside. I wonder who this baby will be, with the steadiness I felt in the months I’ve carried him.

The past couple of months have been harder.

I had a series of iron infusions in May that my body responded poorly to, with worsening fatigue and a bad flu that stretched on for weeks — all while Sebastian was out of town on a work project for most of the month.

Then the child care plan we’d had in place since December fell through, a first crack at the certainty I’d been feeling that this time would be different, stable, born out on a foundation of support that we’ve been building for the past ten years. We don’t have a back-up plan. The average annual cost of infant care in Portland is $20K+. We won’t need care until early next year, and the only option right now is to trust that we’ll figure something out by then.

The world continues to be devastatingly impacted by the chaos agents of the current administration. This has been numbingly true for many months, but crept close this past week with layoffs at my work. This thrusts people I care about into precarity at a very difficult time to be out of work. It also creates a new layer of complexity in my planning for coverage during maternity leave — which could come at any moment now. It feels like a terrible time to be away from work, and from any impact I may (or may not) be able to make on things.

And yesterday I learned that, due to a family emergency beyond anyone’s control, my midwife will not be in town for the home birth we’ve been planning.

I think, with most hospital or birthing center births, it’s not so uncommon for an OB to be away and an alternate to fill in. In Portland, there’s no shortage of midwives who can step in for mine — but, in order for my health insurance to cover the birth, there must be a certified nurse midwife present, and there are very few CNMs in town who do home birth. The closest one available lives 1.5 hours away (and is willing to come); my last birth was 4 hours from the start of real labor to delivery.

My freezer is full of bone broth and mushy soups and brewed herbal sitz bath. I have a detailed note on my phone about all the things I’ve prepared to eat and drink postpartum, so I can spend some days in bed knowing I’ll have what baby and I need to recover. I’ve made multiple spreadsheets mapping out the work I’ve done in advance to keep my team moving forward while I’m on leave for eight weeks. Each weekend I chip away at my list of small things that need consideration and tending to.

It’s my impulse to attempt to plan for any eventuality — and to not really trust that anyone else will take care of me or provide the things I need to feel safe. The rug could get pulled at any moment. I know this because it has been, many times.

I spent much of this pregnancy feeling like the ground was firm beneath my feet. And much of that solidity is still true. Things are not the way they were when I was 22, or 24. My head knows that. It’s harder, I think, for my body to believe it.

P.S. I didn’t mean to be away from this space for so long. Sleep is evasive and I haven’t been out of bed before 6:30 am in several months, which has cramped the time (and mental capacity) I’ve had to be here. I’ll be finding new rhythms soon, and hopefully make my way back to it.

⭕️ Prequel Lucent-C Brightening Vitamin C Serum I’ve been using this 2x daily for the past 6 months, to replace some of the pre-pregnancy skincare products I was using (this one is pregnancy-safe; so few brightening products are). Reasonable price-point, no fragrance, it’s a winner.

⭕️ Double-Cleansing My skin has been very good lately, and it’s either because of pregnancy hormones or that fact that I wasn’t washing my face for long enough before, and now I am. At least 60 seconds!

⭕️ Patting vs. Rubbing I’ve started lightly pressing in oils & fluids into key areas (around eyes, nose, and mouth in particular) rather than just rubbing them on, and it makes a huge difference in how my skin takes in the moisture.

⭕️ Funori Japanese Seaweed Hair Cleanser & Conditioner This stuff smells quite rank, but my hair has never been thicker or healthier (and we’re recovering from several years of bleaching). I smear it on after New Wash, and leave it for about 5 minutes before rinsing.1

Mothering, now

Sometimes, especially now that they are older and do for themselves so many of the things I used to do for them, I feel I’m just a small presence in their lives. Sebastian looms large: he’s fun, funny, playful. He gets right into there with them, every day; I orchestrate from the periphery. The dynamic can feel like I’m playing the “straight man” trope in a comedy — which isn’t a role I often play in other areas of life (at work, in friendships, in my family of origin for sure).

In our family, I’m the organizer, the detail-orienter, the documenter, the food stocker, the planner, the one who sees what needs to happen and delegates it into happening.

I’m a noticer and a listener (when they’re willing to share), and am selective in the word count of my response.

Sometimes I am the nagger, the funder, the facilitator of things that happen — but not necessarily an active participant. I’m the one who distributes melatonin and reminds everyone to go to sleep at a reasonable hour. I’m the one who schedules appointments and communicates with the attendance office. I’m the list-maker and the gift-getter. I make the backend magic happen.

I’m clear in what my role is, what I bring to the table. It’s not always particularly fun or photogenic, but I know how to do it and I know it’s worth doing.

Parenting at this age (15 & 16) can look like a lot of life admin. It can also look like:

🌼 One of them putting a man-sized arm around my shoulder

🌼 Having a meeting with someone from their high school and hearing them describe my kid the way I would

🌼 Every once in a while being called “Mama”

🌼 Watching them try new things — volleyball, Constitution Team, Outdoor School — with willing enthusiasm

🌼 Email notifications that one of them has added an event to our shared family calendar

🌼 Following them on Instagram and getting to see the world as they see it

🌼 Making fun of Trump together

🌼 Clocking their very good outfits as they head out the door for school in the morning

🌼 A shared note listing baby name ideas (“Bulge” may or may not be on it)

🌼 Asking one of them to fix the dehumidifier, put the Berkey together, swap out nozzles on the garden hose, assemble the baby stroller

🌼 Homemade cookies at 10pm and a clean kitchen by morning (neither of which I had a hand in making happen)

🌼 The two of them taking the bus to the Goodwill bins together and trying on their findings for us when they get home

🌼 Hearing them say “I love you” every time someone leaves a room

It’s different, but it’s still very, very good.

Happy Mother’s Day, friends. ♥️

is a writer who lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two kids and teaches writing at Princeton and Columbia (which makes for some long commutes). Her fourth novel, The Float Test, came out earlier this month — it’s a propulsive read that centers the complexities of family with painful clarity.

I met Lynn almost 15 years ago, when we had our first workshop in grad school together.

She was intense, in a way, earnest and so ready to do the thing we’d come there to do: become writers. But she was also warm and funny, which helped our little group of fiction MFAs find ways to talk to each other, to find some ease in our work of reading each other’s writing and critiquing it.

Lynn became my friend early in that first year. She was willing to hang out with my toddlers (Orion wasn’t yet two) and I on the weekend while Sebastian worked double shifts at a bar in the meatpacking district. She had a car (!!) and drove the boys and I out to the water to see her husband’s boat. We had Thanksgiving together, ten people stuffed in our 300 square foot apartment in Williamsburg.

She was interested in what it was to be a parent, in the city, while also trying to be a writer, and her interest made me feel less lonely in the singularity of my experience as the only person with children in our MFA program.

“Paying attention” is, generally speaking, an important ability for writers to practice. When Lynn directs her interest at a thing, an idea, a person — that interest seems to engage her whole body. You feel it, when her interest is directed at you, at your writing or the stuff of your life. Its generous and offers a feeling of really being seen.

And you feel it in her writing, the full force of it directed at whatever is on the page. The characters, their wants, the things that keep them from getting what they want (or need). There’s an urgency to which ideas are considered, how art is considered, how our current condition is considered — as if what she’s really talking about is what it means to survive being a human. It’s a gift to feel that range of intensity and complexity through her writing.

She’ll tell you more, in her own words, below.

Recent reads:

I’m deep in my teaching semester, which means many fewer contemporary novels and many books I’ve read before but get to re-read and fall in love with all over again.

I recently taught perhaps my favorite novel, To the Lighthouse, which I’m still recovering from how perfect it is, how difficult a task the books that I’ve read since have had to try to seem like “good books” in the wake of it. I’m also teaching Thomas Bernhard, The Loser, whose rhythms I’m obsessed with, who sometimes I find infuriating and boring, two feelings I actually love inside of books.

I love talking to students about all the feelings writers can give you that might not feel positive, ie. frustration, anger, etc., and how often that’s so much more exciting and engaging than the sort of bland palatability of “likable” books.

Favorite way to pass a free afternoon in NYC:

Coffee, walk, art, coffee, walk, food, walk, art, walk, food, walk. Extra points if one or more friends joins for some but preferably not all of this.

Long commute essentials:

Airpods, at least three books — one I’m teaching, one I’m reading for research for my new book, one I grabbed at the last minute that feels texturally different in case the other two don’t scratch the itch that day; and three notebooks — for two of my teaching jobs and one for whatever I’m working on.

On surrender and control:

When I was writing this last book I was thinking a lot about the idea of surrender, of how I’ve spent my whole life head down, working, working, striving, and about how regardless of how we work, how much we yearn, how good we get at whatever it is we do, there remains so much, almost everything, over which we have zero control.

So much of what I love about writing has to do with control: you pick the world, you think about the people; you press deeper and deeper, re-write the sentences a thousand times. I don’t think I’m doing my job if I’m not confused, uncomfortable, when I’m writing, but I also get to control the ways that surprise, confusion, etc. is grappled with and ultimately conveyed.

Something I’m working toward changing is my ability to acknowledge and separate from all the moments I want desperately to have control but don’t, to be better at sitting inside the discomfort, surprise, confusion when it happens outside of sentences.

Current favorite comfort TV:

This year has been all about the rewatch for me. For whatever reason, the state of the world, my constant professional sense of uncertainty, I only seem to want to dip back into lives I’ve already dipped into and know the parameters of (I also think my brain is getting older so my memory is not as good). So I’ve rewatched Somebody, Somewhere and Better Things, as well as Sex and the City — all shows that feel alive to me in different ways but, especially Sex and the City, also bring me back to other versions of myself and who and where I was when I watched the show before.

On working very hard:

Best advice I ever got was a few weeks before graduate school, I went to talk with a female writer and she said, when she was in graduate school, she felt immediately terrible about herself, inadequate, not talented enough, etc., but then she realized that, amidst her colleagues, she was more willing to work consistently and that ended up mattering more.

I clutched to that idea that in the three years I was in our program and then after. I so often felt like such a loser, like I wasn’t as shiny and talented as anyone in our classes, but I knew I was willing to keep trying, that I was dogged and committed and that felt then, and continues to feel, like a power I could keep hold of.

I do recognize how this contradicts slightly my surrender idea above, and/but I believe very much in working very hard inside of one’s work. The spaces of surrender for me have to do both with life and with how I deal with the commodified reception of my work.

Sources of inspiration:

My kids and my students, their generosity, the ways they continue to help me see the world, art, books, writing, thinking anew. Visual art and artists, I’ve become sort of obsessed with thinking about paint and how it relates to language, thickness, color, viscosity, texture, what that looks and feels like in writing and what aspects of visual art are particular to it.

