what I learned in January

One of my favorite follows on Instagram is Annie B. Jones, who runs The Bookshelf in Thomasville, Ga., and posts about books, musicals, channeling Kathleen Kelly and other lovely things. Last year, she shared monthly “what I learned” posts, and I enjoyed them so much I decided to try my own. We’ll see if it sticks, but here’s what I learned in January 2022:

• Slouchy sweaters can be a great comfort, even if you’re more of a fitted-silhouette kind of girl.
• One green curry paste IS different from another (learned while making this soup several times).
• Paperwhite bulbs might take a while to bloom, but they – like so many things – can surprise you. (See above – my final bulb is flourishing.)
• COVID brain fog is real. As are the emotions that come with it.
• It takes 15 minutes to walk from my house down the Golden Stairs to the end of Piers Park and back. And that is enough when it’s 14 degrees outside.
• It’s fun to be a beginner again, even – or especially – when it means stumbling through salsa steps with a roomful of other novices.
• Some books (e.g. The Warmth of Other Suns) are just going to take as long as they take.
• Just ask. (Still working on this one.)

What are you learning these days?

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saving my life: midwinter 2021 edition.

Hello, friends. It’s February, which is always a long month, even though it’s a short one. (See also: endless pandemic fatigue, etc.)

We’ve had some snow and will have more, and I keep thinking of E.B. White’s words about cold weather: “firm, business-like cold that stalked in and took charge […] as a brisk housewife might take charge of someone else’s kitchen in an emergency.” My kitchen, thank goodness, is full of tea and flowers, but I can see White’s point.

Last week, my friend Anne Bogel shared, as she does every winter, the surprising daily things that are saving her life right now. (This year, it’s laundry.) I am a whole week behind in sharing my own winter lifesavers, but I wanted to do it because I believe the practice is important, even in this pandemic year.

I am still job hunting, still missing my people, still spending a lot of time alone in my apartment. But here are the things getting me through these midwinter days:

• Strong black tea, forever and always. I mostly drink MEM teas from Somerville, but have also been enjoying David’s Cream of Earl Grey lately.
• Clementines by the handful (I say this every winter) – tart, sweet and cheery.
• Nina’s writing class on Tuesday mornings – best Zoom of all, by far.
• Daffodils! So cheerful and bright. Spotted at the florist and at Trader Joe’s.
• Mini peanut-butter-filled pretzels, also from Trader Joe’s.
• Morning runs and daily walks in the neighborhood, even when it’s frigid. (I’m still aiming to leave the house at least twice a day.)
• Some really good books: New Yorkers by Craig Taylor, Wintering by Katherine May, A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey.
• Good pens and my Wingardium Leviosa Moleskine journal.
• Vitamin D pills, my happy lamp, and (best of all) real sunshine, some days.
• Daily check-ins with my guy, my friend Allison in California, and a couple of other dear ones.
• Martina McBride, whose music I have loved for years – but I’m rediscovering her badass-women anthems and sweet love songs, and they are saving me.
• Yoga – on Zoom for now, and maybe back in the studio soon.
• The knowledge that we have a competent administration in Washington working to combat this virus and other problems.

What’s saving your life these days? I’d love to know.

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walking Boston’s Black Heritage Trail

This is the summer, as I said recently, of antiracist reading (along with sunflowers and bike rides and strawberries). On a recent Monday afternoon, a friend and I decided to explore with both our feet and our brains: we met up in Beacon Hill to walk the Boston Black Heritage Trail.

I’ve lived in Boston for a decade now, and I used to wander Beacon Hill frequently when I worked at Emerson College. But I didn’t know this trail existed until recently, and the more sites we found and the more snippets I read aloud from the National Park Service website, I wondered: why not?

Like many American schoolchildren, I learned certain parts of Boston history: Paul Revere’s famous ride, the Boston Tea Party. I walked most of the Freedom Trail as a newcomer to Boston, ten years ago. I knew Boston was a center for the abolitionist movement (though it is also persistently racist). But I didn’t know about so many of the folks we learned about on the Black Heritage Trail: their names or their occupations or their contributions to the ongoing fight for Black freedom.

The trail comprises about a dozen sites, starting at the memorial to the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, a volunteer infantry regiment made up of Black soldiers (made famous in the movie Glory). The memorial itself is closed for restoration right now, but there’s a great temporary exhibition wrapped around the fencing, so you can still learn about the soldiers of the 54th.

