Tender lumplings everywhere

+ best of list

K is trying to teach me the words of her favorite song from The Nightmare Before Christmas. I just looked up the lyrics, I have about seventy-five percent still to learn. 

Her media tastes are specific: Into the Woods, Labyrinth, and, of course, Tim Burton. She performs elaborate song and dance routines dozens of times a day. “Boys and girls of every age. Wouldn’t you like to see something strange?”

---

It’s a season of waiting. A lego advent calendar counts down to Christmas. Also, a chain of paper rings hangs from a stuffed dinosaur who swings on a plant holder (?) and each morning she tears off a ring. Only a few to go. 

And after Christmas, it’s New Year’s and after New Year’s, I turn 41. And then, a few days later, we drive 14 hours to wait for our second child to be born. And then! A family of four. (Though K does not like it when we say that we will be a family of four. She argues and lists every person she loves and who loves us and says that our family is much bigger than four.)

I’ve talked before about a phrase I’ve repeated to myself almost every day for 10 years now. 

“This, too, is a day of my life.”

I started saying it in 2013 when the days were excruciating. When I was undiagnosed and a major relationship had ended and my body was in agony. This. Even this. This is a day of my life.

And during this season, as our family anticipates what’s next, I have to keep reminding myself to notice the days we are living in. Burrowing under the covers at night to watch The Good Wife with David. Living with a musical theater phenom. The comforting weight of Honeypuppy. When K asks me to describe “the features” of my lego creations. 

And when I take time to notice, I’m eventually reminded of this: a holiday season in which no one is desperately ill, hospitalized, in mental distress, or forcibly separated from me is something to be grateful for. The fact that we are at home, that we have a home, that we watch movies, that I ordered a dozen tiny onion and gruyere tarts to be delivered on Friday, every one of these things are gifts. 

---

I want to end my last newsletter of 2023 with some of my favorite things that I read, heard, and watched this year. My favorites are those that moved me — that helped me remember how something sacred is formed when we live as if we belong to one another. 

Reading:

A Girlhood: Letter to My Transgender Daughter by Carolyn Hays

Of the hundred-plus books I read this year, this was my favorite. I don’t want to spoil anything, but the love she describes in this book, both inside herself and from her loved ones, is a kind of love that makes me feel religious. It’s a shield and a fortress. 

Reporting on Long Covid Taught Me to Be a Better Journalist by Ed Yong

Ed Yong’s reporting is evidence of journalism’s power. He does not have long covid but has covered it with ardor and a relentlessly open mind. I want to emulate his moral clarity in my own work. And the way he crafts a sentence. Stunning. If the paywall blocks you with this one, lmk. 

1,374 Days: My Life with Long Covid by Giorgia Lupi

Unlike Ed, Giorgia has long covid (which often includes POTS, one of my illnesses). What an absolute balm to see my parts of my own experience reflected this way. Millions of Americans have LC and I think really learning about the experience is crucial, if we are to be empathetic friends, family, and coworkers to those navigating new bodies and minds. Her data visualization is a beautiful way to learn. 

Watching:

Somebody Somewhere 

This show is perfect. If you watch it, will you tell me? 

I Have Nothing

Every time comedian Carolyn Taylor hears this Whitney Houston song, she pictures a figure skating routine and so, after years of the routine living in her head, she decides to do something about it. This docuseries about her efforts to choreograph professional skaters for a one-time performance felt like a hug and a reminder of the most charming and bizarre parts of being human. Currently, it’s only available in Canada, but rumor has it that it will be making its way south soon. 

Listening:

Sharing Place episode of Heavyweight

I suspect David was alarmed when he walked in on me listening to this one. I was absolutely weeping. There were two things I loved. One, the purity of children describing their emotional experience (e.g. it’s like a sore throat that’s stuck). Two, the gorgeous dignity of telling people the truth about hard things. 

Stand Clear of the Closing Doors episode of This American Life

Maybe story is the whole point. There is a woman, a mother named Adama Bah, who lives in New York. She leaves her apartment most nights of the week to meet asylum seekers as they arrive on buses. The buses arrive in Times Square and the migrants are meant to find their way to the Roosevelt Hotel, but they often get lost. So Adama has hired additional buses to take them there. She’s not an immigration officer, she isn’t working for the city. She was an asylum seeker once herself and knows how scary it is. So now, almost every night, she rides the bus with them to the hotel. And on the way she says this:

Bienvenidos a Nueva York. You are in New York City, in Manhattan, in Port Authority. We want to welcome you. We're going to count you, and we're going to put you in another bus and transport you to Roosevelt Hotel, where there's a bathroom, there's water, there's food, and there's Wi-Fi… listen, this is a country of immigrants. I am an immigrant. I am from Africa. I am from Guinea. I'm an immigrant just like you.

I made it, and you will make it. It's not easy in the beginning, but it will get better. You're welcome here. 

---

Each of these reminded me of the same thing: life is so so hard and even still, we can find one another. When we believe that the truth and the details of another person’s story are important, something alchemizes. We are miracles. 

Season’s Greetings from my huge family to yours. And, as always, wishing you a few very good moments.