On parenting and the creative life:

Like you, or maybe less like you, but closest to you than most other people I know, I feel like I became a mother and a writer all at once. I was pregnant in grad school. I turned the final draft of my first novel in to my agent from the hospital the morning after our younger kid was born.

To me it’s all inextricably tied together. Writing is, in large part, paying very close and careful attention to the world around you. My children have given me new avenues — it feels like new sensors — for both love and attention.

And while I feel plenty of complicated guilt around all the ways being the child of a writer isn’t always easy, I mostly feel my work has been richened and deepened through knowing and loving them.

On whether being a published writer lives up to expectations:

A story for you: I have very terrible teeth and when my first book was about to come out, I sort of unconsciously didn’t go to the dentist (not that I was that great at going to the dentist) but there was not a small part of me that thought once I Published a Book, and My Dreams Came True, I would have less terrible teeth. Something about me would be better, stronger; I wouldn’t have to be my ridiculous self anymore.

Of course I published a book and still have bad teeth. Our lives, but more importantly whatever, whoever I am, did not fundamentally change. I’m still intense, absurd, too sensitive. We still had very serious struggles with money for years. I still, now, feel scared a good amount of the time.

We had a night when my friends came out and we had drinks after. The next morning our kids got up at 5 like they always did and mostly our lives were the same. At the time, this felt sad to me. I was a Published Author, for fuck’s sake! I had wanted to be a Published Author for so long.

With each book, there were moments when I think I held my breath, thinking, hoping, maybe this would be the life-changing moment, but, now, I’m mostly grateful, because I don’t want my life to change. I love my family, friends — I, of course, wish we had more financial security, but we’re better off than we were for the first 15 years of our marriage. I feel incredibly lucky to get to make my living writing novels and teaching writing — I feel lucky to still love writing, and to also love teaching, which is the much more stable income source for our family — but for all the ways that sometimes I am lucky enough to get to perform writer, I’m grateful that most of the time I’m mom and wife, sister, and friend who also writes books and teaches and still often gets to pick my kids up from school.

Selfishness and creativity:

When our older daughter was about two weeks old, I pumped a bunch of milk and walked two blocks to a coffee shop “to write.” I cried and looked at pictures of her and leaked milk for the entire forty minutes I was there. But I wanted to establish for all of us that this was still a thing that I was doing. I wanted to know that there was space for it and to touch and feel that space as quickly as I could.

I think the word selfish is so complicated for everyone and especially for mothers. But I think having a thing I love that is not contingent on my children, that I pursue and care about and am thrilled by, I like to believe that that’s good for all of us.

Something working writers don’t talk enough about publicly:

Money: How much we have or don’t have, the ways we got by in all the years we weren’t making money from our work. Support we get from outside sources. Jobs we had or have that sucked. How the need to make money doesn’t make you a bad artist or a hack. How, very often, the amount of money that you make has nothing at all to do with the quality of your work. Different sources of income and how you got them and retained them, not least so other writers can see ways of surviving that maybe they haven’t thought of yet.

People need money to survive and I think the strange ways some people act as if we’re not supposed to care about it is infuriating (and usually they have money from outside sources), but also, I don’t think any good book was ever made with an eye toward cashing out. Instead, I think it’s a sort of rocky and uneven journey.

Even the biggest advance will disappear and you will have to write a new book. A tiny advance might still lead to critical acclaim which might then lead to a job, and/or another slightly bigger advance which might, over time, add up to a career.

If you want more of Lynn after reading this, which I’m pretty sure you will, you can subscribe to her Substack, , and of course read her newest novel, The Float Test. There’s a great interview with her on ’s Substack, When Moms Try Wrong. This weekend she’s at the LA Times Festival of Books and applications for her Year Long Novel Generator workshop close at the end of May.

I’m excited to get some Lynn time when we visit NYC in a couple of weeks. 😘

⭕️ Snail Seed Rolls As the inhabiter of very little domestic space, I love the idea of this space-saving seed starting method by Martina Thornhill.1

⭕️ What are We Actually Talking About When We Talk About Intensive Parenting? tapping right into my current brain waves: “Last week, when I was outlining the tenets of millennial hobby energy, I couldn’t shake the feeling that so many of its impulses…to equate ‘doing it on hard mode’ as doing it right — also describe the set of bourgeois parenting practices identified as ‘intensive parenting.’”2

⭕️ Dinner Fattoush The simplest, most delicious big salad recipe in ’s new cookbook, which can be endlessly iterated on.3

⭕️ Float Test In ’s fourth novel, a mother dies and her four (mostly estranged) adult children return to their parent’s Florida home to bury her — and chip away at the complicated rifts that have grown between them since childhood.4

If-you-give-a-mouse-a-cookie house

A few weeks ago, I wrote about making home in other people’s houses. Here’s the next installment of my thoughts on home: what it means, what it’s looked like for me and my family through the years, what it looks like now.

You see it on Instagram, you see it in home design magazines: someone moves into a new space, they vision and design and realize in remarkable time (it could be weeks, it could be months — whatever the span, it’s a project that gets completed), and then they share the finished product online. Usually with a list of paints and papers and furniture and objects sourced.

This decisiveness and speed is rewarded with attention. We love to see it!

I think we love to see it because we’re being handed the keys to the kingdom. We can easily replicate whatever it is that we like because there are links to whatever we need to purchase to make the look our own.

This is, of course, a profession. But so much of how we think about home now is colored by an interior designer’s mindset — you’re hired to get the whole job done in a set period of time so the people living in the space can get on with their lives — even when the majority of us are not professionals, and don’t really have the type of budget that can be allocated to this approach.

HGTV, TikTok, Pinterest, and the blogosphere have provided a more democratic access to design-thinking in the past couple of decades, so much so that we might think we know as much as the professionals. Our sense of beauty has been deeply informed by whatever is currently saturating our feeds (remember when chevron was the thing? And white marble the only real choice for a countertop?). Through repeated exposure, we’ve been taught enough to think we speak the language.

But true taste is something developed and seasoned over time. And there are so many pitfalls to the one-and-done approach to decorating (most of which I’ve experienced first hand).

When we move quickly to finish a space, we’re more likely to be influenced by trends — because that’s what is immediately available to us. It’s the stuff that’s currently on the shelves at Home Goods (or online), the greige palette coloring our feeds, the shapes and lines that currently dominate magazines.

And I know that for many (most?) people this is exactly the point; to quickly furnish a living space so you don’t have to think about it anymore.

But when we move fast, we’re also more likely to make choices influenced by the physicality of a space, rather than how it feels to truly live in it.

This might look like a chair that is gorgeous but actually miserable to sit on, a velvet sofa cover that only looks good when no one — including the pets — touches it (🙋‍♀️), a lamp shade that constrains the light when you need it to flood, or turns it blue when you’d prefer it to be warm.

Some of this you have to live to learn!

And I absolutely know the compulsion. I felt it every time we moved house in my 20s: I wanted to figure out the space, get the right furniture in the right place, and the right colors on the wall quickly so that I could get on with living and not be so distracted by the unfinished-ness of it all.

But here’s what I’ve learned: my home will always talk at me, no matter how done I think I am.

Sometimes it’s the floorboards that need to be dusted. Sometimes a corner whispers that it needs a little something more to make it feel complete. Sometimes the couch cushions scream to be straightened and you can’t read your book until you deal with it. It’s never really done.

One of the loudest ways my house talks to me can feel like that children’s book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, which warns of the dangers of giving a mouse the cookie it wants — because next it will want a glass of milk, and then a straw, and then a napkin… It’s exasperating and charming. And I’ve seen this play out in my house over and over again.

We finally get the display couch I’ve been calling IKEA about every week for months, and suddenly the rug is the wrong color. I find a rug that works better, but then we need to paint the coffee table. The lines of the coffee table look too sharp in the new color and it needs some soft, organic objects to top it. Everything looks right in the living room, but the sightline into the kitchen…

I work primarily with secondhand stuff and DIY, but even so, it can feel wasteful. Stuff is still stuff, no matter how little it costs.

Imagine this at the scale currently popular: entire rooms designed on trends that become irrelevant in a year or two and need to be completely rethought and redone.

It’s so much more sustainable to develop taste rather than keep up with trends.

When I first had my own home(s) to fully fill, minimalism was quietly becoming the thing. This was the 2010s, so Pinterest was coming online as well. I’d sit on the subway during my long commutes from Brooklyn to the Upper West Side and pin and pin. I was such an active early user of Pinterest; it felt like a place to catch and save material wishes in a way that made them tangible. I had boards dedicated to each room in my house — and even some for houses that only existed in fantasy — and they were all whitewashed, spare, clean lines, Scandi.

I tried hard to realize this look for a while. I collected midcentury furniture made of wood and iron, put sheepskin rugs on things (or moved the one I had to different spots around the house), played with hanging just one picture on the wall, just barely populating the shelves. I even painted the floorboards white in one apartment.

But have you seen who I live with?

Sebastian is an artist in a constant state of creation, and my kids also like things.

It look longer than it probably should have for my mental health (and relationship), but I let go of minimalism, and gradually embraced something closer to maximalism — which they say is actually better for small spaces anyway?

I learned how to steer my imagination away from prescriptive sources and instead study an image to really consider what it is that resonates. Sometimes it’s a color combination, or a grouping of objects, or a texture — or how it’s all layered together. Sometimes it’s seeing an object used for a purpose other than the one I’m familiar with (shallow silver basins for growing bulbs, a giant shell for holding clementines).

While I probably would never say that my home is fully “finished,” I do think it’s gotten to a place where it doesn’t occupy a lot of mental space. And it gives me pleasure, to look around and see the beauty and relative order of it all.

It’s only taken 10 years.

And we’re only about to shuffle everything around again to make room for another family member…

⭕️ Criterion Collection I have a code for a free month of the Criterion Channel if you’re wanting more long-form film in your life: MOVIEFRIENDS.1

⭕️ The Turkish Eggs at Upper Left Roasters Greek yogurt, dill, garlic, two poached eggs, butter with paprika and cumin, spelt toast on the side. It’s a perfect dish I could eat daily.2

⭕️ Tilt The premise of this debut novel by Emma Pattee is this: A woman is 37 weeks pregnant and shopping for a crib at the Portland IKEA when the big one hits. Over the course of a day, she makes her way through the resulting chaos to try and find her husband.3

⭕️ Do you need help? Ask Bea. Questions are due today!4

Some of the things I think about when I can’t fall back asleep at 3 AM.

I wake up at least once every night, needing to pee. Some nights I can fall back asleep (with help from brown noise, an eye mask, and the pillow fort I build around me); others I can’t.

This is (some of) what I think about:

There is a lot I feel really good about in how we’ve raised the boys. One I thing I absolutely want to do differently this time: sleeping through the night.

I’ve become convinced that this is possible because I read Bringing Up Bébé last week, and French babies “do their nights” within the first few months (mine took years — I did not actually sleep for more than a couple hours at a time for their first three-ish years).

