I’ve been struggling to write a newsletter, because my primary sentiment around parenting these days is that some of us are very lucky and others are raising children in excruciating circumstances. Julian had his sixth birthday earlier this week and the dissonance of that kind of present-opening, brownie-eating, reading-to-your-kid’s-class-joy in contrast with the news/social media, is a mental processing exercise that requires a lot of compartmentalization and emotional space.
Parents are told during times of tragedy to maintain a calm presence, that your stress and anxiety becomes reflected in your child, that you should tell them about events in an age-appropriate way, to ask open-ended questions and see what they know. But there’s no way to perfectly calibrate your relative awareness to their relative naïveté in situations with no straightforward narrative. There’s something akin to constant performance in the mode switching, a type of exhaust that’s hard to explain.
Yesterday morning I went to a yoga class to try and combat some of the exhaust. The teacher was a substitute, whose gift for making deep and connective eye contact was compassion realized. She ended the class with a reading from Buddhist teacher and peace activist, Thich Nhat Hanh’s writing on compassionate listening that resonated with me, and may with you, too:
We are all capable of recognizing that we’re not the only ones who suffer when there is a hard situation. The other person in that situation suffers as well, and we are partly responsible for his or her suffering. When we realize this, we can look at the other person with the eyes of compassion and let understanding bloom. With the arrival of understanding, the situation changes and communication is possible.
Any real peace process has to begin with ourselves… We have to practice peace to help the other side make peace. - Thich Nhat Hanh
Four Articles/Essays from the last 12 days trying to process the events in Israel/Gaza that have stayed with me:
“What Happened to Empathy? We have become inured to human suffering.” by Xochitl Gonzalez [The Alantic]
I Don’t Have to Post About My Outrage. Neither Do You. by Elizabeth Spiers [NYT Opinion]
Have We Learned Nothing? by David Klion [n+1]
A Textbook Case of Genocide by Raz Segal [JewishCurrents]
Other recommendations:
To Listen to:
Echolocations: River, the 2017 instrumental album by Andrew Bird, which is just intoxicating.
Sufjan Stevens’ new album, Javelin, dedicated to his late partner, Evans Richardson. I swear every album of his just gets more and more heartbreaking.
The podcast, Classy, hosted by Jonathan Menjivar, about the conversations we tend to avoid about class. He talks about class mobility, class anxiety, the role of race, class signifiers, and much more.
Currently reading:
Momfluenced by Sara Petersen, a deep dive into the origins of influencer culture, the rise of momfluencers, how their dominance over the domestic spending makes them an especially potent form of driving consumerism, and so much more juicy fodder. (She also writes a great Substack called In Pursuit of Clean Countertops).
Our Strangers by Lydia Davis, whose precision with word choice and sentence structure is ever impressive. Published under the new Bookshop imprint.
Emily Gould wrote a profile on Park Slope Parents’ founder, Susan Fox and it’s exactly the profile I’ve wanted for years. The much mythologized parent-group, demystified! [Curbed]
Hope by Andrew Ridker, a great Franzen-esque dysfunctional family drama, set in Brookline, MA, around a Jewish family navigating the fallout of the dad’s medical research malpractice. I also recommended this as the guest writer for Alisha Ramos’ newsletter, Downtime, last Friday. (Welcome to anyone who found me from there!)
In the queue: Roman Stories, the new collection of stories by Jhumpa Lahiri, and The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy.
Randoms:
“What is the Best Kids’ Bedding?,” a piece I wrote for The Strategist. Personal faves include the Lewis sheets, the Revival Cotton Sheets, this heavyweight Hillery Sproatt throw blanket (we use on the couch), and the Misha & Puff x West Elm Sheets (extremely cute + very cozy). Learned I’m not really a linen sheets person but to each their own!
Trader Joe’s Scallion Pancakes are legit delicious. Haven’t tried the viral sensation TJ’s kimbap yet, but am excited to!
The Hulken rolling bag/cart is not advertised as such, but turns out it’s the best laundry basket on wheels ever (esp if you live in a building w/basement laundry like us).
I got the chance to go to a live taping of Min Jin Lee on the Mash-Up Americans and they have a video of the episode on their site (the second half is with astrologer Chani Nicholas). Lee is an utter force. <3
I’m watching Deadloch, the Australian crime-comedy show, based on the recs in the thread of the Culture Study newsletter. A few episodes in and it’s uniquely weird/great.
Rec request: It’s actually chilly out now, so send me your favorite soup recipes, please! ‘Til next time.
The smitten kitchen red lentil soup dal style from her second cookbook (smitten kitchen everyday) is so great. Heidi Swanson has some great soups in her Near and Far cookbook as well.
https://makepurethyheart.com/vegan-tinola-recipe/