Most of the trail’s other sites are former homes of Black people who fought for the abolition of slavery, helped house people escaping enslavement, helped integrate schools and churches in Boston, and played other important roles in Black community life. There are two former schools along the trail: the Abiel Smith School, the first Black public school in Boston, and the Phillips School, which became one of Boston’s first integrated schools.

The trail ends at the Smith Court Residences and the African Meeting House (now the Museum of African American History), which seem to have been the epicenter of Black life in Boston in the late 19th century. But even as we walked, we saw plaques on other buildings noting people who had lived and worked for abolition and Black rights in the neighborhood.

I might never have seen these plaques, or any of these houses, if I hadn’t been looking for them – and I kept wondering: why not? Why aren’t we taught these stories, alongside those of Paul Revere and Samuel Adams and John Hancock? Why had I never heard of Lewis and Harriet Hayden or George Middleton or Elizabeth Smith? I want to find out more about them now – but their stories should not be tucked down a side street. They should be highlighted, celebrated.

So much of the work of adulthood, for me, is paying attention: noticing the details of each day, really listening to my loved ones when we’re talking, not simply scrolling or sleepwalking through this life. The work of anti-racism also involves paying attention: seeking out the stories we don’t know, the ones that have been ignored or erased or shunted aside. This walk, this trail, is a small beginning. I’m glad we went, and I’m committed to finding out more.

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things I miss.

Happy Tuesday, friends. Here we are in week 11 of this strange restricted life, and the world is turning toward summer. I ran this morning by the water, through haze and humidity and (eventual) bright sunshine. The beach roses are blowing and the purple iris are budding, and I’m wearing my favorite denim shorts and growing herb seedlings in my kitchen window (until I can get some soil to pot them).

We are deep into whatever kind of “now normal” we are all creating for ourselves, and while there’s beauty and joy in that, today I wanted to acknowledge: I miss how it used to be.

Here in Massachusetts, we’re moving slowly into a phased reopening, but masks and social distancing and other restrictions will be part of our lives for a long while. There are some parts of “normal” we simply won’t get back, at least not for the foreseeable future. And that hurts. So, in no particular order, here is a list of things I miss:

• Hugging my friends.
• Browsing my favorite bookstores.
• The library, especially the central BPL branch near my office.
• Hanging out at coffee shops.
• Making travel plans, which are all obviously on hold at the moment.
• Running to the grocery store to grab “just one thing.”
• Walking outside without a mask.
• My family in Texas (the Zoom calls are fun, but not the same).
• Going to friends’ houses for dinner or just to hang out.
• By the same token: having people over to my house.
• My colleagues, and the musical chitchat that passes for water-cooler talk at Berklee.
• Sitting in on workshops and talking to our students.
• The buzz of commencement season in Boston and Cambridge.
• Going to yoga classes in a real studio.
• Going to book events at a bookstore.
• Walking to Downeast with my guy on a Saturday night to sample ciders and talk to the folks behind the counter.
• Planning for summer festivals and concerts.
• Going to the hair salon (they’re starting to reopen, but I’m going to wait a while).
• My florist.
• Waking up without the constant low-level (or higher-level) pandemic anxiety.

What do you miss?

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Stories from quarantine: walking myself to work.

One thing I’m noticing in this strange “now normal” is the absence of the usual transitions in my day.

Like a lot of workers, I usually commute to my job, which means (in my case) leaving my house, walking to the train station, getting on the subway, switching lines, then walking to my office at the other end. That ritual, and the physical movement, helps signal to my brain and body that I’m at work, and that I’m leaving work when I do it all again at the end of the day.

I don’t miss crowded subway cars, but it can be easy for all the hours at home to start feeling just like one another. So, last week, when my friend Anne Bogel posted 10 of her favorite work-from-home tips, I was caught by the first one: Walk yourself to work.

Like Anne, my “home office” (in my case, my kitchen table) is almost no distance from the rest of my living space, especially since I live in a studio apartment. I only have to carry my laptop a few feet to start working, and that’s not always enough of a demarcation. So I’ve started adopting Anne’s trick. Some mornings, I’ve been going for a run first thing, if the weather and my schedule permit – which feels great and definitely gets me moving before the workday starts. But when it’s raining or I have early meetings or otherwise can’t squeeze in a run, I’ve been putting on a jacket and walking myself to work.