When the time comes, this will require tender patience and firm resolve.

It will also require a crib.

We didn’t have a crib when Pan was born. Our plan was to co-sleep, and we did. Just without much of the sleep parting. We got a crib around the time Orion was born, when Pan was 14 months old, because I didn’t know how we’d do two babies in our full-size bed. Of course, by morning, all of us ended up in bed together anyways. The only sleep I got then was when Seb got up to make oatmeal with the boys in the morning and I got 40 minutes alone in bed.

One or the other (or both) of the boys ended up in our bed most nights, until they were about 10. I miss this now, the comfort our bodies had with each other. Knowing that when they woke up at night, the comfort they wanted was us.

But also: I now know what it is to get 8 hours of real sleep in a night, and how that makes everything better, more doable. I know that my mental health is contingent on getting enough sleep, and that my desire for the early years with this baby not to be colored by pendulous leaps between depression and anxiety is possible if I can care for myself in ways I wasn’t able to the first times around.

I generally have a “we’ll make it work” mindset about things. If I want something, I’m willing to be uncomfortable to get it. This hasn’t always served me well.

So, a crib.

In this dear, tiny house that we love and are not ready to leave, there is exactly zero wall space available for a crib.

For several months, I’ve been scouring Facebook Marketplace for a mini crib on wheels (extending my search to Washington, even, I don’t mind a long drive), which could be easily moved and tucked into our bedroom closet (the only closet in the house). This was the solution I’d landed on and the sourcing challenge my anxiety rallied around.

At 3 AM: This mini crib will only work for a few months, and then we’ll have to find a bigger sleep space for him.

Better to solve this now, while I can’t sleep, than when the baby is already here and I can’t sleep.

My mind’s eye (beneath the sleep mask) begins to scan the space we have. The boys’ rooms are off-limits. They only have a few more years in them, anyways. Could I clear out everything in the closet and convert it into a crib-sized nursery? No, too hard to relocate everything in there that still needs to be accessed on a daily basis. Our bed is built into the wall, takes up almost the entirety of three of the room’s four walls, elevated above the drawers where Sebastian stores his clothes. That’s not moving. The only real possibility is the 35 inches of wall between the bedroom door and closet where my dresser currently lives.

We could put a smaller-than-standard (but big enough to last at least beyond a year) crib here if I relocate everything in, on, and above the dresser — which means clearing out and relocating some items currently in the closet, on the bedroom bookshelf, and in the living room credenza. Which also means finally posting and selling the IKEA bags of clothes that have been taking up valuable corner space since my last clean-out.

If you give a pregnant brain a problem to solve at 3 AM, it will want to keep going.

You know what else I couldn’t stop thinking about after reading that book? The fact that all working French mothers are entitled to 16 weeks paid leave (usually around 100% of their earned daily wages) and access to state-subsidized crèches (high quality child care).

In Oregon, we’re lucky to have a recently-implemented Paid Leave program that all working parents can access for up to 12 weeks — but it only covers up to 60% of pay (at a moment when you’re taking on enormous expenses), and there can be lengthy delays in receiving benefits.

When I bring up this discrepancy in conversation I’m surprised at the response I get. Not so much amongst other parents of young children, who are also baffled by how hard the U.S. makes it for people to actually have the babies the pronatalist movement insists we have, but with the next generation or two up, who likely had no paid leave options when their children were born — but also benefitted from raising children during a time when it was possible to do so on a single income, who are on the other side of it now. Silence.

At 3 AM I think about what exactly this silence means.

Is it a “I suffered through it so you should too” silence? Is it a “If it’s going to be so hard, why are you having another baby” silence? Is it a “You should have thought about all these things before you got pregnant” silence? Is it a “I don’t want our tax dollars going towards a social safety net that I won’t personally benefit from” silence?

Although my fuzzy pregnant brain makes their lack of response feel personal, I also know that we’ve got plans in place to make this — having another baby — work without entirely upending our financial wellbeing (🤞🏼🤞🏼). I think we’re going to be okay, and we’re lucky to have a strong personal support system. But my concern, and outrage, isn’t just for myself. Our entire society would benefit from better supported families, from all of our children being better cared for. And here we are dismantling the meager systems we do have in place.

I also think about how French families course out their meals with a vegetable to start and a cheese to finish. I think about where I might find a good cheese to eat after dinner, and what kind of cheese I might like.

I think about whether I’ll get up with my 5 AM alarm, or keep trying to solve all our problems and hit snooze until 6.

At 25 weeks,

Laura Hadden knows how to bring people together — whether it’s through a series of 194 dinner parties for the members of the United Nations (158 down, 36 to go!) or by curating the kind of stories that make an audience lean in.

As the Executive Producer of Live Wire Radio and a former producer for The Moth Radio Hour, Laura has a spidey sense for what will resonate, what will connect, and what will keep people thinking.

I’ve known Laura since college (she was my counselor at the Freshman Urban Program 🥹) and we’ve somehow managed to keep landing in the same cities as adults. These days, she lives in Portland with her husband, Jesse, and their kids, Poppy and Solly (who have the cutest, most colorful outfits, and the personalities to match).

Read on for what she’s been listening to, how she keeps up with all the cool things people are making and doing to source guests for her show, and what she wishes people knew about the current state of funding for programs like Live Wire.

Three favorite podcasts:

Vibe Check — A weekly podcast that is equal parts head, heart, and humor, which I especially need at this moment. I’ve been a big fan of journalist Sam Sanders and poet/writer Saeed Jones for years, so eavesdropping into their friendship has been a delight.

Mystery Show — Starlee Kine’s short-lived podcast from 2015 may have only been six episodes, but it provides a meandering roadmap for a more innovative and fun approach to the medium. Especially recommended for folks who enjoyed S-Town, as Kine served as an adivsor on that show and it certainly shares some creative DNA.

Silent Evidence (from The Heart) — My pal and former collaborator Tennessee Watson made this incredible series in which she confronts her childhood abuser and reckons with the myriad ways he has impacted her life, as well as all the various ways in which our society continually fails survivors of abuse.. It would be cliche to call this series brave, but it’s actually more than that as Tennessee manages to not only hold onto her values throughout the process, but even expand her empathy.

Ideal podcast-listening set-up:

I do a lot of listening throughout the week (both required and recreational), so I’ll listen pretty much wherever and whenever I can.

My most consistent listening time is when I’m walking the dog (mostly because it’s the time I’m least likely to be interrupted), but I did recently buy a shower speaker, which has been a game changer.

As much as I like the idea of being able to disconnect in the shower and just think my thoughts, it’s just not my nature and I actually found myself putting off taking showers because I didn’t want to stop listening to whatever I was listening to!

On sourcing cute, colorful kids’ clothes:

I am surprised by how delightful I find dressing Poppy and Solly. My favorite brand is Mini Boden — but since I’m not shelling out $50 for a pair of appliqué sweatpants, I rely heavily on the secondary market (mostly through Mercari and Facebook groups). I also keep an eye on sales from Tea Collection (mostly for dresses) and Hanna Andersson (for basics).

Ideal spring day in Portland (with kids):

The weeks are fast and furious at our house, so the ideal weekend is intentionally unambitious.

Like true Portland stereotypes, we love going to the Hollywood Farmers Market on Saturday mornings (after Solly’s Music Together class, of course)! I take my time picking out flowers while my husband, Jesse, grabs produce, Poppy asks vendors every imaginable (and some unimaginable) question, and Solly pushes his little play grocery cart around.

We almost always run into friends there; it makes me feel like I live in a small town.

We also love going to Tryon Creek throughout the year so we can observe how the same place changes with the seasons. It has several short loop options and there are also paved paths where the kids can bring their scooters if we want to mix it up.

The kids love going to the saltwater soaking pool at The Kennedy School (although you generally need to make your reservation at least a week ahead of time, which can be a challenge with shifting kid schedules.) However, we have learned the hard way *not* to stick around for a meal there, as the wait is typically not compatible with toddler patience.

Ideal spring day in Portland (without kids):

A free day without kids is a pretty big luxury at this point in my life, so it’s a bit hard to wrap my mind around the concept.

In all likelihood, I’d probably just stay home, with a possible side quest to Powell’s or Broadway Books (my neighborhood indie!) to buy more books for the never-ending TBR pile. If the weather cooperates, I basically take any chance to sit in the hammock in my yard (often with a dog on my lap).

A dreamy evening would be grabbing dinner (outdoors, if the weather allows) with a friend or two somewhere on NE 28th Ave/Burnside to do some people watching before seeing a movie at the Laurelhurst, followed by a sundae at Cheese & Crack.

Favorite karaoke song:

I’ve always loved to sing have an unfortunate tendency to take myself a little too seriously in the karaoke setting. Singing is not one of Jesse’s many talents, but boy does the man ever love to ham it up.

Midnight Train to Georgia is a song we realized we could perform together that scratched both of those itches — I’d give it my all as my best version of Gladys while he can be silly and honk his little imaginary train horn in the background as The Pips to his heart’s content.

(It’s possible this is also a metaphor for our marriage.)

Most memorable Live Wire show:

We had the podcaster and cultural critic Ira Madison III come on our show earlier this year. At the very beginning of his book, he mentions how reading Chuck Klosterman’s Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs inspired him to become a writer and how important his work was to him.

Chuck lives in Portland and has been on the show in the past, so I decided to reach out to see if he’d be down to make a surprise appearance on the show after Ira’s interview. Chuck was a complete mensch and agreed to do it. We pulled it off and completely stunned Ira and the entire audience before having the two of them compete against each other in a fun game.

It was such a joy to be able to orchestrate someone meeting their hero on what they expected to be just another stop on their publicity tour.

On sourcing guests for Live Wire:

My booking process is more of an art than a science. I find guests in a lot of different ways:

1. Once a guest has been on the show (and assuming it went well), I continue to follow their careers (and also their Instagram/newsletter), and often invite them back to discuss their latest work.

2. I get pitched by publicists I’ve worked with in the past.

3. I get suggestions from listeners and other people on my team.

4. I comb through publishers’ catalogues and book-related media for forthcoming releases.

5. I go on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube and just see something that catches my eye, or I sometimes intentionally watch a ton of very mediocre stand-up comedy (and occasionally stumble across something great).

6. I listen to other shows and playlists for dynamic interview subjects or cool musicians.

7. I try to go out and see people performing live when I can. For music shows with bigger artists, I try to arrive in time to check out the opener.

In short… I’m just on the internet all the damn time.

Equally importantly, I have set up a system in Airtable to track all my leads with handy tags. This helps me quickly look for options when opportunity arises, but also pay attention to the diversity of the guests we’re inviting and hosting on our show.

