Lindsey Mead's Blog, page 6
November 26, 2020
Thanksgiving
“We are saying thank you thank you we are saying and waving dark though it is.” – WS Merwin. This poem has always run through my head at Thanksgiving and today it is again. On 11/26/17 I shared it with this photo right here because it was our first Thanksgiving without Matt’s father. My own father died three days later. This is the most laden day in the calendar for us: Matt’s parents anniversary and that of my sister’s in-laws (1966), the day Matt’s father received a life saving heart transplant (2002) on Grace’s one month birthday, the day my sister-in-law’s father died (2016) and the day my father died (2017). It is a holy day, no question about it, one limned with deep gratitude and profound loss. I know that loss is felt far and wide this year and extends far beyond my personal grief. And still, dark though it is, I am saying thank you
November 16, 2020
Books I’m buying this year
I’ve written a post like this for the last many years (2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012). Books are my favorite gifts, always and forever, and I like to share those I’m wrapping for gifts each holiday season. I’m also interested in what you are giving and in what you loved in 2020!
Novels:
The Dearly Beloved[image error] – Cara Wall. My favorite book of 2020. For anyone who loves Crossing to Safety or Gilead, this book’s for you. Quiet, powerful, compelling: it’s fantastic.
Transcendent Kingdom[image error] – Yaa Gyasi. I adored Homegoing and this follow up did not disappoint. It’s sweeping in an entirely different way, but made me cry and made me think and just plain made me one iota better, which I think is what the best writing does.
The Book of Longings[image error] – Sue Monk Kidd. This exploration of what the life of Jesus’s wife might have been light was riveting, and I thought about it for many weeks after I finished.
An American Marriage[image error] – Tayari Jones. For some reason I resisted reading this book for a long time and I don’t know why. I adored it. This story is both a solemn exploration of one of America’s most deep-rooted problems and a compelling tale of growth and individuality.
The Vanishing Half[image error] – Brit Bennett. Another book that’s both page-turning and thought-provoking (seeing a real theme here, eh?) I loved it.
Memoirs & Essays:
Notes on a Silencing[image error] – Lacy Crawford. Powerful, revelatory, with writing like a freight train. I read this book in one breathless gulp this summer, wrote about it, and am still recommending it far and wide. I’m proud to call Lacy a friend.
Bright Precious Thing
A Promised Land[image error] – Barack Obama. I admit I haven’t read it yet. But I will. I adored Michelle Obama’s Becoming[image error].
On Being 40(ish)
It’s a little tragic how far I am from buying picture books and books for early readers, as that’s always been one of my favorite categories. So I’ll just share some of my evergreen favorites in that category:
Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words[image error] – Randall Monroe. I love this book. For kids, adults, boys, girls, for anyone. Birthdays, holidays, hostess gifts: you name it, I’ve given it.
Miss Rumphius[image error] – Barbara Cooney. Just the best. I love Miss Rumphius so much I have a tee-shirt with the cover on it. Perennial and beautiful.
Grace for President
Rosie Revere, Engineer[image error] – Andrea Beaty. The original book which spawned a series (and, I think, a TV show). I love the book and every single thing it stands for.
October 26, 2020
Eighteen years old
Dear Grace,
Wow. To say I’m speechless is an understatement. Today you are eighteen. It feels like yesterday that I wrote about 10 things I wanted you to know when you turned 10. I recently followed up with 10 things I wanted you to take with you into your young adulthood. When your childhood ended. And today we stand on that threshold.
I know this is not the eighteenth birthday you had in mind. This is not the senior year you had in mind. There have been a great many things you’ve had to let go of: events and traditions you’d anticipated, expectations you had held. I know. There is a lot of loss there. I know you are sick of my reminding you that it could be worse.
But unlike many people bemoaning the anxious and depressed children we are creating, I believe this experience will instead foster a generation of resilient young adults who are bonded in ways we don’t totally understand yet. You know in a deep, profound way that we are not entirely in control of this world, and that what we do impacts others. We belong to each other, and how we act has an effect that goes far beyond our immediate environment. What vital lessons these are, even though learning them is not fun right now.
I am so proud of how you have responded to this year of challenge, Grace. I am so proud of the young woman you have grown into. You are not afraid of hard work and you know that the only way out is through, a refrain we repeat to each other regularly. You have learned from experiences, some difficult, to be careful who you trust, but at the same time you have not lost your warmth and openness. You know that actions mean far more than words. You know how to see the silver lining, the bright side, the sunset out the window or the smile on the face of a teammate. You aren’t immune to heartbreak and difficulty, but neither are you swamped by them. Bravo, dear girl.
