A note for you, if you’re having a bad day.
Dear Friend,
I’m about to tell you about something I’ve started doing; I’ve not told anyone about it yet. I’m a little embarrassed. But I did it once, and it helped; then I did it again, and it helped; and after it helped a third time, it became clear to me that I should share it with you. Because I think I would like it if you shared something with ME that helped, if you found it.
This has gone on for too long and stayed too mysterious, and now it seems like it’s drugs. Drugs or a weird sex thing. It’s not either of those.
I’ve been leaving myself a BUNCH of voice memos.
It started in May, when I’d had several unfulfilling phone conversations. What had I wanted from these interactions? I wasn’t sure. But I was left feeling unresolved, and I had to go to school, and I didn’t know what I should listen to on the commute, and it struck me that the thing I wanted to do the most was TALK MORE. And that it didn’t matter who was on the other end, but talking to myself felt weird and unhelpful and sort of like standing in one spot for too long.
But a VOICE MEMO. If I recorded a voice memo of what I was thinking and feeling, and I stumbled upon something, or solved something, or learned something from myself, there would be a record. An actively listening person is a kind of a record. A journal is a record. And a voice memo is, too. Motion has been taken. Forward has been achieved. For the first time, just now, I’ve listened back to what I recorded, and here are the first few words:
OK I just feel like I need to talk. Um, so I’m just going to talk into this recording, which is weird, I’ve never done it. I’m not sure what to make of my decision to do this. I’m feeling really bad and sad. And I’m not totally sure why, but — shit! SHIT! … Everything’s OK. It’s OK. A guy really was driving fast there. It was sort of my fault too, but — anyway. I’ll be careful.
And I know it seems like I was probably too distracted to be making a voice memo, but it really was OK after that, and that guy really was driving too fast. I recorded for 37 minutes, and I’ll be honest with you, I have no memory of what I talked about. It’s unlikely that I’ll ever want to listen to 37 full minutes of myself whining about something, but I like that the record is there.
And it’s true to say that I felt so much better after talking candidly for that long. So I started recording a lot more things. I recorded it when my goddaughter was in town and said something funny about a teeny tiny fish, thinking, “Maybe one day I’ll turn this into an a cappella song.” (I have already done this, with the help of my Casio Rapman, so it’s not truly a cappella, and guys — IT IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN A CAPPELLA. Thanks, Rapman. Clip embedded below.)
I recorded when I felt euphoric on Saturday, sitting in the sun, watching my daughter play in the shallow kiddie pool in our back yard, while I ate herbs from the little pots I’ve been growing them in all summer.
Then it happened again that I started to feel deeply uncomfortable, but really didn’t want to. You see, Eugenia the chicken was missing. We’d just lost Wendy (which I wrote about two weeks ago), and now Eugenia WAS GONE. I couldn’t figure out WHERE she’d gone; there was no sign of a predator, but she was truly no where to be found, and I looked evvverrrywhere. (Plus I tried to lure her by shaking a bag of mouthwatering [beakwatering?] meal worms.) I had intended to take T to the beach (Luke was out playing a soccer game), but it felt wrong to go to the beach with Eugenia MISSING. On the other hand, What could I do? I had no control over the situation.
A conundrum.
T wanted to go to the beach. (She didn’t know she wanted this, but I knew she did, and this is sort of a mom’s job when dealing with an eight-month-old baby.) She was in her bathing suit and I’d packed her towel. I decided we’d go to the beach, and maybe I would text someone or SnapChat someone about how I was feeling. But who to reach out to? Luke was at a soccer game, Bethany was on vacation, Alexis was probably still asleep, and Kat might get worried. (Which is a lovely thing about Kat.) What did I want from this phantom person, anyway? No one could solve this for me.
And so: a voice memo. I talked the whole walk to the beach into my phone. In talking, I came to understand three things:
I was incredibly anxious about Eugenia being missing, and
I really didn’t want to be anxious. But
Anxious was the thing that I was.