After ten years, I’m working on trusting my own taste when it comes to booking. This is partly out of self interest (as I almost always read the books the guests have written or spend a lot of time with whatever they’re coming on the show to promote), but also philosophical. I’ve got pretty wide interests, so if I’m reluctant to engage with a guest’s work on a personal level, it doesn’t feel fair to expect our listeners to care.

On a more practical level, it’s easier to talk about nonfiction/memoir writing as there are fewer spoilers to worry about. Our show also has a strong emphasis on comedy (or at least funny people) because that’s one of the things that sets us apart from public radio’s weekday programming.

The hardest thing about producing a radio show:

Telling people who want to be on the show (or people who are very passionately pitching to have someone on the show) “no” or “not right now.”

I personally hate rejection (which has held me back from a lot of things), but it turns out I don’t really like doing the rejecting either. I really try hard to be openminded and not yuck anyone’s yum, because it’s all so subjective, but ultimately there are a limited number of slots on the show and I have to trust my own taste and gut to make decisions.

The best thing about producing a radio show:

The people, for sure. My coworkers are all hilarious, creative, smart, and kind people I’m extremely lucky to also call friends. And the guests we have on the show are some of the most incredible people working in arts and culture today.

I recently fell in love with a random song via a Spotify Discovery playlist from a brand new artist named Khatumu. She doesn’t have an album out yet and barely has a website, but we had an opening on the show so I decided to reach out to see if she’d be interested and… well, come to the show on April 17th to see how it pans out!

It’s so nice to be reminded that we are actually having a real, positive impact on artists, especially those that are early in their careers.

What people should know about the current state of funding for programs like Live Wire:

This week there was a congressional hearing called “Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the heads of NPR and PBS accountable.” So that doesn’t seem like a great omen.

Live Wire is a unique entity as an independent non-profit (as opposed to being based at a station like OPB or at NPR directly). That means that while stations pay our distributor to broadcast our show, we also supplement that income with grant funding, individual donations, sponsorship, and ticket sales. As lucky as we are to have diversified income sources right now, we operate on razor thin margins and there are real, terrifying threats to every single one of those sources at the moment.

What I wish people knew is that, as we’re entering bleak and uncertain times, now is the moment to invest in what you want to survive. It’s so easy to get into a scarcity mindset when the future is so unknown, but sharing your resources with the people and organizations you love is one of the only ways to counteract the cruelty and selfishness of this administration.

Three things for getting through right now:

Thank god the memes are good, huh? As much as I support boycotting Instagram/Meta, it’s honestly one of the things keeping me sane at the moment.

One of my favorite recent discoveries is Amanda’s Mild Takes. She delights in all the things that Trump fails at each week. It’s petty and oh so cathartic.

I am in a constant state of overwhelm (politically and otherwise… please ignore my screen time daily averages), so I find the 5 Calls app super useful to just do something. Even if I’m not super up-to-speed on each and every issue, they provide a script and enough context to fake it for at least the length of a voicemail.

Also: Getting the kids a new play structure to enjoy is helping us all get some much-needed outdoor/non-screen time as the weather improves!

When we noticed that our daughter had outgrown our current prefab play structure, we decided, instead of buying a new one, to ask a friend and master builder (Sebastian!) to design and build a custom structure with our kids' input and "assistance." Not only does the new structure fit their needs and our yard precisely (and is way more beautiful and higher quality than anything we could have bought in a box!), they also got to participate in the design process and see how to turn an idea into a reality.

Something helpful a friend did during a hard time:

When I moved from San Francisco to New York City in my mid-20s, I was really struggling with how much I missed the Bay Area and my friends there. My dear friend and former roommate Alicia sent me a care package centered on my favorite neighborhood bar.

She talked the bartenders into giving her the recipe for their sidecar (my favorite drink and regular order), as well as a tablecloth and a candle! She sent those alongside the ingredients for the drink with instructions for how to recreate the bar in my apartment.

This same friend watched mindless TV with me from afar multiple nights per week during the pandemic (a tradition we keep up, if less frequently). We just sync our timecode and countdown via text, and then send each other commentary throughout the episode. It’s a very lowkey way to stay connected, especially during isolating times.

Looking forward to:

I’m about to turn 40. I have mixed feelings about the milestone (I know aging is a privilege, but oof... my back), and am planning a few exciting things to soften the blow and remind myself of how damn lucky I am. I’m spending a week on the Oregon coast with a rotating cast of friends from different parts of my life, going on a trip to Croatia with one of my dearest friends, and spending a few days in NYC on my way back to catch some theater (including Oh Mary!, which has been on my list for ages).

On traveling with kids:

In my pre-parenthood days, traveling was what I did to recharge. After several trips with our now 2- and 5-year olds, I’ve recently come to accept that traveling with them will not be relaxing any time soon. In fact, between fucked-up sleep schedules, packing a million things and still somehow always forgetting something important, and the general turmoil of (and resistance to!) doing anything new, it might not even be fun most of the time.

But hopefully it’s meaningful, offers moments of connection, and expands their worldview, even if just a little bit. Plus, it always reminds me that I am really grateful for everyone in our regular life who provides childcare. 😂

Some practical advice:

• Set expectations for everyone, but mostly for yourself.

• If you’re traveling with small kids who nap (or go to bed early), try to book your accommodations somewhere with a nice view. You’ll perhaps be spending more time in your rental than you’d like, but at least this way you can enjoy the scenery with your partner during naps and/or after bedtime.

• We’ve instituted something from my own childhood called “100 Mile Presents.” It’s basically what it sounds like: for every 100 miles of a long car trip, the kids get a small present/treat (we’ve mostly been doing various fidget toys; these were a hit with both kids). It works as an incentive for good behavior AND provides enough novelty and excitement to make the journey slightly less interminable. You could also try this on an airplane trip for each hour.

• Don’t plan on doing more than one thing a day. With our kids, we do that one thing in the morning and the rest of the day we play by ear/mood/weather/whim.

• I bought a very cheap Roku Express for like $20 and preloaded it with all of my family’s streaming services and account/password info. I keep it in my suitcase so I don’t forget to pack it. It works on 95% of TVs in hotels and rentals (as long as you have access to the HDMI port, which you generally do), and means that I’m not struggling to remember and type in all of my account info while trying to navigate an unfamiliar system. Because when the kids want Bluey, they want Bluey NOW.

• Try to schedule your travel so you all have one day at home to readjust before going back to work/school/routines. We are all so exhausted after travel, we really need a day to be potatoes at home (and maybe sneak in a few loads of laundry) before we can be expected to do anything important.

Tips for gathering people together and making friends as an adult:

1. Don’t let the messiness of your home (or life) prevent you from inviting people in.
   

   I spent most of my life deeply ashamed over the state of my own home, and would either not invite people over or burn myself out doing panicked cleaning before every occasion. A few years ago, I discovered KC Davis’ general ethos* around cleanliness being morally neutral and it has been very liberating for me! Besides, I can never fool anyone for too long.

   
   *Relatedly: It's how I first began to put together that I had undiagnosed ADHD. It might seem "trendy" right now, but I think a lot of people (especially women!) go undiagnosed for most of their lives, develop complex workarounds and coping strategies, and then enter crisis when those strategies stop working in middle age, especially when they have kids. Getting diagnosed (and medicated) has helped me immensely, and I'd encourage anyone who struggles with (what seem to be) basic care functions to look into it.
   

2. In terms of making new friends as an adult, I suggest getting over your own awkwardness and erring on the side of inviting people to do things. People are rarely offended by an invitation and are always free to say no, but it’s amazing to me how many people really appreciate the invitation and are just personally uncomfortable “making the first move” in friendship.
   
   It’s a pretty low stakes gamble and life is short, so why not?

Also, if you're struggling to come up with a reason, book clubs are a wonderful structure for lowkey, ongoing relationship development. They're a classic for a reason! If you don't have time to add reading another book to your life, maybe try a movie club. It's a similar concept but you all go out to the same movie and then have a drink/snack/meal afterwards to discuss.

Laura told me that when she was in high school, she would often force her friends to sit in her car in the parking lot in silence and listen to whatever song she was obsessed with at the moment. She recently realized that this is basically her job now (but it also includes books and comedy and whatever else she’s into).

Lucky for all of us, she’s really good at it.

The current season of Live Wire is in full swing! If you’re in Portland or Seattle, you can catch a live show somewhere around town through early summer (Jeff Hiller AND Melissa Febos will be guests in June!). If you don’t live here, you can listen on your local station or stream the podcast.

🌼 #24 20 Weeks

🌼 #25 Agnès Varda Forever!

🌼 #26 Other People’s Houses

🌼 #27 Quick Note

⭕️ Pro Gua Sha Tool Made with Nephrite Jade and designed by Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) expert Sandra Lanshin Chiu, L.Ac, this is one to invest in — and learn how to use properly.1

⭕️ Where’s the Wood From? was commissioned to tell us about where the one million board feet of lumber in Portland’s new airport terminal came from.2

⭕️ VERY LITTLE ONES Pinterest got fun for me again when I found out I was pregnant.3

⭕️ The Giver Have you heard Chappell Roan’s new country song?4

We’re going on a road trip!

I meant to write to you about slow home design and layering a space over time and how taste evolves, but that post isn’t quite ready yet and we’re headed out on a road trip and I have a strong sense of obligation to send you something every Sunday even though this Substack is called Some Sundays.

So this is just a quick note to say, I can’t believe these darlings are ready to start thinking about life after high school and we’re hitting the road to visit college campuses.

Happy Spring Break to all who are celebrating,

⭕️ Can’t Believe it’s 2025 and I’m stressed about tariffs and measles, like am I a character in an American Girl book.1

⭕️ How to Sell (and Shop for) Pre-Loved Clothes shares very good tips for taking pics, titling, and describing your clothes for sale online.2

⭕️ Songs for Maggie I made this mix CD for my baby sister when I was away at college. It still holds up.3

⭕️ The Sculpt Society is a streaming platform with a huge library of pilates, dance cardio, and simple strength training workouts of varying lengths. One month in, and I really like it!4

The millennial dream of home

For the next couple of weeks, I’m writing about home: what it means, what it’s looked like for me and my family through the years, what it looks like now.

In the first five years of our relationship, Sebastian and I moved 12 times.

Ten of those moves were with babies/toddlers/young children, six of them were to new cities, and two of them were cross country.

And each of them was into someone else’s house.

I want to be clear that we are very happy to rent our current home. We’ve been here for ten years (almost 11!), we have a special relationship with our landlords and have been able to make this house the childhood home my kids will remember growing up in. This rental has provided rare stability in a tight market, and has given us the opportunity to invest our resources elsewhere, as we’ve been able to: in basics like food and utilities, clothes and school fees for the boys, a reliable car, and, eventually, an emergency savings account.

But we’ve always wanted to own a home.

