One urgent care had no X-ray tech, so there was a second urgent care in Sunset Park, but then there was no pediatric orthopedist, so that was the next day, back at the ER, with a new set of X-rays and hours in the waiting room. As the parent, when the child is injured, it’s very obvious exactly what you do. Drop all else, front the needs of child, alleviate as much pain as possible, then scramble, afterwards, to tend to oneself in the crevices of remaining time.

Once the cast was on, Ada was relatively complaint free, but when you break your dominant wrist two weeks into middle school and can’t write, or independently climb up into one’s bed, or shampoo one’s own hair, there’s a necessary dependence that tug-of-wars with the autonomy one’s been working towards for years. I find that we are dancing through a new kind of symbiosis, where I am asked for help—inconsistently—sometimes to cut an apple or open a stuck water bottle lid, which she can not do with only one, functioning hand, but then also to put on her socks and brush her teeth, which she certainly can, but insists she can’t. Or won’t.

As a baby, the needs are almost entirely on the parent. Teach them to eat, to fall asleep, to recognize the nighttime hours. Point out objects until they learn the language: ball, hat, moon, pear, friend. Act as a physical guardrail from danger, hovering above and around. Slowly, then very quickly, the parent is a step away, then a few, then nowhere in sight. They are asking the child to set the table, clean their room, take the younger sibling to after school karate. Now I offer to get the brown sugar down when Ada is baking cookies with a friend, and she refuses. She’ll get the mixer, the vanilla, preheat the oven, because not having help is the point.

Then the body breaks, and the delineation of parent and child and helper and helped are muddied. The patient must learn when to ask for help and the caregiver must learn when to offer it. Both sides take a fair amount of grace; the rules are fairly ambiguous. Sometimes you want help when you don’t really need it. Sometimes you don’t ask for help, but require it.

Most of all, I like being asked to brush Ada’s hair, and accept the critiques around the ponytail being too tight, and lumpy on top. Another day she wants braids, and I take the time to make a clean part down the center back because she hasn’t let me braid her hair in years, and she and I both know that I am savoring it. After her hand is in the new cast, she could brush her own hair, but keeps asking me to do it, always in the final moments before rushing out the door. She still packs her own bag, and gets her socks, checks for her OMNY card, and refills her water bottle. She is capable, but insists I do the brushing. I could tell her to do it herself, or at least go find the hairbrush herself, but then there I am, brushing her hair, and she is letting her hair be brushed. Really, we are both helping each other with our own versions of offering a gentle embrace.

[Thanks to all my new, paid subscribers. To all considering upgrading to a paid subscription, you get lots of extra recs like those below, two additional times per month.]

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Recommendations:

• To see: Jacob and I went to see the Taryn Simon show, Father Country I Do Love You, at the Guggenheim on Saturday. It’s so ambitious in scope and ambitious. Make sure you give yourself at least two hours. It requires real stamina (and probably two visits), but is really so impressive. I recommend going on a weekday when it’s less crowded or ease of reading placards.

• To do: This weekend is Open House New York, where hundreds of venues across the city are opening up for special programs and open studios. Planning to pop by Powerhouse for their puppetmaking with the kids, and head to the Navy Yard to see some open studios.

• Obsessed with: these lantern sculptures by Jason Sho Green. Would love to see IRL.

• Watching: Youth by Sharon Horgan, which, or Horgan fans, need no convincing. I was never entirely sold on her, despite enjoying Bad Sisters (I’m mid on Catastrophe), but think the writing and combination of self-deprecating humor and giving oneself grace in this new show are so well done.

• To listen + to read:

  • This interview on Search Engine with the writer Meghan O’Gieblyn, “Unreliable Narrator,” which explores how we are often just that in our own lives, particularly when it comes to justifying the limits of our own will. It’s clear very quickly that she’s a brilliant thinker and communicates her ideas with such incredible clarity.

  • After listening, I immediately went out to get her new memoir, Will and Attention, that explores—as a former addict who grew up in a fundamentalist household—this idea of the limitations and edges of willpower (through philosophy, religion, and personal experience) and the role of developing one’s attention. Reading this now and it is really so impressive.

• To bake: Made Yossy Arefi’s Easy Chocolate Cake (NYT Cooking), filled it with chocolate ganache, frosted it with mocha whipped cream, and decorated with crushed heath bars. 10/10 very good.

• New-to-me-apple: Went apple picking in Hudson last weekend and discovered the new-to-me apple varietal, the Koru. Mid-size, sweet, very crunchy, just tart enough. Highly recommend. One of my favorite websites, applerankings.com, whose editorialization is like early aughts internet, gives it a mere 55, but I think it’s far, far above average.

Recs, please: Open forum. Anything you’ve been loving: a book, a movie, a recipe, a podcast!

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The quality of a book, I find, is often subject to the mindset I’m in when I’m reading it. In an ideal world, my time and the focus meet the momentum of the page. It’s the most glorious when the reading does not feel effortful, but like a set of of highly anticipated reveals and discoveries. My favorites, as you’ll see below, are often those with a concise and slightly absurd construct. I love the sentence so lyrically crafted that I want to read it aloud. I love an ensemble cast, whose complexity can only be captured across generations. I love an idea, often mundane, stated in such a way that it feels profound.

