35 Pleasures
I had a birthday and I feel walloped by gratitude AND the strain of holding all the realities of my life and the world's lives in the same breath as pleasure.
The day of my birthday, I spent multiple hours on the phone trying to get a hematology visit scheduled. A referral was placed on April 17th. It had not made it to the hematologist. The lost files are typical of my year so far—ever piece of tech and data gets lost and I spend hours tracking it down, even hand delivering one referral between Mechanicsburg and Hershey, a 30+minute drive one way not including the time to reach my home afterwards. I called their scheduling who sent me to referrals who talked to their boss who sent me to new patient who sent me to scheduling who said to talk to referrals. The lost referral was eventually found; when they processed the paperwork, one of the drs said “She isn’t new. She was my patient when she was in the hospital.”
Where go?!
language worlds colliding in the hospital where I ended up after a medication gone wrong.
So I get to see the kind hematologist who I slightly and unfairly resent for being the one to deliver the news I was being admitted at all, news I got by waking up from a deep night-at-the-ER sleep to a room (a room! of my very own!) full of nervous residents, med students, and their attending hematologist who told me I definitely needed to stay longer than a few IV rounds.
It made me happy to be remembered from two brief interactions, to be claimed from the scheduling pile for priority scheduling—it made me mad/sad/disoriented that I have anything so interesting that two brief consultations amidst two weeks of hospital care are memorable enough to know my case in a general meeting.
So. My 35th birthday passed the way much of my year has passed, doing all the things that must be done so my body can keep going. The next day though, I claimed my time and took it in luxury. A massage with lymphatic drainage. Acupuncture. A new bookstore to browse. Sitting in my favorite red chair reading the new
book I bought (a true delight of a book by someone who loves the gleeful use of extravagant vocabulary). TraderJoes goodies. Texting friends.The dr news recently seems more positive. Then I saw my thyroid numbers had crept back up. Perhaps I am not as resolved as I thought. (I hear one dr say to me “You have a chronic condition” and it feels like an accusation—don’t you remember? This isn’t going away.)
I feel really grateful to be alive. So much of what happens in life feels random. Completely outside of my control. What seems to be in my control are the little things, the tiny pleasures. And I’m trying to look more directly at them.
Further context to this is that my brain has been cruel recently. A reaction to the stressors. A stressor on stressors. Real life is not abated by pleasures. The pain isn’t tempered exactly. But it is a way of looking elsewhere. I don’t mind looking away sometimes. Orienting myself in my senses and opting for sensory experiences that I enjoy.
This also means I need to say what I’ve been dancing around talking about for months. A dancing around as I watch a McCarthy era surveillance system sprout up to send every artist and writer and celebrity and human into a “camp” with social consequences attached to it all. An intensity to this practice that has me back in working for a church, silent for fear of what my real thoughts would do to my standing, how I would lose my community if they knew who and how I loved. (reader, I lost them)
When my kid was born, Russia invaded Ukraine. A month later, an image came across my instagram. A woman on a stretcher in front of a bombed building. Its label: “maternity hospital bombed”. I didn’t sleep afterwards. That image is seared in my head. Still. I can see it and feel the pain of my csection as a somatic memory with the image.
I’ve had to keep my eyes on my own paper since October 7th. I don’t read the news. I hear the news passed to me through the emotions expressed by others. It’s impossible to avoid. Should not be avoided? Must be avoided to keep a handle on space and time?
The gross destruction of human life that sends me towards pleasure. I’ve felt this ache to hold a baby and smell its hair, to feel silk on my skin after a hot bath, to taste something delicious, to kiss a beautiful face, in the most contrary places—a dump, a killing field, a betrayal.
be alive be alive be alive
stay alive stay alive stay alive
be be be
live live live
Imperatives in every body that has breathed. Imperatives we should protect in each other.
I’ve been really admiring the way the writers at VibeCheck handle this. They swing from topic to topic, keeping the intensity of the world in view while also leaning into its pleasures. I admire their insistence (undiscussed but ever present) to look at life in multifaceted parallel realities: to hold the pain of the world up for inspection, to hold its absurdity, its nuances, their own losses and joys in simultaneous attention, in the belief that it all deserves attention. It’s a dance that makes me want to break apart.
Just make it stop. How can it be so hard to make it stop?
A birthday ask
Would you do something for me? As I pass into the portal of my late 30s?
Give to World Central Kitchen. They feed good food to people who need to eat. They source that food from real communities and food people. They mobilize. They sacrifice. They give their lives in the belief of human dignity.