The goalpost of home ownership is firmly planted in the American dream. Even if I hadn’t grown up with my dad working in real estate, the messaging was strong: to rent is to flush money down the drain, and the purchase of a home should be prioritized and achieved as quickly as possible once you’ve entered adulthood. Before then, even, if your parents have invested their own resources wisely: they might purchase a house that you can share with rent-paying roommates in college and young adulthood, allowing you to pocket the income for a down payment on your first purchase, or at least provide some cost-of-living breathing room to save some of those early entry-level paychecks.

The first time we explored purchasing a home was in Spokane, a few months after Orion was born. There was a house we were smitten with on South Hill, and I walked by with the stroller daily, planning a vegetable garden and laying out our meager furniture in the rooms based on pictures of the house’s layout I’d seen online. It wasn’t the nicest house; in comparison with the Arts and Crafts houses on the block — freshly painted in shades of rust and sage — it was quite meager. This made it seem, perhaps, within our reach.

Sebastian and I attended a first-time home buyers workshop at a local mortgage broker, and quickly discovered that purchasing a home (even one whose mortgage would be less than the rent we were paying) would not be a reality for us anytime soon.

It was an early moment of realization that hard work and determination alone would not get the thing I wanted — not with a pile of student loan debt, no job (and grim prospects in the 2010 market), and two babies under the age of two. I was 24; not a terrible time to learn this lesson.

I decided to go to grad school instead, and we moved to New York, where renting is the norm but also hard to secure without a guarantor unless you make 40x the monthly rent in annual income (our apartment in Harlem, which was $1700/mo, required we make $68,000/year — a number we didn’t touch until I was in my mid-30s). Despite this rule, and despite the general advice that renters should not spend more than 30% of their income on housing, at least half of all renters spend closer to 40-50%, and an increasing number of low-income households spend close to 80%. Because this is what it costs to have shelter in the cities that offer the most jobs, services, and opportunity.

My first job was in new homes, at the housing development my dad was selling, during the Parade of Homes in Kansas City. I was eleven and my job was to sit in a model home and ask people who toured if they’d like to enter a drawing for a prize (businesses have always been trying to get our contact details). The weekends I spent doing this job were long and dull, but I loved choosing which house I would station myself in, and filled time by imagining it was my own.

The model homes had been designed and styled in a way I’d never experienced in any of the homes my family or friends lived in. My mom kept a very clean house, but she eventually had seven children, and I wouldn’t say beauty was a priority. Spending time in these houses felt like being in a magazine, where objects were curated with care for their relationship to each other, and to the space. The houses were clutter free — because no one actually lived there.

It was the mid-90s, so faux paint detailing, dark mahogany kitchens, stenciled walls and floral sofas were all choices made. The decorators set out little bowls of potpourri and candy (sour chewy cherry balls I’d sneak throughout the day). The tables were ready to dine at, laid with all the place setting components we never used: placemats, chargers, cloth napkins, multiple forks, real glassware, fake floral arrangements.

Scenes were arranged to inspire prospective buyers to imagine themselves and I stepped right into that fantasy.

Sometimes I pretended to be the daughter of the house, and chose the soft pink bedroom clearly designed for me. Sometimes I was the mother, responsible for all order and beauty. I imagined the family who lived there with me, and the life of comfort and ease we’d have in a house where everything was sparkling new and functional — and tucked safely into a HOA-run community.

I’m not ungrateful for the homes we’ve lived in. The first one we moved into right after Pan was born we got in exchange for some transcription work I did for the owner. The next one we rented from Sebastian’s brother. Orion was born in the third-floor attic bedroom of an old house on South Hill in Spokane. We’ve stayed, for free, with family members for periods of time, Sebastian’s mom and my parents. A friend let us camp out in their yurt while we were looking for a rental when we first moved to Portland.

There was really only one brief moment when I thought maybe we wouldn’t have shelter, when our time in the yurt was running out and neither of us had enough work yet to qualify for our own rental. In that moment, I researched shelters for women and children.

Despite the stability we’ve built so slowly through the past decade, I’ve never not believed we were just one stroke of bad luck away from houselessness.

But that could still be true if we were paying a mortgage instead of rent.

Owning a home is still something we want. And, in many ways, we’re better positioned to purchase now than we were 15 years ago. But it doesn’t feel urgent.

We’ve been able to make each house we’ve lived in truly feel like home, in the ways we can. We’ve figured out systems to make small spaces functional and collected pieces that can follow us wherever home is. Each move has been an opportunity to try on an identity of sorts, to see who we could be in a new space. And the home we’ve been in for the past decade has given us the most, in terms of opportunity to try things out, determine our taste, create lived-in layers.

That’s what I want to talk about next — how my taste has evolved over time, where I find inspiration, how big of a role patience has played in making this house feel right…

Til then,

⭕️ Shiela Laufer Mugs at Hilary Horvath Flowers are stunning — and are giving Hilma af Klint.1

⭕️ Women Holding Things Maira Kalman reminding us how much we all carry.2

⭕️ Born a Worm This song by Dan Reeder is, in fact, a work of genius.3

⭕️ Medjool Dates Dried, eaten with cheese or butter and salt or nut butter.4

I want everyone to know about Agnès Varda

By the time you read this, I’ll have watched six Agnès Varda films in four days at the Agnès Varda Forever film festival at the Clinton Street Theater.

The festival was started several years ago by Laura Glazer and JJ Jones, after a street art campaign they created with the intention of helping more people become aware of Agnès Varda — and delighting each other. I caught one film — The Beaches of Agnès, a sort of autobiographical essay — the last time it was at Clinton Street, and fell in love with her obvious affection for her subjects, curiosity, and humor.

I mean, how could you not be intrigued??

There’s a childlike — but not immature — quality to the way she considers people and their dynamics to each other, the landscape, the stuff of their lives. She’s considered la grand-mère de la Nouvelle Vague, a title she’s held, somehow, since she made her first film, La Pointe Courte (which is now considered a forerunner to the French New Wave), at 26. She’d only ever seen 10 films before making her first.

In her words: “I am a woman working with her intuition and trying to be intelligent. It’s like a stream of feelings, intuition and joy of discovering things. Finding beauty where it’s maybe not. Seeing.”

In the spirit of wanting more people to know about Agnès and her films — and spreading delight — here’s what I loved about the films I watched this weekend, most of which you can watch on the Criterion Channel or Kanopy (accessed through your library account).

La Pointe Courte

Filmed in the fishing village where she grew up, La Pointe Courte has only two professional actors: a husband and wife in the film’s central, deteriorating relationship. The rest is made up of local villagers — and cats! — who provide comic relief and realism to the drama and internal monologuing of the couple working out whether or not they’ll stay together. It’s beautifully filmed.

Cléo from 5 to 7

This passes in real-ish time with a lovely chanteuse as she waits for the results of a cancer biopsy. Her anxiety is both real and ridiculous, persistent as she wanders the city and has brief encounters with colleagues, lovers, friends. Cléo from 5 to 7 was the second feature-length film Agnès made, and although there are some style rhymes with the first, it’s clear that she’s uninterested in making the same film twice.

Jacquot de Nantes

Jacquot de Nantes is a dream project Agnès realized for her husband, Jacques Demy, when he became too ill to complete it himself. A portrait of the artist as a young man, it tells the story of his childhood — enchanted despite the Nazi occupation during WW2 — and the magic escape cinema provides. Color is collaged with black and white (as it is in Cléo), and childhood impressions are connected visually to moments in the films he made throughout his career. Also present: fully-grown Jacques, in the final months of his life.

One Sings, The Other Doesn’t

Agnès made a musical! Suzanne and Pauline (later Pomme) first connect in the early 1960s, when one gives the other money for an abortion. They find each other again a decade later, and hang on to their connection. Set against the women’s liberation movement, this is not a subtle film! But the complexities of womanhood — and motherhood — are nuanced and fully considered. Also: good on Agnès for finding the newest-looking newborn I’ve seen on film.

The Gleaners and I

This one is considered the start of Agnès’s late career renaissance, and is a documentary that explores the world of modern-day gleaners. She is present in the film (with her gray just beginning to show), as a sort of gleaner of images and ideas. The culture around gleaning in France is very different from that in the US — although Portland feels tangential to it, with its sidewalk free piles. A lot of the imagery in this movie was familiar, as I’m married to a collector of objects that pile up in the yard, waiting to be someday sculptures. To be fair, sculptures do get made! Though not necessarily at pace with the material collected… And writers are also gleaners, no?

Faces Places

Faces Places was her last film, made in 2017 when Agnès was 87. That is a 60 year career in filmmaking! Her curiosity, enthusiasm, and willingness to collaborate throughout a whole lifetime are inspiring. Here, she teams up with photographer and muralist JR to hit the road in his camera van, stopping along in villages along the way to take large format photos of locals and install them on crumbling walls and water towers. What’s the point of it all? For Agnès, the point is the power of imagination. And also fun and other reasons.

Agnès saw film as a way to keep things from falling down the hole of memory. She used filmmaking to see and connect with the people she encountered. She faced them head on and didn’t look away. What a gift she is to us.

⭕️ Sparrowhawk Native Plants for Summer ordering is open for plant starts, with pick-up in Portland!1

⭕️ The Dependables Interior designer Beata Heuman recently released a line of home paints, and the swatch chart

is dreamy.2

⭕️ Ooey Gooey Carrot Cake Today is Sebastian’s birthday, and so today I am making a carrot cake. This recipe from Molly Baz’s More is More sounds dense enough to be a full meal.3

⭕️ The Singular Charm of Parker Posey “Walton Goggins, Posey’s friend and co-star in ‘The White Lotus,’ told me that when he first met her, at a friend’s barbecue in the Catskills, he felt instantly drawn into her world… ‘She’s a person capable of doing what Emerson said so long ago — to see the miraculous in the common. And she uses phrases like, Isn’t that a gas?’” This profile in today’s Times Magazine left me hopeful that we’ll see more of Parker Posey soon.4

I was 22 when Pan was born. We had Orion 14 months later. Those early years are a blur, during which we were learning how to be adults and parents, oh and also I decided to go to grad school in New York

Despite how hard it all was, there isn’t much I would change about how we’ve raised our boys. It’s been the hardest and the best. The only regret I’ve had is that, because of how hard those first few years were, I didn’t enjoy them as much as I wish I had.

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Genevieve Layman — author of Gather & Make: Plant-Based Projects for All Seasons, horticultural therapist, and owner of Planted garden design — understands the language of both people and plants. And she’s incredibly generous in sharing the depth of her understanding.

I’ve been lucky to know Genevieve as a friend, fellow parent, excellent campsite-picker, and a go-to garden expert for the past decade. She creates the most magical spaces, indoors and out, with her husband, Sean (and their son, Julian) here in Portland. No matter the project at hand, her work is rooted in connection — and you can feel it.

The gardens she helps clients create aren’t just beautiful; they’re spaces that invite interaction, reflection, and a deeper relationship with nature. Whether working with first-time homeowners eager to get their hands in the soil or designing climate-adapted landscapes for seasoned plant lovers, she approaches each project with sustainability, purpose, and flow in mind.

