A note for you, if you’re having a bad day.
Hi There Friend,
How have your ordinary days been lately? You know: your day-to-day days; the days that run into each other because the routine is happening without crisis or miracle. Dental cleanings where you don’t have a cavity; trips to the grocery store where you buy what’s on the list; commutes that are exactly the length you thought they would be. Are those typical for you? Is your regularity regular?
I’m asking because last week, I had a Monday that was peculiar for its normalcy, and I noticed. At the end of the day, I did one of those body checks that’s fashionable in mental health communities lately, because it seemed like I might be happy. And sure enough, all the signs were there: loose muscles, chest levity, general ease. HAPPY! I’m starting to realize that it was all about the noticing. And it was a particular kind of noticing — one that my therapist and I agreed there wasn’t a word for, but there should be.
Here’s what happened on this Monday. I walked my daughter to daycare, and she didn’t have a meltdown when I left. My walk home was uninterrupted and I’d worn the right sweater for the temperature. I saw a brown creeper. (This is a migratory bird, and not a cause for alarm — for either my wellbeing or my unfortunate word choice.) I put on a new dress I’d ordered on sale online, and it turned out I’d chosen the right size, so the dress fit the way I wanted it to fit. I walked to the train station and the train was already there, so I got right on; and it was not too full, so I did some writing. I got to school exactly on time — three minutes before class started. I had all my materials and I didn’t feel rushed. My students were talkative; my lunch was a bagel (!!!); I had a productive meeting and spent a few minutes looking out a vista-facing window. On the commute home, I read the Substack newsletters I find trashiest and most fun. Then I called my sister and she answered. For dinner, we made squash from our garden (!!!). T didn’t cry when she went to bed, and neither did I, and Luke and I got to watch some TV, and that was all.
I started noticing these things when I got on the first train. It struck me how often I miss a train, or get stuck on a train, or choose the wrong train. This was the first time on Monday I wanted a word. The word would be for this particular kind of luck: the uninteresting kind; the almost expectable kind. The kind of luck you might not even be programmed to notice — especially if you have some institutional privilege, and you feel like this kind of luck is the baseline human experience.
I started thinking about that children’s book, “Fortunately” by Remy Charlip. It was a perennial favorite for teaching elementary school writing, because the format is easy to commandeer, and six-year-olds get it. (Our hero is invited to a surprise party. Unfortunately, he is in New York and not Florida, where the party is. Fortunately, a friend loans him a plane! Etc. Some of the hero’s misfortunes involve nearly being eaten [!!!] by sharks and / or tigers.) I thought about how if I was the hero of that story, I would be good at noticing the unfortunate things, but not the fortunate things. And also, I would not characterize being nearly consumed by predatory megafauna as being “unfortunate.” I’d use a word like “traumatic” or “heart stopping” or “AAHHAASHKADHAKH.”
As of 2016, there’s a psychological term for this, coined by Shai Davidai and Tom Gilovich. It’s known as “headwind-tailwind asymmetry,” referring to the biased view that most people have that their particular lives have more hardships than advantages. Davidai and Gilovich ran a bunch of experiments and found this phenomenon to be almost universally true. (Most famously, they use the example of both Democrats and Republicans believing that the electoral college is designed to benefit the opposite political party.) In Emily and Amelia Nagoski’s book “Burnout,” the authors use this phenomenon to explain why people have such a hard time understanding their own privilege, and demonstrating how playing fields aren’t as level as they may seem. That’s an important read, and a helpful, compassionate viewpoint that can be beneficial when trying to understand incomprehensible injustice.
But I’m not really here to write about incomprehensible injustice. (I’m glad other people write about that.) I’m here to lament that we don’t have a good term for the tailwinds. I mean, I guess we have “tailwinds.” (I truly JUST NOW realized that.) But there are a whole lot of words for the headwinds: obstacles, barriers, hurdles, impediments, hindrances — and I could go on. I am currently sitting on the train, and for this entire train ride, everyone has been quiet and polite, and the train has been a perfect place to write to you. But just a moment ago, a guy with a Smart watch and white tennis shoes that HOW ARE THEY THAT WHITE and the amount of beard hair I’d describe as “he-thinks-he‘s-handsome scruff” called someone and started to talk about Twitter or something, and while I didn’t think to notice how lovely the first 40 minutes of this ride have been, I absolutely noticed when my nice ride was interrupted by White Tennis Shoes.
So many things do work.
This is not a plea for positivity, or to get caught up in a bad case of the “at least”s. If you’re grieving, grieve. If you’re angry, stressed, hurt, or scared, those feelings are there for a reason, and all of them are OK and normal. And man, are there ever a lot of HEADwinds. I’m talking both about ways in which the deck might truly be stacked against you, and also the unpreventable inconveniences and annoyances that crop up throughout the day.
I’m simply offering an invitation to notice the normal little lucks you might encounter, with some intention, so that they can keep up with the ways you naturally pay attention to their counterparts. Picking the faster line at airport security. Choosing something you’re happy to eat at a restaurant. The recycling gets collected. A package gets delivered. A stranger says hi to you on the street. Your feet are not sore after a walk.
The reason I thought to notice my tailwinds last Monday was probably because it was the first day in a long time that I didn’t feel sick. And so every normal turn was fresh and bright. That’s the gift of a rough time; it makes normal feel special.
No matter where you are today — whether you’re facing an uphill climb or something exciting or the deepest of despairs or it’s just a regular old Wednesday, my hope for you is that you can notice your tailwinds sometime soon; and that it will help.
Love Always,
Sophie
Parenting Paragraph
Turning the corner into month 11 with T, and I’ll share just the shortest anecdote this time. Last Wednesday, Luke and I had tickets to see Rosalia, and we decided we’d leave after T went down to bed. So Luke gave her a bath, and then he put her in some warm flannel-y fleece thing (I can’t believe the seasons have changed and now she’ll never wear those little sundresses again; so many lasts with babies, and you don’t realize it), and when I came upstairs, I could hear him singing to her while she lay in our bed eating her pre-bed bottle. I went into our bedroom and lay next to her, as her eyes were closing, and started singing too. She looked at me, and registered me, and stopped drinking long enough to smile at me. One big smile, and then, immediately, her eyes closed and she fell asleep. AND I CRIED. I JUST CRIED AND CRIED AND CRIED. Those moments that just smash your heart, and then you get to see Rosalia.
This Week in Sophie
I have no professional news at the moment; just nose-to-the-grindstone-ing it while I wrestle my busiest school year, uh, ever. But I’ll do my usual begging (?), or, entreating: if you have $5 to spare and you value this newsletter, consider subscribing to the paid tier. There are content-related benefits for you (twice as much newsletter! Plus, we will become FRIENDS), and also, it allows me to keep doing this. As a thank you, here is a photo of my helmet-wearing daughter eating her third apple from her trip to the orchard Sunday that is apparently mandated for all white people who live near apples.
Some potential tailwind words: boost, accelerants, advantages? I will think on this
I read that Remy Charlip book to my twin nieces as one of our video-call storytime selections several times a year. They do not mind the repetition, and I really enjoy how they have a new take on Ned's obstacles each time. (They are five.)