I go around the block and back up through the park, or down the hill and through the nearby shipyard. Sometimes I carry a travel mug of tea, or a clementine, and I try to pay attention: to blossoming trees and sidewalk chalk and my neighbors, out walking their dogs (or their kids). Once in a while, I wave at someone I know. And I usually arrive back home feeling better, and (slightly) more ready to start the workday.

Like a lot of things I’m trying right now, it’s not magic, but it’s helping. And most days, that’s good enough.

What work-from-home tricks are you trying, in these days?

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April reading roundup #1

A Walking Life: Reclaiming Our Health and Our Freedom, One Step at a Time, Antonia Malchik
Walking is a fundamentally human activity. But worldwide, humans – especially those living in cities – are losing the access and ability to walk. Malchik delves into the dangers of a non-walking life and explores the social, political, physical and spiritual implications of reclaiming walking. Well-researched and engaging – and as a walker/runner, of course I loved it. To review for Shelf Awareness (out May 7).

The Precious One, Marisa de los Santos
I adore de los Santos’ novels, and I loved diving back into this one: the story of Taisy and Willow, estranged half sisters who gradually, grudgingly become friends in spite of their (shared) tyrannical father. So much wisdom here about love and family and courage.

When the Men Were Gone, Marjorie Herrera Lewis
This was a total impulse buy at B&N: an engaging novel about a female high school football coach in Brownwood, Texas, during WWII. I grew up not far from (and went to college even closer to) Brownwood, and I spent many Friday nights in the stands with the marching band. I loved the story of Tylene Wilson and how she stepped up to coach the Brownwood Lions.

Brave, Not Perfect: Fear Less, Fail More, and Live Bolder, Reshma Saujani
Saujani is the founder of Girls Who Code (and an alumna of my former workplace, HKS). This book delves into the conditioning women receive to be perfect and pleasing, and how we can change that wiring to be brave. I loved – and related to – so much of what she wrote about. Worth reading and revisiting. (Found at the wonderful Book Catapult in San Diego.)

The Stationery Shop, Marjan Kamali
Tehran, 1953: Bahman and Roya, two teenagers who both frequent Mr. Fakhri’s stationery shop fall in love among the stacks, and plan to get married. But then Bahman disappears, and their lives take entirely different trajectories. Decades later, they cross paths again near Boston, and must unravel the truth of that long-ago missed meeting. Powerful and well written; Kamali’s descriptions of Persian food are mouthwatering and her characters are flawed and real. I loved (and reviewed) Kamali’s first novel, Together Tea, which is sweet and engaging, but this one is on another level. To review for Shelf Awareness (out June 18).

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: 2 Fuzzy, 2 Furious, Shannon Hale and Dean Hale
Doreen Green – aka Squirrel Girl – is back, trying to fight crime in the neighborhood and survive middle school. This second novel wasn’t as strong as the first, but I like Doreen and her friend Ana Sofia. The group texts with the Avengers are the best part.

Most links (not affiliate links) are to my favorite local bookstore, Brookline Booksmith.

What are you reading?

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Currently: April 2019.

Right now, in mid-April 2019, I am:

Watching the flowers pop up all around town – hyacinth, daffodils, late-but-gorgeous forsythia, early tulips. And keeping an eye on the budding magnolia trees. Also: this weekend I will be watching the Masters.

Proofreading just about everything you can think of, at work: event posters and programs, the alumni magazine, so many email announcements and newsletters, and various webpages.

Eating alllllll the clementines and berries, lots of granola and yogurt, Trader Joe’s tomato soup, sharp cheddar, avocado toast and whatever else I can whip up.

Drinking so much Earl Grey, chai when I can get it, and lots of water.

Dog-sitting for a friend in East Boston, and loving the snuggles and walks with Phoenix. Isn’t he adorable?

Running the Harborwalk there (sometimes with Phoenix) and the East Boston Greenway, when I can. I miss my river trail, but it’s really fun to explore a new neighborhood.