In addition to offering garden design services, Genevieve is currently in graduate school studying for a masters in clinical counseling (read on for the counseling theories that are resonating most with her right now).

Today, she shares three tools all gardeners need, advice for sustaining adult friendships while parenting a young child, and what’s been on her mind lately (as well as how she’s been working to think less). Let’s dig in. ;)

On mornings:

I had such a lovely routine of meditating, journaling, and reading tarot in the mornings before the day got going, but the winter has kept me in bed longer, so there’s less spaciousness for that.

My parents live across the street from us, and my son likes to have breakfast over there with them. I usually drink coffee and start on grad school pretty quickly after I wake up. Then I go to a yoga class mid-morning after dropping Julian at school.

On bedtime:

My folks got a hot tub last year and my son and I love to take a soak after dinner, before bed. It’s been my favorite thing this winter.

The nice thing about a hot tub is you get to spend a lot more time looking up at the night sky. Even though there are so few stars in the city, it’s still meaningful to look up at the moon, planets, and stars and remember how big it all is — and how little (and lucky) we all are.

An all-time favorite book:

Oh boy, how could someone choose just one? It’s like trying to pick a favorite plant. So much diversity! So many gifts they give! I don’t know, maybe the most accurate answer would be “the one I’m reading right now”?

Okay, if I had to choose just one, it would be Tales of a Dalai Lama by Pierre Delattre. I’ve loved it since I was a young adolescent, and still do to this day. It’s a collection of short stories published in the early 1970s, and I think hard to find. The art is amazing.

Current listens:

The Emerald is a podcast that speaks to the soul about cosmologies and mythologies of the world. If you consider yourself to be a spiritual person, there is so much here. It brings discourse to the unseen, poetic, animate heart of the human experience over thousands of years. There are so many good episodes, but check out two of my favorites: Guardians & Protectors and Why Mindfulness Isn’t Enough to get started.

The Telepathy Tapes is one that is important to listen to in order and all the way through. It will expand your idea of reality and consciousness. I’ll let it speak for itself — and encourage you to listen! It’s sparked a lot of interesting reflection and conversations.

I’m also listening to Pale Jay, Thee Sacred Souls, and Trevor Hall — but also Taylor Swift because my 6-year old is into her right now.

Top 3 hand tools for gardening:

Easy: Pruners (doesn’t matter what kind, as long as they’re sharp); a Hori Hori (Japanese gardening knife) is great for cutting, hand-weeding, digging, planting, and anything else you do close to the ground; and a long-handled winged weeder — which is hard to find and comes in large head and small headed styles. The small headed one is where it’s at. Best standing weeding tool I’ve found.

And really, being a good gardener just means you’re willing to weed, and often.

I always recommend supporting your neighborhood nursery! Pruners and Hori Horis are gardener favorites, so they’ll be there. The winged weeder is a personal fave that the rest of the world has not yet embraced, so it may be harder to find. You can order online, but it will be $$.

Favorite spot in the house:

Wherever the sun is shining through. Since it’s winter, I’ve been spending a lot of time doing grad school or reading to my kid on the couch. It’s cozy and I like looking at the art and my things in the living room.

On living in Montavilla:

Stark Street meets so many needs for us and it feels like a little downtown (for my small town heart). There is a movie theater, coffee shops, a hardware store, yoga studio, restaurants, pet store, international grocery store, etc. I really love the sense of community.

Best thing you’ve cooked recently:

A neighbor of mine makes the best tasting harissa and he recently dropped a jar on my porch. I made Ottolenghi’s pappardelle with harissa, black olives, and capers and it blew me away. 10/10.

Thoughts on sustaining adult friendships while parenting a young child:

Fold the relationships that are important into your life. Make it easy and often vs. special and infrequent. Meet-ups at playgrounds, or walking the dog together, or doing life together in ways that help connections happen more often.

I have a friend I do yoga with and even though there isn’t a lot of time to connect deeply, I really value the consistency and rhythm of relationships.

Something that surprised you about being a parent:

I’m pretty amazed at how much energy these little child bodies hold and generate! Geez! The other surprise is how I have changed physiologically. How now I’m afraid of bridges for some reason, how I feel a jolt of electricity in my body (like a warning) if I see a kid almost get hurt. How I cry so much more easily.

Favorite kid-friendly camp spots near Portland:

Closest: Oxbow
In the summer there are millions of plump black tadpoles in the side stream. It’s safe for the kids to swim, and it isn’t as popular as the other beaches in the park. One time when I was camping there, I woke up and heard the trees harmonizing a song of protection. Magical place.

Semi-close: Toll Bridge Campground by Hood River
It’s first-come, first-served, so great for last minute planners like me — and the group site is amazing.

A bit of a drive: Forlorn Lakes
Each lake only has 3 or so campsites. Small, sleepy mountain lakes with not a lot of people!

Best and worst parts of self-publishing your book:

I loved everything about creating my book: writing it, designing it, editing it, self-publishing it. The only thing I did not love (and still don’t) is selling it. Turns out that is a very important part of self-publishing! If you don’t like selling your book, then you won’t sell it. That might be okay, but good to know from the get-go.

And if that is the case for you and you still want to self-publish, I would say print on-demand vs. offset printing. And enter your book into book award competitions — awards help!

Maybe find someone who does love selling your book, and pay them to do that part?

Advice for starting a small business:

There are so many aspects to running a small business, but I didn’t think of any of them before starting my own. So my advice would be to try it out! You can learn as you go.

If you have the money, I would say hire a business coach to help. I never have, but want to. You can’t be good at all the things. Finding out what you are and aren’t good at is important.

I think a common problem with women who own their own businesses is around how much you ask for your services/goods. It’s probably worth more than you think it is. I’m still learning that lesson.

Currently thinking about:

I’m in grad school for counseling, and I’m in the process of exploration and identity creation as a counselor. There are many theories that resonate with me, but I’ve been a student of nonviolent communication for 10 years and it will for sure be a part of my approach.

I’m also interested in studying Hakomi (experiential psychotherapy), internal family systems, feminist theory, and solution-focused brief therapy. Mindfulness has been really supportive for my own self awareness and connection, so I’ll likely incorporate that as well.

Right now I’m really enjoying being a student and absorbing new information.

I’ve also been trying to quiet the external and listen more closely to my inner experience. There is so much to worry about, so much concern alive right now. Trying not to think as much!

Meditating is so helpful for this. The hardest part about meditation is just doing it; it’s easy not to. But becoming still, tuning inward and being a witness to your internal world is hugely supportive in becoming intimate with your experience.

Getting curious about how emotions show up in your body and really tracking the sensations can allow you to access your wise self when experiencing them outside of meditation. I find I have great access to peace when I accompany myself in this way.

There is so much available right now around meditation and mindfulness, so many apps. Try out a few, commit for a few months, and see what you notice.

Although she’s in school, Genevieve is still offering garden design services through Planted! She’s been in the horticultural world for more than 15 years and specializes in helping people create outdoor spaces where they feel connected to all the life around them. Her designs tend to have a Mediterranean/Northern California/PNW native feel — they’re the kind of gardens that make you pause when you’re walking by to take it all in (and take notes for your own).

She’s currently scheduling new clients in June and is pretty consistently booked 3-4 months out (so reach out soon if you’re interested!).

If you aren’t in Portland, Gather & Make is a great way to experience some of her creative insight (you can take a peek inside her book here).

Thank you for sharing so much of your time and yourself, Genevieve!

⭕️ The large American family is becoming a luxury good If you’re a parent, you’re probably not surprised to hear that in the U.S. today it costs around $300,000 to raise one child from birth to age 17 — and this doesn’t include higher education, which adds, on average, another $150,000. But the “big family” image conjured in the popular imagination even just a few years ago (religious, hand-me-down clothes, etc.) has shifted dramatically to a glossy, high income version in American popular culture today (think Kardashians, Elon Musk, B-team Real Housewives).

⭕️ You can’t post your way out of fascism Spending a lot of time online posting about what people in power are saying and doing is not going to accomplish anything. If anything, it’s exactly what they want.

⭕️ A Black family now owns the site of America’s largest slave revolt Twin Black sisters are transforming Woodland, the former plantation in LaPlace, Louisiana, into a museum and community space where visitors can learn about the revolt that happened there in 1811, its connection to present-day activism, and how to respond to the climate threats that continue to destroy Black livelihoods and landmarks across the south.

⭕️ What I listened to while writing this: Flow State.

🌼 #20 I Read Too Many Books in January

🌼 #21 What I Wish I Had Known Before Surgery

🌼 #22 Pop-Up [Insert Theme Here]

⭕️ Have you heard of fascia flossing? It involves engaging and elongating the connective tissue that wraps around our organs, muscles, bones, tendons, ligaments, nerves. You can check out one approach here.1

⭕️ The Milk Cafe A countertop beverage heater, steamer, frother.2

⭕️ White Lotus is back for season 3, this time with an upstairs-downstairs dynamic at an exclusive resort in Thailand, an (almost) entirely new cast, and (hopefully) a riff on its signature theme song.3

⭕️ Beef Bolognese with a reasonable ingredient list — and a ~6 hour prep and cook time that’s totally worth the wait.4

A pop-up coffee shop

Last spring, a few months after I had an open myomectomy and after I’d recovered from a lumpectomy, I hosted a pop-up coffee shop at my house as a way to thank our community for all their love and care.

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⭕️ Some homemade Valentine inspiration by way of The Met.1

⭕️ 31 Days Without Amazon An experimental dissection of the ways in which our brains have been rewired to buy first and consider alternatives second.2

⭕️ Troop 6000’s Digital Cookie Store It’s Girl Scout cookie season! You can use this Cookie Finder to see where cookies are being sold in your neighborhood, or purchase online and support a unique troop that serves Girl Scouts living in the NYC shelter system.3

⭕️ Don’t Believe Him Ezra Klein on the limited powers of the presidency. A reminder that if we believe Trump is already king, we’ll be likelier to let him govern as a king. (Gift Link).4

One year out from abdominal surgery

I suppose this post should come with a sort of content disclaimer. I’m talking about recovering from surgery today, and also periods. If either of those topics feel squeamish, see you next week!

A little over a year ago, at the end of January, I had an open myomectomy to remove a large fibroid that was growing on my uterus — and ruining my life.

The signs, which took me way too long to realize were the signs, included: absurdly heavy periods and large (fist-sized) clots, severe cramping in my abdomen, back, and legs, deep fatigue (due to blood loss), depression and mood swings, weight gain in the belly, and frequent urination. This episode of 28ish Days Later from BBC Radio 4 gets into fibroids, in a surprisingly lovely way. The whole podcast series is worth a listen.