School is different academically this year, with only two classes per term (rather than five all year). That means you take AP Calculus in 10 weeks, for example, but your good spirit and focus on learning and hard work hasn’t wavered. School is different in other ways, too, and you suffered a big blow when your dearest friend did not come back. Nevertheless, you settled into your room, made it your own, and have made the best of this unconventional, unexpected fall.
This is your fifth year of varsity cross-country, and your second year as captain. There won’t be a triumphant New Englands to cap off your running career, but I’m nonetheless heartened to see how you have stepped into leadership of the younger runners, adjusting to this new world and a new coach too.
All of these experiences, all different than you expected, with the same lesson: commitment goes a long way. I firmly believe that when things are difficult our true self comes out. Your true self is occasionally daunted but willing to take a deep breath, to look at the horizon, and to do what’s necessary to get there. I could not be prouder of what I’ve seen, Gracie, in this last rocky season and in the last 18 years, both.
In the last few days I have seen you fall truly head over heels in love with our newest family member, our puppy, Phoebe. You’ve adored animals from the very start – for a long time you wanted to be a vet – and she is as passionately connected to you already as you are to her.
Next stop, college, and from there, the world. I have said before, and it remains true, that watching you and Whit take flight is the single most important and joyful thing in my life. It was a ridiculous, unexpected privilege to have you at home this past spring, a bonus term with you at home that I did not think we’d get. You and I are a lot alike and sometimes we butt heads, but I hope you know deep in your marrow how profoundly you are loved. You will always be my first baby, the person who made me a mother. It will always be my pregnancy with you that was so smooth, at whose midpoint I heard the word “grace,” who was born when your terminally ill grandfather awaited his heart transplant, who arrived in a rainstorm and made us a family. I’m grateful that you’ve taught me how to be a mother, and for the patience and tolerance and forgiveness you’ve shown me along the way. I loved you when I met you, I love you now, and I’ll love you forever.
Happy eighteenth birthday, Grace,
Mum
September 25, 2020
Things I Love Lately
Be Like Marty – OMG. This article. When we watched RBG as a family last year, my first reaction to note how vividly and avidly it portrayed the love affair between Marty and Ruth. I’ve only heard more and more stories that make that clear. This Vogue article brought tears to my eyes.
The clerks. The clerks – There is so much about RBG that moves me, and that scares me, and that touches me. Most of all, those, those photos of her clerks lining the stairs of the Supreme Court as her casket arrived. Is there any more meaningful judge of a person’s leadership than how they inspire loyalty and passion in those that work with them? I think not.
20 years. Matt and I celebrated 20 years a couple of weeks ago. I can’t believe it either.
Reading – I’ve read some wonderful books lately. The Dearly Beloved[image error] by Cara Wall and Transcendent Kingdom[image error] by Yaa Gyasi are both spectacular. I’m on an Elin Hildebrand roll right now and enjoying those, too!
What are you reading, thinking about, and loving lately?
I write these Things I Love posts approximately monthly. You can find them all here.
September 3, 2020
Summer 2020
This summer was different. In so many ways. And yet it was also the same. In general I’m finding this particular year profoundly disorienting, especially the way time seems to be functioning these days. It’s both Groundhog Day – every day the same – and yet the days are slipping past even more quickly than usual.
We spent a LOT of time as a family this summer. And we added my mother to our pod. More nights than not the five of us had dinner on the back porch in Marion, laughing often, snappy sometimes, quiet occasionally. This is a strange time.
Grace and Whit filled their days with a lot of hanging out, sleeping in, and a fair amount of looking at their phones. Whit started skateboarding and found a new passion for fishing. Grace did some online tutoring. The two of them connected deeply with a few friends in Marion, where my family has a house and where we spent a lot of the summer.
Matt played a lot of golf. We played some family tennis (and, as always, I am definitely the weak link in our family tennis chain). Grace and Whit sailed often with my father’s best friend. The blossoming of those relationships into what feel like sturdy grandfather-grandchild style bonds brings me great joy.
I did a lot of puzzles. I did a lot of work. I ran a lot. I read a lot. My favorite book was The Dearly Beloved[image error] by Cara Wall which has vaulted into the pantheon of my all-time favorites. Just. Amazing. Read it now if you have not!
Matt and I made margaritas with fresh grapefruit juice more than once. Whit discovered he loves corn on the cob. We ate fresh tomatoes with mozzarella with basil out of the garden, chicken with my great-grandfather’s homemade barbeque sauce, and a lot of ice cream.
