On Things I Won't Forget

What I Already Miss

• Lazy Saturdays at coffee shops

• Dining in at restaurants

• Window shopping

• Hugs. Won’t it be wild when we can touch each other again?

• Dropping by… anything

• Concerts and live shows

• Dinner parties

• Strong federal leadership

What I Don’t Miss

• Traffic

• Long lines

• Indecision

• Arrogance

What I Won’t Miss

• Panic buying

• Hoarding

• Uncertainty

• Hysteria

• Misinformation

• Over-scheduling

• The worst of humanity

• Greed

• The jarring sensation of seeing a tightly packed group of people in pre-C19 photos, movies, and shows

What I Won’t Forget

• Always having a little extra on hand: toilet paper, home cooked meals, a kind word, patience

• How quickly people stepped up in the absence of leadership

• Medical professionals becoming soldiers in wartime

• Small kindnesses — a small wave from a neighbor, a socially distant smile in the grocery store aisle

• Washing hands for 20 seconds, paying extra attention to fingertips, nooks and crannies, and the backs of hands.

• The simple power of soap

• Cuddling with my dog isn’t just a luxury — it’s downright essential

• Gratitude. Today, it’s perfectly-cooked-can-see-every-grain rice; new orders from customers; hot water dispensers; bananas; Snoh Aalegra’s “I want you around”

• Lulls and downtime

• The joy of reading

• Humility

Inspired by MR: “What I won’t forget: That New York is New Yorkers and nothing else.”

We’re always in need of a little perspective. Pause to have a little cry.

“How are you doing?” “Maintaining” Running out of ways to respond to “How are you”? I’ve got you.

Lazy dinner ideas. Just because you’re doing a lot of home cooking doesn’t mean every meal has to be James Beard-worthy. Some of my go-tos: kimchi fried rice; tamago scrambled eggs; ANY KIND OF TOAST; cheese and crackers a la Lunchables; cacio e pepe pasta, tinned sardines with a little mayo and diced pickles; omelets

Just learned that Dalgona coffee is a thing.

You can color the NYTimes now.

Reminder that Netflix Party is a Chrome extension that lets you watch Netflix and chat with your friends.

“Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would have never begun. We are mistaken when we compare war with “normal life.” Life has never been normal.” - C.S. Lewis, in a speech to Oxford students in 1939.

Nothing to see here.

Jenny Rosentrach’s Project, Pantry, Purpose series is wonderful.

Despite there being so many cancelled events, there’s still a lot to do. The world continues to be our oyster.

Don’t forget to complete the US Census. Everyone deserves to be counted.

On Grief

That discomfort you’re feeling is grief. David Kessler is the world’s foremost expert on grief and I found his thoughts on discomfort comforting: “Anticipatory grief is that feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain […] To calm yourself, you want to come into the present.” An easy way to do that, he suggests, is noticing 5 different things in your environment and focusing on their attributes. When asked what to say to someone who’s read all this and is still feeling overwhelmed with grief:

“One unfortunate byproduct of the self-help movement is we’re the first generation to have feelings about our feelings. We tell ourselves things like, “I feel sad, but I shouldn’t feel that; other people have it worse.” We can — we should — stop at the first feeling. “I feel sad. Let me go for five minutes to feel sad.” Your work is to feel your sadness and fear and anger whether or not someone else is feeling something. Fighting it doesn’t help because your body is producing the feeling. If we allow the feelings to happen, they’ll happen in an orderly way, and it empowers us. Then we’re not victims.

And this part resonated with me the most: “This is a temporary state. It helps to say it. This is survivable. We will survive.”

Pro tips on how to live in confined spaces by a NASA astronaut and a formerly imprisoned journalist.

The folks at “Death, Sex & Money” podcast put together a pandemic tool kit with resources to distract you, calm you, and galvanize you.

Monterey Bay Aquarium Live Cams. Watching sea otters frolic is always a good idea.

Some of these links are from Laura Olin’s excellent weekly newsletter. If you haven’t already, you MUST subscribe.

I always like signing off on my emails and letters. Lately they’ve been C19-related:

• Social distantly yours

• Yours from afar

• Waving to you from 6ft and beyond

• Best (but things could be better)

• Take care (no, seriously)

And speaking of valedictions, Louis Armstrong did it best.