Once we finally determined what was going on (by way of ultrasound), it took almost three months to get a surgery date scheduled. I used this time to deploy all of my anxiety coping mechanisms and attempt to prepare my way out of any possible negative eventuality.

I filled the freezer with congee and healing soups (even though a friend had set up a meal train and all the slots were fully accounted for by our community). I bought a supportive belly pillow, similar to the long bolsters pregnant people use. I stocked up on smooth move tea and acetaminophin and a large soft ice pack. I applied for six weeks of Paid Leave Oregon benefits, following all the steps to ensure we’d have income for my recommended recovery period. I washed all the couch cushions and deep cleaned the rooms I’d be spending most of my time in, knowing it would be awhile before I could physically handle this on my own again. And I packed my overnight bag with chargers and soft socks and a lap pillow for the drive home.

All of those things were useful, but they added up to something that was not helpful at all: they made me think that I was fully set for a easeful recovery. And it was anything but easy.

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⭕️ Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music is a documentary about a 24-hour immersive theatrical experience offered in a one-time-only performance. Watch it for a much-needed refresh of the United State’s complicated history and the wildly elaborate costumes — and for fun!1

⭕️ A book Ban Isn’t a Badge of Honor Project 2025 promised that Trump would turn a national focus on banning books under the guise of making our children safer, and last week, amid a frenzy of other soul-crushing pronouncements, the Department of Education issued a press release declaring book bans a hoax.2

⭕️ Minimum and Maximum Creative Time A reminder that there will be many days where you will do the bare minimum amount of creative work and that will be okay.3

⭕️ HÅG Capisco Adjustable Desk Chair For those of us who store all stress in our necks/backs/shoulders and need to be able to change sitting positions every 20 minutes or so.4

Last month I read 12 books.

And by books I mean novels. Most were in the 250-350 page range. The shortest was 160 pages. The longest was 444.

I didn’t set out to read 12 books in January. For some, that may be a normal number of books read. I haven’t read at that pace since grad school, over a decade ago now. I typically average 4-5 books (novels) a month, with maybe one non-fiction audiobook in the mix, as well.

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Neva Rose is the beautiful human behind Full Heart Healing, a space for therapeutic massage, intuitive energy work, and, as the name suggests, gently collaborative healing. Neva has a way of holding space — slow and deeply intentional — that feels like letting out a big deep breath. Her work offers more than care for your skin or body; it’s an invitation to settle into yourself.

I’ve been on the receiving end of Neva’s care for over five years, and it has been a joy to see (and feel) how her practice has evolved in that time.

With 20 years of experience as a licensed esthetician, massage therapist, and energy worker, Neva has shifted her practice away from the esthetics side to focus on treating the whole being, rather than the parts alone. Her approach is rooted in the belief that the most profound healing can be felt when we’re able to fully relax, release and receive.

Neva lives in Portland with her wife, Danya, their pup, and a growing garden. I love watching how that garden creeps into her studio through the seasons, with chains of marigolds and posies in glass jars.

Here, Neva shares her philosophy on rest, the best spot in town for a very special cup of tea, and why your own two hands are the best skincare tool you’ll ever need. You’ll probably want a mug of tea while reading this one — my current herbal allies are nettles, oatstraw, raspberry leaf, and alfalfa, steeped long, with a big spoon of honey stirred in.

A daily ritual:

Tea, loads of tea. Especially when greeting the day. With each cup it’s an invitation inward for a sort of meditative inventory. Any sensations, any body systems, organs, mood or unfolding emotion has at least one herbal ally.

Sometimes I steep one single plant, sometimes I blend an array of roots or petals, for myself or my family or friends. Tea is love.

Advice for nourishing skin in winter:

Think nectars and warming movement.

Give your winter skin (and entire system) good fats and oils and honey, inside and out. Soak in warm water as often as you are able. And find a way to achieve optimal circulation of blood, lymph and craniosacral rhythm through supported movement of the body. Warm yoga classes or stretching at home, treading water, foam rolling, bundling up for walks.

Act like a bear: eat honey, rest more, stay warm, and move slowly.

Three words to describe your studio:

Inviting + Serene + Warm

On the importance of rest:

Rest is pivotal for wellness. As an introverted human in a world that feels more demanding of outward energy/extroversion with each passing day, I have no choice but to practice understanding my need and meeting my need for rest.

In sessions, I can detect the need for rest in a client’s skin, spirit, and energy first, before any other feedback I receive. Lack of adequate rest effects us greatly.

My love for rest/naps/cozy downtime is a running joke within my community, but they express gratitude for my influence in doing less and prioritizing rest more.

On hero skincare products:

I’m going to let you in on a radical secret: your skin’s hero is your own two hands. No thing outside of yourself can know you or heal you/your skin better than you can yourself.

Touching and self-massaging are not only the best ways to stay healthy and beautiful, you will stay most healthy and beautiful by connecting with yourself each day. Tapping into your own deepest knowing of yourself and what you need or need to tend to in order to be most well is the key to whatever form of longevity your heart desires. Wellness and longevity will not come from a jar of cream. I promise! Not even the most expensive one.

With that being said, if you have the incredible privilege of a garden space to grow (Portland is full of community gardens if you’re in need of access), plant all of the colors, aromas, herbs and flowers that bring you joy and interact with that fertile space as much as possible.

The joy of tending to the Earth alone will heal your skin, but if you’d like an item to lend itself to your self massage and connection practice, grow calendula. Lovingly harvest it and dry it. Once dry, place the calendula is a clean glass jar and pour organic olive oil over it until the flowers are fully submerged. Allow it to infuse for 30 days, then strain it into another clean glass jar. Anoint yourself and nourish your skin with it daily.

Current read:

Kimberley King Parson’s We Were the Universe and Giovanni’s Room by the ever wise and insightful James Baldwin. I enjoy having two books going at once that have different tones. Blending a recent release (most often by a local, queer author, poet, or playwright) with an extremely deep and important piece with historical significance often strikes a nice balance for me.

Last great read:

I cannot recommend these two books enough, they were truly moving: Madwoman by (local Portland author) and The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. But please look into their content before digging in, as they’re both upsetting glimpses into challenging topics.

Favorite 5-ingredient cookie recipe:

Sweet Laurel Bakery’s chocolate chip cookies. They’re delicious, and have an incredible texture. They have only five whole ingredients and are safe for almost everyone to enjoy.

I urge you to purchase their grain- and dairy-free cookbook online to support them and their community through the fires and rebuilding of Los Angeles.

Tip for getting through Portland’s dark and wet winters:

Learn to give into it!

We are told to stay busy and work hard, never stop. Trying to push through our different needs this time of year creates such resistance to it. Consider a soft and soggy Portland winter as the perfect medicine to unlearn our internalized capitalism.

It’s good to move slower. This is the time to charge our brain and body batteries, light beeswax candles to illuminate your home after those early sundowns, eat soups, take more baths. Give into winter so then you can celebrate spring and revel in summer’s fleeting bliss!

I know I’m a rare case, but I love what these winters can provide if you can be mindful of nature’s cycle of gifts.

Favorite spot for a cup of tea:

Anytime I recommend a meeting spot, it’s Fly Awake Tea House in North Portland.

Please do your nervous system a favor and order their very special Jujube Leaf tea. Then purchase a little golden sachet of the delicate leaves and ask one of the kind folks that work there to teach you how to make it at home.

For extra credit: order one of their rich chocolate truffles to melt in your mouth with each sip of tea. Your heart will feel so light and full!

Favorite memory captured in a photo:

This is me feeling my most relaxed, my most loved by another, and my most connected to the earth.

It was taken in early summer of 2019 by my now wife as we were tending to our dear friend’s farm while they were traveling. It was just us two, out in the quiet of many acres in the Willamette Valley, sitting down to a farm meal that she made and I decorated in flowers after having our hands in the dirt all day.

That is my idea of a perfect day and I’ll remember it forever.

On finding gardening inspiration everywhere:

Walking my Montavilla neighborhood (I swear some of these neighbors are master gardeners), all nature walks from the ocean to the mountains, and through my personal and professional practice of connecting with plants and flowers for deep energetic healing.

One flower can teach you where it wants to be in your garden, what other healing ally plants it likes to be near, and what it can provide energetically in times of need.

Something healing practitioners don’t talk enough about publicly:

How challenging it can be to have longevity with this work.

My job is the best job I could possibly imagine, I love connecting with people and earning their trust, bringing them comfort and helping translate messages from their bodies. I feel so grateful every work day, but boy can it be tough at times.

Caring for ourselves in imperative. Receiving bodywork ourselves is crucial. Having energetic clearing practices that bookend the workday or each client session has made a huge difference in how I feel at the end of the day. Making time before and after our workdays to stretch and soften our bodies is so important if you hope to make this work a career.

Sometimes practitioners can care so deeply about your wellness that in ways both large and small we can sacrifice our own, so we have to be careful. Taking good care of ourselves is a part of taking care of you! And taking care of you is such an honor.

Something you’re really excited about right now:

I am such an excitable person, with many hobbies, interests, and passions!

I am really excited about a new direction and new depth of work that I’m taking my business (Full Heart Healing) in. I’m excited about diving back into my reading appetite — I read three times as much in 2024 than I did in 2023. I’m almost non-stop daydreaming about the poppies I’ll be growing for the first time this year. I’m trying something new and putting an igniting spin on how much more I’ll be needing to use my voice to fight for the rights of people I love this year. I’m really looking forward to turning 40 next month. I love aging! I can’t wait until I see my first grey hair come in, truly. And I’m excited to begin working on the ceramics wheel I found in a free pile near my house last year — what a score!

Leaning into excitements is what will help us get through these hard times with greater ease and balance.

Favorite element of providing care every day:

I believe my purpose in this life is to help people feel more seen in who they are. To help them feel so very deserving of care and loving touch, even in their darkest moments. I can’t believe the honor of sitting with someone in their grief, in their joys and growth, or when they’re feeling lost and in need.

I wish everybody could receive the care they need when they need it.

I’m sure one day my body will ask that I take a rest and no longer offer this form of care, but I will continue to advocate for folks to receive the care they need for the rest of my days.

I schedule my time with Neva at the turn of the seasons: a moment when my skin (and whole self) needs extra transitional support. She’s seen me through big stress (like taking a school online during the pandemic 😵‍💫) and big healing (post-surgery recovery that lasted far longer than 6 weeks).

She’s a Portland treasure, and if you live here, I hope you might also be able to feel her magic.

⭕️ Puttering Around Why small tasks feel so therapeutic. Days when I can just go moment to moment, doing the little things I feel like doing right then, are the best days.

⭕️ 2025 Beauty Predictions “DEFYING REALITY will be all the rage. I foresee a continuance of concealer marketed as ‘not concealer,’ beauty ads with taglines like ‘This is not a beauty ad,’ overconsumption framed as ‘underconsumption,’ $300,000 cosmetic surgeries explained away as ‘getting sober,’ etc.” , always spot on.