We drove to Maine to meet our puppy, Phoebe, who joins our family in a few weeks. We stopped and ate outside at Duck Fat in Portland on the way back. It was a joyful, spirited day with an uncommon amount of laughter. There were a lot of happy moments, and a fair number of tense ones, too.
I can’t speak for others in my family but I’m aware of a tugging undercurrent of worry, anxiety about where the world is and seems to be going. I’m nervous about my children going back to school, I’m afraid of what I see happening in our country. I worry about my mother’s health and, to a lesser degree, about that of the others in my family.
I miss writing here, but I feel like I have nothing to say, at the same time. Life contains so many opposites, so many things that don’t go together, so many pieces that rub up against each other in awkward or disconcerting ways. At least that’s my experience. I don’t have a neat summer summary post with all kinds of fun things we did.
Instead I have these fragments, held together by white space, by hoping, by bewilderment, by life itself.
My daughter turns 18 in 2 months. Evening comes so quickly these days. Time moves inexorably forward. That’s unavoidable and both reassuring and sorrowful to me, right now.
Fragments. Joy. Sunsets. Family dinners. Memory and so much love. Trust and arguing and circling back for forgiveness and grace. That’s right now. And what I know, deep in my heart, is that it’s enough.
July 22, 2020
What’s In Front of Me
Time continues to move in a strange stutter-step kind of way – flying and crawling. I’m struck by how life feels both terrifying and mundane at the same time, often in the same hour. I’ve been thinking about how quarantine kind of feels like my regular life, but with more zoom and fear. I can’t ever get very far away from worry about the state of the world, but if I dwell there it pulls me into a very scary thought spiral so I try to focus instead on what’s in front of me.
The two young adults I live with, who make me proud and make me laugh and occasionally make me frustrated. I’m more aware than ever of Grace’s adult life stretching out in front of her and I feel grateful to still be near her both literally and metaphorically.
The beautiful world out the window. My awareness of this world’s gorgeousness continues unabated. I’m hearing and seeing things I never noticed before.
Our family home in Marion, Massachusetts. I’m so grateful to be surrounded by such happy memories of my father there, and to see my children so relaxed and happy in the familiar space.
This mention by Emma Gannon her Vanity Fair piece about her inspirations while writing Olive. I was delighted when she featured On Being 40(ish)
My bearded officemate, whose presence all day every day has become very familiar, reassuring most of the time, profoundly aggravating some of it.
Instagram. I still love it and that is not abating.
Books. I’m still reading a lot. Finishing Valentine[image error] by Elizabeth Wetmore and really liking it. Next up is Jennifer Weiner’s Big Summer[image error].
Reconnecting with friends who I’d lost touch with. There are a few friends from various parts of my life with whom I’ve recommenced dialogue and it’s a complete joy. I do think that one of the lessons of this time is the power of deliberately choosing who we connect with (rather than doing so by default because of life’s busy patterns). I am deeply grateful to be reconnected with some of these special people. You know who you are.
Our current summer cadence of quiet weekends, heavy on family time (the four of us and my mother). We are seeing a few people outside and each child is seeing a couple of friends but still keeping close to home. The truth is I don’t mind it. I’m doing a lot of puzzles and drinking a lot of iced coffee.
What’s right in front of you? Can you focus there and not be overwhelmed by the big picture of this threatened world?
July 10, 2020
Notes on a Silencing
I finished Lacy Crawford‘s book this week and am still processing it. I am proud to call Lacy a dear friend and have known her since 1992. This book is absolutely spectacular: unflinching, brave, gorgeously written. It’s hard to read on a number of levels: as someone who loves Lacy, as a woman who’s seen up close how common these stories are, and as the mother of a girl who goes to boarding school.
Notes on a Silencing[image error] evokes incredibly powerfully how our lives can be shaped in indelible ways by singular experiences, how the years can unfurl from a specific moment in a different direction than we anticipated, how the past echoes through the present even when we devoutly wish it wouldn’t. It also dares to examine the structures of power that shame and silence victims.
Oh, Lace, this book is a nothing short of a masterpiece. I’m grateful to have read it and to know you so well that I felt like we spent this week in conversation – your voice comes through with crystalline strength. Unwavering. Honest. Unafraid. In “burning it down,” as you have (and as your beloved said), you’ve held up an important light for others. Thank you, thank you, thank you
originally posted on Instagram
July 1, 2020
the second half of this extraordinary year
Today is July 1st. It’s the beginning of the year’s second half. I’m certain I’m not alone in saying that the first half of 2020 was the most astonishing, disorienting, and scary six months I’ve ever lived. It is simultaneously the longest and the shortest six month period I can remember experiencing. And I feel pretty confident that the second half of this year is not going to be smoother or less eventful. A bone-deep sense of being tired permeates my physical body. I sleep like a rock, for almost 9 hours every night. My legs ache walking up the stairs. I just feel absolutely exhausted by the world. The not-knowing is wearing on me. There is so much uncertainty right now. Of course it just points out – to me at least – how much of a fallacy our ordinary sense of control is. We are never in control. The universe has just seen fit to make that REALLY clear of late.