After all these years, we finally find out where the name Triscuit comes from (PLOT TWIST: “Tri” does not mean 3"). Confirmed by Triscuit IRL.

This footage of NBC reporter Deion Broxton backing away from a herd of bison walking his direction made me laugh so hard, I spit up some coffee.

“Hi! What is the white cat’s name?”

I loved Manrepeller Leandra Medine’s reply to a reader’s comment: “One time I told my dad that I was bored at the onset of a two-week break from school and he said what I was feeling wasn’t boredom — it was the lull that occurs in order to make an adjustment. Last night, when I expressed my anxiety much the same way I did my boredom all those years ago, he told me that when you’re a kid, it’s a lull that makes way for an adjustment but that as an adult, it’s usually more intense. Sometimes so much so that it’s crippling. Which it has been! I took a lot of solace in this sentiment, starting to believe in [the] fact that maybe I’m not anxious — just adjusting?”

I have been doing a lot of retail therapy lately but maybe I should get one of these house robes before putting a moratorium on my AMEX. UPDATE: Everything in my size is sold out, so whew.

If you’re local in Atlanta and able to, volunteer as a driver to deliver meals to housebound individuals. One of my friends did it today and said it was incredibly easy. Staff members load up while you remain in your car and you just drop off, knock, and leave. She said the whole thing took about 2 hrs of her day.

A reminder that physical distance (and even time!) doesn’t diminish the bond you have with people in your life. IT MAKES ME CRY EVERY TIME.

“Just something to look at and leave.”

If you’ve made it this far, wow! Thank you. I’ll leave you with Japanese artist Yoshihiro Suda’s hyper-realistic sculptures of plants and flowers in the tradition of Japanese woodcarving and National Geographic photographer Eliza Scidmore’s photos of everyday life in Japan from over 100 years ago.

This is a temporary state. This is survivable. We will survive.

On What a Time To Be Alive

Today I turn 31 during one of the most surreal events I’ve ever experienced, despite having lived through 9/11 and a deep recession. But life goes on.

Here’s a list of things I’m grateful for, in no particular order:

• Languid dinners with my mom

• Crying tears of laughter and sadness with my friends

• The way Scotty sighs contentedly when he rests his head on my chest

• Dad jokes from M: “What do Korean kids say instead of ‘yes dad’? K Pop”

• House that smells like butter

• Butter

• London Philharmonic plays Rodgers & Hamerstein

• Turkey Hill lemonade tea

• People who are pretending as if they have the virus and staying inside and away from others. Disasters and crises have a way of bringing out the best in people.

• Medical professionals who live up to their hippocratic oath despite dwindling PPE gear and resources. Here are some ways you can help.

• Grocery store and pharmacy staff members

• Delivery and mail people

• Books

• Libraries

• Freshly baked bread

• Bar Keeper’s Friend (if you know, you know)

• John Mulaney

• Handwritten letters

• Dresses and skirts with pockets

• That feeling when you wake up and realize it’s a Saturday

• The pleasure of doing nothing

I read about a method to help you get back to the present moment:

Sit quietly and look around you for 5 things you can see and identify
Now identify 4 things you can hear
3 things you can feel
2 things you can smell
And 1 thing you can taste

Did it work?

On Distractions

“This week is for believing that the world can still be made new — a feeling that isn’t exactly optimism, but something close. You don’t have to believe that everything will ‘work out,’ that things will ‘be okay,’ that it’ll be possible to return to a state of peaceful equilibrium. you don’t even have to believe that the world you want can be achieved within your own lifetime. Right now, it’ll be enough just to have a burning conviction that a long-needed change is coming, and that you have a role in it.” - My horoscope this week.

There are a lot of dark and despairing places on the internet, but I have decided this is not one of them. Maybe COVID-19 will single-handedly revive the lost art of blogging? Only time will tell. In the meantime, here are some links of levity to temper the roiling ocean of uncertainty:

The Great Pottery Throw Down. Like GBBO, but for potters. See also The Great British Sewing Bee.

Harry Styles Tiny Desk Concert. Better yet, why not binge the whole series on YouTube?