⭕️ Two Things for Flu I’m (🤞🏼) just about on the other side of a bad flu and the two things I found most helpful for my symptoms — deep chest cough & full body aches — were castor oil packs x2 daily and warming socks at night.

⭕️ Help After about a month of odd intermittent aching on the top of my arm (as well as roving neck and shoulder pain), I think the culprit may be the most obvious thing: when I’m at home, I don’t work at a desk, because the desk chair I have gives me immediate discomfort. Instead, I work on the couch or on a futon, with my laptop propped on a pillow — which gives me delayed discomfort. Do you have a non-ugly ergonomically supportive desk chair you like? I need it to fit in a teeny, tiny space, under a rather low desk… 🙏

⭕️ I Don’t Even Know How to Title This but it is worth your attention.1

⭕️ Your Phone is Why You Don’t Feel Sexy “The proliferation of devices surrounding us at all times may help us ‘get in touch’ with other people, sure, but they impeded our ability to get in touch with ourselves. A ‘touch’ screen would indeed seem to promise something tactile and real, but they leave us cold, tepid, and listless. Something is deeply wrong when we sext the same way we order a sandwich.”2

⭕️ The Case Against Budget Culture & challenging the norms of capital accumulation.3

⭕️ Altadena Girls Fire Recovery Started by an 8th grader who goes to school in the neighborhood to organize the collection and distribution of new clothes, personal items, beauty and hair care — things that will make them feel like themselves again — for girls who lost everything.4

Two Resolutions (for the month)

I just re-read a post I wrote about this time last year, and it made me feel a little better about the sleepy, slow start to the year I’ve been experiencing. It’s a combination of things: emerging from the cocoon of the holiday week(s), the constant gray drizzle outside, feeling like I’m still regaining full functioning after getting Norovirus at the end of the month, and, of course, the approaching inauguration, ongoing wars, the wildfires in California, all of it.

I’ve been too fatigued to be productive in the mornings and have struggled to keep my usual routine (and writing) going. I’ve struggled to make it through the day at work, and am toast by the time I get home. I’ve taken so many naps (and near naps) this weekend.

And it turns out I was feeling much the same last year, with slightly different situational details. There’s a comfort in knowing these things are cyclical, that they’ll move on, eventually.

While I haven’t made any resolutions or set any big goals, I’m slowly reflecting and thinking about what I’d like to focus on this year. And I have two things I felt motivated to implement this month:

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I’m so happy that we get to spend time with Ash Perlberg of Weeno Photography today!

I met Ash in 2019, when I contracted with her to take photos at Cedarwood — one of the best professional choices I’ve ever made, because her photos do all the heavy lifting when it comes to marketing the school (which was my job).

Ash is a people’s photographer: although she no longer shoots big weddings, she does photograph intimate gatherings, families (with no limits on what that looks like), creatives, people being people. And she does so in a way that is saturated with energy, and is so, so dreamy.

She lives in Portland with her best friend, Kellen, their three kids, and two dogs. Ash and Kellen have made the most beautiful home together: think massive skylights cut into the living room ceiling, a second kitchen in the basement, and a deck that extends their living space far out into the yard with a big couch for hanging and a long table for outdoor dining (wood fire pizza made tableside is her specialty). They’re the fun parents you always wish you had, the kind that throw nightly pre-bedtime dance parties with disco lights and an annual kid-friendly Christmas party that no one wants to leave.

Today Ash shares the piece that can make any outfit complete, the mindset that makes Portland’s winter gloom bearable, and the sweet potato dish that makes an appearance every Thanksgiving — it’s that good. I started hankering for pizza so hard while working on this one…

Go-to denim:

I’ve still not adulted enough to go for the quality jeans — even though I’ve eyed many. I always turn to my tried-and-true fitting Old Navy jeans. They’re usually on sale and last me 2-3 seasons. Just current enough to be trendy, they fit perfectly right (on my ever-changing body) and if I’ve ruined them, it’s not such a big deal. Three kids and two dogs always means someone is on me, near me, or making a mess.

I’ve also been collecting denim chore jackets. It’s my favorite thing to wear. Just enough room to move around, it makes any outfit feel complete. And it can hold all my things when I’m working and need many a pocket!

Favorite way to spiff up an outfit:

I’m not a big jewelry person, much to my dismay. I’ve tried hard. So these days I have a good array of hats, beanies, and corduroy baseball caps. One of each color for every mood. I also love a good bandana wrapped around my neck. And always, always that chore jacket!

Favorite spot for a photo editing sesh:

These days I’ve been snuggling up in my room on my bed. I know it’s probably so bad for my back, but it’s so cozy and I love my room and the windows.

I drop my kids off at school early, so when I get home I grab my warm coffee, computer, hard drive, and phone. I scroll a little, catch up on the news, and then hit the email and start editing. I’m usually still in my PJs!

A design trend you’re into:

My mind immediately goes to color drenching a room. I love when trim is painted, and I love when it’s a darker color. I want all my rooms to feel cozy and comfortable, to look different and bold.

Something you let go of last year:

Control.

The universe taught me more times than not last year that control is an illusion and I actually have very little of it. I feel more secure when I think I have control over things, but when I let go of this idea the expectation of what “should be” also disappears. There is a sort of freedom and beauty in letting go and just being curious.

Something you gained in 2024:

This feels hard to answer. I feel like I lost more than I gained. But as my therapist tells me, feelings don’t always tell truths. I think I’ve gained some self-certainty. Martha Beck talks about the warm knowing in us, and I’ve had to go back to that feeling and gain trust in myself to know what that knowing is. And to follow through on that trust, even when it feels like it’s the hardest, toughest path.

Survival tip for the Portland winter gloom:

When I learned about the Winter Solstice and what winter means, it really made the gloom a lot more enjoyable. It’s all about candles and warmth. When I’m able to change my mindset to enjoy the shorter days and embrace night… I’ve learned to love it.

I light candles in the dark morning with meditation music. At night I relight the candles for dinner and the rest of the evening. Embracing the seasons for what they are instead of longing for the longer days helps.

I’ve lived in places with no seasons, and that was hard. You never fully enjoy it. Here the change of seasons is a direct reflection of how the life cycle works — and it’s actually quite beautiful.

Something you’re really into right now:

Last year I consumed a lot of poetry, and even wrote some. I never thought of myself as a writer and dreams of being a poet feel far-fetched. So I love that I’m exploring this place and realizing how warm it makes me feel.

Current dance party playlist:

We’ve gone through an ABBA phase, a Beyoncé phase, but there’s always dubstep if we’re gonna go hard. Enter the Ninja by a wild South African band called Die Antwoord is not exactly kid-friendly, but it makes for amazing dance party music!

A great recipe you’ve made recently:

Hands down, Modern Proper’s Honey Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Labneh. I make it for Thanksgiving every year and I’m shook by it each time.

Thoughts on New Year’s resolutions:

I think some people really thrive with resolutions, looking back on the past year and digging in deeper. For me, it makes an anxious little monster in my belly that doesn’t talk very nicely to me. It doesn’t bring me that warmth.

If it does bring someone warmth, then I’m all for it. I believe that if it serves you, I will 100% support you. But please don’t ask me mine.

Perfect date night in Portland:

I just recently did something called Dance Church, and it was one of the best things I’ve done in awhile. It was dancing hard with a group for 1.5 hours as a way to reconnect with your body. I’d do this, then hit a good spot for dinner after. I LOVE pizza, so Ranch Pizza, Baby Doll, Straight from New York, Grana. Maybe Grana — you’d have to be prepared and bring an extra pair of clothes for a nicer spot after you sweat so much!

Something you’re currently shopping for:

Dress-up clothes. I don’t know what to wear for “dressy” occasions anymore. I’m not sure I want to wear dresses right now, maybe something a bit more androgynous with some femininity. I don’t have the opportunity to dress up often, and when I do it feels stressful. But I think that’s more because of how I’m feeling in my body, and I don’t want to wear something that doesn’t fit me or my style. It feels hard, can’t I just wear jeans and a cut off?? Lol.

Where you find inspiration:

In the light. I often see shadows and they always speak to me. I love the way light hits different with each season. The distance of the sun to us creates different shadows and I’m constantly looking, seeing, and observing.

Creative influences:

I love following my friends’ art. Often it’s not the same kind of art I make. It’s Chelsea, writing this newsletter. It’s my friend drawing and making the illustrations for Straightaway Cocktails. It’s another friend making graphic novels. And another who puts together the most beautiful outfits. But I also love a good IG poet, Rick Ruben, and some other artists I follow on IG but can never remember their handles.

Favorite photo taken:

This feels like a BIG question. I have taken many that I feel deeply proud of, so I’ll share my favorite photo I’ve taken THIS season.

I made it black and white, which is not something I usually do. It’s a dad and his kids, and I know the connection between them is so deep, and they’ve struggled a lot. They started as foster kids and are now adopted. The connection of these three is strong, and I think this image catches exactly that.

Advice for someone just getting started with photography:

Forget the gear and shoot as much as you can. Make the camera a part of you, and see what you can make with what you have. Photography isn’t about how many megapixels you have or how much money you invest in gear. I often use trash in front of my lens to make some really beautiful images, but I never would have done that if I were worried about expensive gear.

Observe light and notice how it hits different things at different times. Shoot during the morning and afternoon and evening. Push yourself and move your body: lay down, sit down, take a big breath and observe.

Rick Ruben speaks a lot to creativity, so I’d suggest his book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being.

Hiring Ash wasn’t just a great professional decision; she’s become a dear friend, someone whose way of seeing the world makes me want to find new ways of looking. Her’s is a perspective I deeply value.

Despite my kids being almost twice as old as hers, they all love hanging out and making big old cuddle puddles. 🥹 There’s so much love and warmth in the home Ash has made.

As the people’s photographer, Ash brings incredible thought and intention to the sessions she holds. Whatever joy, beauty, magic you have — she’ll capture it.

I love how she sees us.

I missed you last week!

I didn’t actually intend to take a break. But I brought a stomach bug home from my trip to San Francisco and it worked it’s nasty way through our household. I didn’t sleep for five nights straight (that mom-thing kicked in, where you’re just half awake listening for something to happen all night 🥴), and was manically deep cleaning and sanitizing during the waking hours. Everyone was able to keep food down by Christmas, but we were all exhausted and not interested in our traditional raclette (Orion said it would “freaking kill him” and that’s only a small exaggeration). Then my brother came in town for a visit and the days just got away.

That’s a long way of saying that I just didn’t have it in me, and gave myself the grace of a week off.

I’m really happy to be back. Xx

🌼 #13 Magic

🌼 #14 Getting Dressed

🌼 #15 Last Year of my Thirties

🌼 #16 My Favorite Week of the Year