These are ten titles—some new, some older, and mostly slim in page count, that I think often of for their outsized impact.

• Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee: I’ve been listening to a lot of interviews with Min Jin Lee (with David Remnick, on Radio Atlantic, on This is Uncomfortable, on Poured Over, ) with on account of her new book, American Hagwon, and was reminded of the opening line of Free Food, “Competence can be a curse.” If you’ve ever struggled under the burden of your own capability, this book explores the complexities of status, merit, and recognition, and, in tandem with her other novels is a real tour de force.

[Editor’s note: if you’re a free subscriber, but enjoy my writing, I hope you’ll consider upgrading to a paid subscription this fall. You’ll get access to these bonus recs, and to my entire Substack archive, and it supports the time and effort I put into this newsletter. And, to all my paid subs, thank you, thank you, for the continued support. For related content: 73 Books I Highly Recommend]

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Ceramics to obsess over:

• Jacob sent me a link to these mugs by Indonesian potter, Nabila Nareswari, made using a technique called Nerikomi, that involves coloring and stacking clay, then slicing it in profile, to reveal intricate designs. (Discovered via Kottke). This reel of her constructing the designs gets at the remarkable precision and labor involved in the patterns. A real blend of art and science.

• It also reminded me of the nerikomi techniques of potter Cody Hoyt, whose work I first encountered when I had a studio up in Greenpoint. Remarkable vases and sculptural pieces.

• One of my favorite ceramicists, Maggie Boyd, has a new book coming out in November, How to Make a Pot, and it’s available for pre-sale from Sacred Bones Records.

Art shows I’m excited to see IRL:

• Nikki Maloof: Menagerie at Perrotin, inticate paintings of imagined interiors and animals, up through October 17th.

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2 notebooks f…

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School has somehow not yet started, Dolly, Wendell Berry, and Gloria Steinem have passed in quick succession, and storms continue to sweep in: heavy lightning, flash floods, a derecho, a possible tornado. There’s a catastrophic flood in Nepal, another in the Grand Canyon; it’s a deluge of water, of heat, of effort, of loss. It’s end-of-season, it’s a transition, it’s anticipation (or anticipatory dread), and as my hot yoga teacher with the live-laugh-love energy kept saying in class ad nauseam, “Change is inevitable. Nothing is permanent.”

I get it. I do.

Ada, for whatever reason, has reached the peak of sweetness. She’s gracious. She brings us coffee in bed, knowing the specific ways we take it. She reminds me she loves me multiple times a day. She admires people’s dogs on the street and compliments their earrings, their boots, their hair. She holds doors for others. She gives up her hair tie when I need one. She willingly babysits her brother and his friends. She’s agreeable about doing her summer reading and essay writing. She pleads for blind box squishy dumplings and dangly earrings, and when I eventually give in, the delight is beyond.

This sweetness, too, I mourn because I know it is ephemeral, and I wonder if it’s the relative languor of summer, time with family, removal from the demands of school and activities, space from social drama. Is it her particular age, is she in the eye of the storm, or is it a true maturation?

I can’t really know, but in a week, siblings who have walked to and from school together for the last 6 years, will go in separate ways, with their separate friends, their experiences diverging more than ever before. So, in ways, though I can’t wait for summer to end, I’m hanging onto that that particularly sweet strand of right now.

Below, Bonus recs for the best eats of end-of-summer, back-to-school stylings for the kids, my fave new socks, and more.

End-of-summer hits:

• Perfect Ice Cream Sandwiches: Some family introduced us to the Nightingale Ice Cream Sandwich. They come in mini sizes and have ideal ice cream cookie sandwich texture. I’m partial to the chocolate blackout and the strawberry shortcake, but you really can’t go wrong.

• Post-sun hydration: This Fat and the Moon Aloe Lotion was recommended to me for post-sun recovery and my skin has been grateful for it.

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I’m putting together a longer essay about the mental gymnastics of extended family vacations, so a short Bonus Recs edition today with some summer hits: 2 bags that do it all, a summer dessert, an exhibit, great shorts + some good reads.

• Beach schlepper tote: This LL Bean Everyday Lightweight Tote Bag is the MVP of beach bags. It’s super spacious, but folds down into nothing, is water resistance, has useful exterior pockets, a top zipper, and long-enough straps for easy carrying. (I also love this giant tote from Seaesta Surf as an alt).

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Nothing sends me more into a tizzy than the endless recommendations to go to a dollar store or Target and get a whole package full of $1 plastic trinkets, a real trash-in, trash-out approach to trying to attain some momentary satisfaction. I can guarantee that whatever fidget, squishy, key chain, miniature stuffed thing you send, will result in only ephemeral joy, and that what comes home and stays in the Bin of Treasured Objects is usually the cards and letters and photographs.

The value of the care package is an olive branch from the wild, the idea that you’re thinking of them, a reminder of the world outside their momentarily very analog in-the-woods-on-a-lake microcosm, and the best you can do is play into that pace, rather than burst it open too soon.