Here’s a thinker to occupy your brain for the rest of the day: apparently not everyone has an internal monologue.

Panda cam.

What makes you swoon? I have a long list, but one of them is the word “cookie.” Whether it’s a kid or a grown-ass adult, there’s no way you can go hearing a person say “Can I have a cookie?” and not give them the whole damn box.

The miracle of moving a piano in NYC. Is it particularly useful information? No. Is it interesting in an esoteric way? Yes.

I read Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here purely because of Taffy Brodessor-Akner’s review. It was a droll, quick read. The ending isn’t particularly inspired, but I don’t know how I could’ve written it better.

I wish I had a chance to meet Richard Geary.

Agnes & Muriel’s and All the Places I Have Loved You by Jessica Tilley Hodgman. “One time, I was described by a man I loved, who didn’t love me, as ‘oceanic.’ As in, ‘a little too much.’ I hung onto you, hoping we were just ‘a little too much’ enough for each other.”

This is as good a time as ever to freshen up your mending (or learn for the first time!) — how to sew a button.

STFU.

Why You Should Rescue a Dog by Eric Kim. “What a huge victory a little life is.” Eric’s writing made me choke up when I was copy editor of our high school literary magazine, and continues to make me F E E L. He’s a MONSTER.

Tiny victories. Sure things can and will go wrong, but what if they go spectacularly right? Call the friend you’ve been meaning to catch up with. Try that recipe you’ve bookmarked for weeks. Reach out to your neighbor to see what you can do to help. Tip extra to the food delivery guy. We don’t have to “make the most” of a pandemic, but we can certainly find ways to make it better.

Even if it’s just a little.

On 5 Things

People Say Gullah Geechee Culture is Disappearing. BJ Dennis Says They’re Wrong both moved me and made my mouth water. I wanted to write a thoughtful response about how food is more than just sustenance (I’m glaring at you, Soylent drinkers) and how each bite is filled with history. But language fails me here. Words just pale in comparison to the explosion of flavors — lovingly coaxed out of freshly caught seafood and locally farmed produce — developed by a culture that withstood centuries of pain to pass their history down generations.*

The San Francisco Chronicle published a multimedia essay on 24 hours inside the city’s homelessness crisis as part of the SF Homeless Project and included a detailed Q&A section (covering questions like SF numbers are particularly high, where does all the funding go, etc). It’s easy to complain that the city isn’t doing enough to solve the problem (I’ve definitely been guilty of this when I was living there), but there are bigger issues at play and the city is working on it.

This poem by Wendell Berry called “Questionaire” (C/O Kottke):

1. How much poison are you willing
to eat for the success of the free
market and global trade? Please
name your preferred poisons.

2. For the sake of goodness, how much
evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks
with the names of your favorite evils
and acts of hatred.

3. What sacrifices are you prepared
to make for the culture and civilization?
Please list the monuments, shrines,
and works of art you would
most willingly destroy.

4. In the name of patriotism and
the flag, how much of our beloved
land are you willing to desecrate?
List in the following spaces
the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
you could most readily do without.

5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
the energy sources, the kinds of security,
for which you would kill a child.
Name, please, the children whom
you would be willing to kill.

And this one that Stacy-Marie Ishmael included in her latest newsletter (definitely recommend subscribing!):

“Demeter’s Prayer to Hades” by Rita Dove

This alone is what I wish for you: knowledge.
To understand each desire has an edge,
to know we are responsible for the lives
we change. No faith comes without cost,
no one believes without dying.
Now for the first time
I see clearly the trail you planted,
what ground opened to waste,
though you dreamed a wealth
of flowers.

There are no curses — only mirrors
held up to the souls of gods and mortals.
And so I give up this fate, too.
Believe in yourself,
go ahead — see where it gets you.

This truly delightful interview Rob Sheffield did on Harry Styles. Eternal sunshine indeed.

*If you’re in Atlanta and craving Gullah Geechee, I recommend Virgil’s Gullah Kitchen in College Park. Get the Shawk Bites, Shrimp & Crab Gravy Rice, and Chucktown Chewie Sundae.

P.S. Pour yourself a glass of wine and read CJ Hauser’s “The Crane Wife”. It’ll break your heart and put it all back together again.