Did a friend forward this to you?
Last week’s newsletter , wasn’t it? Hurricane Dorian was crawling up the coast and I was stocking up on water and canned goods, hoping my little beach town would make it through another storm.
Lucky for us, the hurricane skirted Wilmington and other than an alarming number of tornado warnings very early in the morning, it wasn’t that bad. I drank half a bottle of wine and read Fleishman is in Trouble, a sharp and smart novel about marriage gone wrong (my favorite kind!). I’m incredibly grateful and will save my canned goods for the next hurricane, which will surely come at some point. Thanks to everyone who checked in and sent sweet messages. You’re all the best.
Moving on! As usual, I had high hopes and big plans for this month. Thanks to years in academia, September always feels like a new beginning, a fresh start. I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while, because it marks one year since Hurricane Florence and two at my job. Those anniversaries will happen and September has barely begun, but I already feel like I’ve fallen behind. Behind on what? I don’t know! It’s like there’s an invisible calendar tattooed on my heart and even though I can’t see it, I feel time slipping away.
September must be that kind of month because my dear friend Erica wrote about a similar feeling in . “Especially in a moment where everything feels urgent, it’s important for me to pinpoint a few things and practice discipline.”
When I read those words, I thought: Oh. The calendar in my heart fluttered to a stop and stood still. The overwhelm I feel to do all the things is often paralyzing, and I become a prisoner of my own ambition. Because I didn’t accomplish everything, I feel like I’ve accomplished nothing. And so I like this idea of focusing on one or two things and orienting my life around those goals, of slowing down so that I can do more.
This month, I want to focus on my new project by writing short scenes and thinking about plot. I want to be intentional about spending time with people I love. I want to lift heavy weights and avoid added sugars. I want to read three books, and I've already finished one. Maybe September is off to a good start after all. 💛
🌱 Plant of the Week 🌱
Say hello to my new fiddle leaf fig, which I scooped up at Trader Joe's for $10.99!!! FLFs are notoriously hard to care for, despite being the houseplant darling of Instagram. They're picky about light and water, don't like to be moved, and love to dramatically drop leaves at the smallest slight. I'm currently nursing a big one back to health, but in the meantime I'm going use all the lessons I've learned the hard way on this little guy.
Relatable Reads
Want Stronger Friendships? Pull Out Your Notepad, NPR. Did I read this article and immediately create a spreadsheet to track and monitor my friendships? I'll give you one guess. Honestly, though, this article had some great tips. 👯♀️
What Makes a Millennial Novel? The Guardian. "Self-definition is a millennial forte, but its novelists seem dubious of anything so earnest as defining a literary epoch. Their fictional worlds lambast our need for external validation and commodified selfhood of the kind that feeds late capitalism, even as they acknowledge their complicity and the impossibility of extrication." 📚
Amazon Pushes Fast Shipping But Avoids Responsibility for the Human Cost, New York Times. I've said it once and I'll say it again: Cancel. Your. Amazon. Prime. Membership. 👏
Also I'm refreshing The Cut nonstop while desperately waiting for the new Caroline Calloway article to come out, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, consider yourself lucky. 🌸
A Tiny Challenge
Focus is the name of the game. Choose one thing from your endless to do list, and get it done.
See you next Sunday! 💌
Want to buy me a ☕️?
Venmo: @Christine-Hennessey