They are in Gaza. In Rafa. Egypt. Israel. They lost team members in April in a missile strike. They go and keep going.
Pleasures
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Massages. Omg I’ve loved massages forever. I feel a gratitude and loyalty to (almost) every person who has touched my body in this context. To offer care and love.
Acupuncture. There is no logical reason I should feel this energetically realigned by needles placed in my skin. But I do everytime. Like chiropractic in my spirit.
Coffee shops and their unique specificity. A place made on purpose amid streets worn down without purpose.
Black Rose coffee from Elementary.
West coast swing. The surprise each time I dance. How no two moments are ever the same. The comraderie at the tables among the follows, the hushed, unvarnished, giggle-ridden exchanges about our lives.
Reading writing out loud. The sound of my voice reading writing out loud.
Writing workshops. The sense of being with others loving a process together. I went to this one recently by Amanda Montei on embracing interruption. And this open mic for mothers day with Speak Your Peace by Leesha Mony.
Running my hands through Robbie’s hair. The smell of his neck in the morning.
Bookstores. Indie bookstores. Bookstores curated by real people for their communities.
The way my kid laughs when she’s hyper and performing a laugh to get us to laugh with her.
The smell of her hair, her morning breath, all graham crackers and strawberries
The friends who say “thinking of you”
The friends who say “here to think with you”
Hand written letters.
Sheets. What a great invention. What cool softness to let myself down into.
Loose leaf tea. I love a local shop that sells a whole bunch of loose leaf tea.
The way every cloudy day with a slight chill and some drizzle has Robbie saying “Smells like Ireland.”
Living among a wild generation of nonfiction geniuses. I feel so inadequate and jealous and also… I get to be alive? Now? My writing gets to happen in this context? Really?
Seltzer water. Sparkling water. Whatever. I’ve been off alcohol almost a year now for medical reasons. It’s long enough that a Trader Joe’s cranberry and lime selzer water tastes like a cocktail and I end these spring evenings feeling like I haven’t missed a thing (that thing being gin which I definitely do miss).
Or this kombucha which at I get at Little Amps which really feels like a rose replacement.
I’ve always loved dangly earrings. I’ve loved the pair I’m wearing in that first photo since 2014 when Robbie bought them in a Mostar market for me.
Trader joes vegan pesto sauce. A boon for my gluten and dairy free life this year.
Silk
My tbr pile. It’s honestly too much most of the time. But sometimes it slips into anticipation and satisfaction that there are so many great covers to look at and words to read. I’m a much slower reader than I used to be. But I think my pacing is improving over the last several months and that feels good and familiar.
It’s so beautiful. I’m so overwhelmed. .
Owning art. It wasn’t on my metaphorically childhood vision board to own art. But I own several original pieces by women I know personally. And that feels really special
Rollercoasters at exactly the right speed. I think my edge is 65mph which is slow compared to the top speeds amusement parks are vying for these days. 65mph where it starts to feel like a concussion in motion. But below that is thrilling, like flying, the perfect dose of adrenaline and delight and awareness of risk and absurdity and no fear.
Sleep. I will write about this more but I started working with a sleep therapist this spring. It’s changed my sleep life dramatically. It’s no longer something I actively fear each night. And here’s a great pillow. The klubbsporre pillow by Ikea.
The way Pippin says “What that?” all day every day. Yesterday she asked about thunder and I got to tell her about lightning and electricity. The other day, she asked a question about stars and Robbie showed her pictures of galaxies.
Collaboration. I’m working with a videography team in Harrisburg to make a promotion video for CreativeMornings. They are so kind and detailed. Doing it totally for free. Ran into the studio owner at a city fest last weekend.
Running into people whose names I know at a city event. It feels more like a home to accidentally see someone I’ve met in a different context, even if it was just the week prior.
Bluey. That stupid episode on moving. The Lazarus song that DESTROYS ME. But also this ad.
Feel Good! A netflix show by Mae Martin. Who I am infatuated with. I don’t follow comedy so had no idea who they were before a happenstance youtube encounter. And now I’m watching everything they make. And my god do I find them swoony.
Trader Joes semisweet chocolate chips. Dairy free!
Meeting internet friends in person. Staying at their house! Going to a booksale together!
Ecstasy by Jia Tolentino. Broke my brain wide open. The version in her book Trick Mirror is better.
Remember. World Central Kitchen.
And make the phone calls your heart tells you to make.