Here’s what I recommend:

• Wreck This Journal or Finish This Book, the best kind of part-journal, activity book, creative writing book I’ve found for kids 8+.

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We dropped Ada off for her second summer of sleep away camp yesterday, an event she’s been anticipating all year long. She’s the kid whose wanted to go since she was five, when she first became aware of havens in the woods where kids do arts and crafts, high ropes, and wander all day between mess hall and lake—…

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Paid subscribers get access to Bonus Recs, two extra posts a month with recommendations on everything from 10 ways of pare…

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I’ve asked the kids if they can feel all the energy of New York City. There’s the socialist almost-sweep of the primaries on Tuesday. There’s Zohran on the Knicks parade float. There’s Rama, wearing her custom Knicks-knockoff-merch dress, people clamoring up light posts and onto bus stops to catch a view of Jalen, TAK, and the rest of the Knicks team alongside the mayor and his wife.

Do they notice that the sun is out later, that it’s harder to leave the playground before 8 p.m., that the early spring flowers have fully given way to the roses and the sunflowers? They go from asking how many weeks are left of school to how many days to single digits of days, to declaring they don’t want to go to the last day because it means it will be over.

I think about the last few months, the momentum of the city coexisting with the tumult of being a human. Teachers and parents encouraging and pushing kids through their routines and across finish lines. Parades, celebrations, elections, tests, performances, new schools, old schools, stepping up, moving forward, leaving behind.

Ada asks me to walk her to school for the first time in months. I tell her to look at me during the ceremony if she feels nervous. Heart hands. Heart hands.

Here are 10 acts of parental anticipation, inner resolve, and trying to see each other. They’re little moments of non-verbal communication: parent to kid, kid to parent. They are the ones that say I’m here, I heard you, I see that it’s hard, everything is changing, I know it’s a lot.

• Sitting next to Ada as she practiced piano every day for 6 months without saying a word. Presence, not critique. A big whisper, “thank you,” as she walks off the stage, and past us in the aisle.

• Getting some empty notebooks and leaving them near the kids’ beds when I saw the other ones had been filled up with lyrics and lists and letters and stories. Books and blank paper are two things I’ll never be stingy about.

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Before the recital, she was at a friend’s house, and I was low-key thrilled to get this text after a week of being Mom Who Nags Child to Practice Piano for Recital because being asked to “chat” by my own child is the best affirmation this whole parenting thing is going decently well.

I’m trying to take this “here when my kid needs me” energy into summer, a season of many transitions, later nights, more sugar, more mess, less routine, and so many assertions of independence butting up against need.

Here are some recs for summer, end-of-school-year-survival, and Brooklyn events I’ve got my eye on.

• Rec League: Enjoying the experience on Rec League (find me here), especially the function where you can ask questions and get recommendations back. Last week, I asked about the best desserts to bring to a summer gathering, and now I’m hankering to make an Eton Mess.

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We looked at some thrift shops, then at Macys and on Nordstroms.com, and aft…

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Since then, both kids—now 10.5 and 8.5—have grown many inches, style preferences have shifted, and everyone is weighing in with stronger opinions. My very fashion-forward 10 year old is at the upper end of kid-sizing. A lot of boutique brands only go up to Size 6T/8T, and tween / junior sizes are extremely irregular so it requires some real hunting to accommodate the physical changes (legs as long as mine!) while finding styles neither too kid-ish or too womanly.

The 8 year old is still a friend of pattern and color, whether it’s stripes, tie dye, or a leopard print, but must be in t-shirt, sweatpants, or sweatshirt form. This can be limiting, but I’m determined that we can find clothes he can move in that don’t involve the word “tech” in the fabric description, can feature lots of color and minimal commercial IP, and need not live squarely in the color spectrum of blues and grays.

With both kids, I see myself as the procurer of quality-basics-that-fit, that they can layer onto with their own individualizing touches. Ada is going to add earrings or a necklace, cute socks, a hat/beret, scarf, etc. “Special pieces” (like a crocheted black shawl and platform boots) also come from consignment / thrifting. Julian accessorizes with fun socks and a variety of hats. (Ada recently splurged with her own money on this Dill Pickle hat).

Recs for basics (pants, shorts, and tees) below. (Sending this today b/c many sales go through EOD!)

Pants

I will admit that I mostly get the kids pants that I would like to wear for myself and thus am often jealous of their clothes. For the tween, the only acceptable pants these days have an elastic waist and wide legs (no flares, no jeans, no straight-up leggings), which honestly, I understand.

• Light cotton wide leg flares with a fun prints are carrying a lot of weight this season. Mini Rodini cotton flares, Misha & Puff A-pants (we’ve tried both as gifted items) and Hanna Anderson all have good options. Tiny Cottons has a great version in a toweling material that would be a good swim cover-up as well.

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1. The cornmeal chocolate chip cookie from Elbow Bakery in Dimes Square that uses both milk/dark chocolate and has a little crunch is honestly ideal. Consumed right after my annual checkup where my doctor seemed pleasantly surprised by my general well-being and even told me I could dial down my Vitamin D intake.

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