Reading some great fiction: Marjan Kamali’s gorgeous new novel (out in June), a fun novel about West Texas high school football, a family saga set in 1980s NYC. And Reshma Saujani’s nonfiction book Brave, Not Perfect – which is as fierce as its lipstick-red cover.

Seeing the Boston Marathon prep come to life: scaffolding, bleachers, signs and adverts, so much blue and yellow around this area of town. (I work down the street from the marathon finish line.)

Sneaking over to Mem Church for prayers a couple of mornings a week.

Listening to back episodes of All the Backlist! (and All the Books! when I have time). I’m a hopelessly irregular podcast listener, but I like catching up with Liberty and her cohosts.

Walking around Eastie with Phoenix, through the West End on some mornings, around Back Bay in the afternoons.

Wearing my winter uniform (still) of striped dresses, a scarf and black fleece-lined tights. Switching it out for jeans and a sweater on the milder, drier days. Pulling on my favorite running/yoga gear, whenever possible.

Scribbling in my latest Obvious State journal all. the. time.

Needing some new running shoes.

Getting as much sleep as I can. It’s been an exhausting stretch – a lingering cold, work craziness, general craziness – and my body is tired.

Enjoying fresh flowers on my desk, my newish Everlane backpack, the light in the apartment where I’m staying, texts from friends checking in.

Inspired by Ali Edwards’ “Currently” post earlier this week.

What does life look like for you right now?

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“You smell like outside.”

This is what we used to say to my dad, when he came in from mowing the lawn or an afternoon walking the golf course. In West Texas, you can do both for a good chunk of the year, and while it’s often warm (or hot) enough to break a sweat, this was something different. Sometimes I could smell the lawn fertilizer or the musty scent of dried leaves, but often it was simply the outdoors: earthy, fresh, dusty, a distinct contrast to the clean interior smells of our house.

For as long as I’ve lived in Boston, I have commuted by a combination of public transit and walking, so I have to – and like to – get outside multiple times on any given day. But since I’ve become a walker and then a runner, I get outside much more often, for longer stretches, in nearly all kinds of weather and at all times of day.

Whether it’s the river trail or the Commonwealth Ave mall, or a long, rambling stroll through the streets of Cambridge, I go outside as often as I can, to feel the wind in my hair and the sun on my face, to observe the particularities of the changing seasons. I go to move, to take breaks, to run errands, to ride a bike, to meet friends: to refresh myself by being out in the big wide world.

Of course, I often break a sweat, especially when I’m running or riding. But sometimes, when I come back inside, it’s not quite sweat I smell. It’s something different, more earthy, in my hair or on my clothes. I realized the other day what it was: sometimes I just smell like outside. And I am so happy about that.

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The delights of a long (literary) walk

As regular readers know, there are few things I love more than a long walk, in any season and almost any weather. My walking and reading inform each other: the books I’m reading often provide fodder for ambulatory reflection, but some books capture the pleasures of walking itself.

Scottish author Robert Macfarlane (whose work I adore) collected hundreds of “land-words” for his book Landmarks. Each section begins with a lyrical essay about a type of landform in the British Isles (mountain, coastline, forest), and contains a glossary of related words. Walkers and word nerds – or those who are both – will find much to love in Macfarlane’s treasures from “the word-hoard.”

For those who particularly relish a walk on a wet day, Melissa Harrison’s Rain: Four Walks in English Weather is a celebration of misty treks through various landscapes and seasons. I picked it up, fittingly, at Blackwells in Oxford last year.

The octogenarian title character of Kathleen Rooney’s novel, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, embarks on a different kind of journey: a zigzagging walk around Manhattan on New Year’s Eve 1984. Narrating her odyssey with the wry zingers that defined her advertising career, Boxfish takes readers on a tour of 20th-century New York on her way to a good steak at Delmonico’s. I’d walk with her any time.

And finally, Emma Hooper’s spare, lovely debut novel, Etta and Otto and Russell and James, follows Etta as she treks across the plains of Canada, determined to walk until she finds the ocean. Like Lillian, she is elderly, a bit lonely and fiercely stubborn. Like Macfarlane and Harrison, she walks with purpose and a sharp, observant eye.

These books celebrate the particular joys of a journey, whether it’s a stroll around the block or a cross-country peregrination. The call to interested readers is the same: let’s go.

I originally wrote most of this column for Shelf Awareness for Readers, where it appeared last fall. 

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