And yet, through it all, in this time of almost hysterical news, of fever-pitch terror and change, there are views like the one above, which is a photo I took on Friday night. These moments remind me of my favorite book of the year so far, The Book of Longings[image error] by Sue Monk Kidd, and of this passage in particular:
…it seemed for an instant I saw the world was he did, orphaned and broken and staggeringly beautiful, a thing to be held and put back right.
Onward.
June 16, 2020
Around here
Mid June. I’m sure I’m not the only person who is having the strange experience of time crawling and flying at the same time. It’s groundhog day around here, every day, and yet time is whipping by. March feels like five years ago. I wonder if time will feel “normal” again and then I start wondering if there is such a thing as a normal sense of time – it’s all a fabrication, anyway. This is a gerbil run I don’t entirely recommend.
Still reading a lot. Read and LOVED An American Marriage[image error] by Tayari Jones and Tin Man[image error] by Sarah Winman. I’m now in the first half of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
Grace and Whit have been out of school three weeks already. Our attention has turned firmly to the fall and we’re all desperately hoping they return to school in some in-person way.
are my favorite masks, and Grace, Mum, and my sister Hilary are all wearing them now. Working on a family composite of us all in our masks… stay tuned. I’m a mask evangelist. Wear. The. Mask. If that’s what it takes to get the kids back to school, aren’t we all happy to do it? Honestly. I don’t totally understand why we are even TALKING about this.
As I’ve discussed, I find that I can’t remember things as well as I used to. Some of this is just middle age, and I hope it’s mostly that. I joke around that my hard drive is full. And I realized this past weekend one thing it’s full with. Indigo Girls lyrics. I was listening to old Indigo Girls as I drove an realized I know every single word. To every single song. For hours. That is taking up hard drive space that I’d like to repurpose for other, more important things! (no offense to the Indigo Girls, who I truly think are poets, but I’d also like to remember, for example, what I did this morning).
This is week two of my peony share from Five Fork Farms. The gorgeous blooms that I pick up every week provide me far more joy than I can express. I’ve shared some photos on Instagram. I just love peonies, and love supporting a local farm, too. The photo at the top of this post is today’s batch.
Matt and I are watching Ozark. I’m really not sure. It is SO DARK.
I’m stepping into the class correspondent role for my grad school class (with a partner). This makes it a hat trick – I’ve now been correspondent for my high school, my college, and my grad school. World’s biggest sucker? You tell me. I love my grad school section so I am happy to do it.
What is happening where you are, right now?
June 8, 2020
Recent reading
In the last few years I’ve written a “best books of the half-year” post (2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015). This year feels different, and I’m not going to do the same, but I have been reading a lot and I wanted to share some of those titles. This is only books since I last wrote about what I’m reading, so it’s far from comprehensive. I’d love to hear what you’ve been reading and enjoying lately.
The Glass Hotel[image error], Emily St. John Mandel – I loved this book, which spoke so beautifully of the past, ghosts, regret, and the road not taken.
The Tender Bar[image error], J.R. Moehringer – I love this writer’s voice, which I encountered for the first time in Andre Agassi’s Open: An Autobiography
Daisy Jones & The Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid – A truly unconventional narrative structure which worked, in my opinion. This made me think a lot of A Star is Born and I loved it.[image error]
Still Life with Bread Crumbs
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas[image error], John Boyne – as you can see I went on a large Boyne tear (The Heart’s Invisible Furies[image error] is one of my all-time favorites). All I have to say is WOW. This one, about a child’s perspective on Auschwitz, is gutting and beautiful at the same time. Boyne knows heartbreak and loneliness, that’s for sure.
History of Loneliness[image error], John Boyne – More loneliness, in the title and pervasively throughout. One of my strange fascinations is the papal conclave, so I was interested in this view on the papacy as well.
A Ladder to the Sky
Moonlight Mile
Friends and Strangers[image error], J. Courtney Sullivan – I read this before quarantine but it comes out June 30th and I could not recommend more highly. A thoughtful and fun (again, that magic combo!) exploration of motherhood today, and what it means to work, friendship, and marriage.
Lindsey Mead's Blog
- Lindsey Mead's profile
- 7 followers