In talking, I remembered that I’d made a goal to notice my emotions and name them n. I congratulated myself on my noticing. And just before we go to the beach I said into the recorder, “I had hoped to have a blissful time at the beach with my baby. Now I am trying to salvage that potential experience. But the reality is that I’m anxious about my missing chicken, and this trip to the beach can’t be unmarred by that. And actually, that’s OK. Not every trip to the beach has to be euphoric.”
Man, did I feel relieved. My long voice memo allowed me to let go of the idea of a perfect day at the beach. And then, to my surprise, we DID have a perfect day at the beach.
When Luke got home, I unloaded all of my anxieties onto him (Thanks, Luke!), and then this happened:
At this point, I had resolved to tell you about my voice memos. It’s like free-writing, except with your mouth. You can move slowly or you can move quickly. You can say things like, “Blah, blah, blah — I don’t know what to say.” (That’s the companion of writing, “Blah, blah, blah — I don’t know what to write.”) Ultimately, this is all about noticing what’s going on in your body. Here’s a little check-in checklist for you on this topic:
***
I’ve been writing this note to you on and off for a few days; I’ve been feeling really stressed lately because I’m traveling. I can’t fathom the idea of traveling feeling exciting — I’m always overwhelmed by all the factors. And adding an infant makes me exponentially more stressed. Right now, I’m on the plane, and T is sleeping on Luke. It took her a long time to fall asleep, even though she has been up since 4 a.m. I’m so grateful that, after 35 loud meltdowns, she ultimately chose Luke to fall asleep on. I want to finish this letter. And I went ahead and did the above check list and found it helpful. (Except, maybe ironically given the amount of space I’ve devoted to it, the voice memo. I am in too close proximity to too many people for a voice memo ATM.)
Do you have travel advice? I want it. I am gathering it. Maybe I’ll share it out. Either way, if you have it, leave a comment or email me directly. The people who read this newsletter (you!) are legitimately my favorite people I’ve met on the internet — or off the internet, for that matter. One day we’ll all meet up in Omaha or something. IDK. That requires traveling for almost all of us. Or let’s all do Mardi Gras?!? There are options.
Thank you for being here; thank you for being. Whatever you’re feeling makes sense. Noticing is enough.
Love,
Sophie
Parenting paragraph
Once again, I write this paragraph on a plane. I did this when we took T to Puerto Rico. I think I wrote then that it was absolutely worth it to get the extra seat for her, but that was before plane ticket prices had skyrocketed the way that they have. This time around, we have her on lap. I DID pay (just a little bit) extra to fly Southwest, though, and THAT has so far proved a good decision. My reasoning had to do with Southwest’s open seating policy. I figured that whoever sat next to us would be opting into sitting by an infant, and they couldn’t roll their eyes or feel that the universe had failed them. They would either choose this fate, or they would feel that it was their own fault for not checking in online sooner. The woman sitting next to us has been very sweet, and also seems to have taken a sleeping pill, so even though T screamed for about half an hour, she hasn’t signified that she’s upset. Also — and this is Chicago-specific — the difference between flying out of OHare and flying out of Midway (which basically only services Southwest) is night and day in terms of how much of a headache it is. I gave us way too much time because I was so sure something would go wrong. Nothing has gone wrong. There are also a TON of kids and babies on this flight, which makes me feel less alone. Beyond traveling on a plane, eight months continues to be a sun splotch age. Here are some things that T actively likes (which she demonstrates by placing both hands on whatever is in front of her, opening her mouth as big as it will go, and bouncing back and forth):
Fireworks! Which is a relief because we live in a fireworks-heavy area. When it came to going to sleep AFTER the fireworks (during which time it sounded like a war), she had no trouble. SUN SPLOTCH.
Short animated videos of the snowman Olaf.
The Muppets doing “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Pizza. Also tofu. But guys, I am not going to lie to you: pizza is her favorite, and it’s incredibly obvious. She’s still an age where she’ll do a broccoli or a pile of sweet potatoes or mashed up kale, but pizza makes her bounce.
When everyone in our house is in the same room. Like a sheep dog.
Sitting in the cart at Trader Joe’s.
Being fed yogurt drops.
The playground when it’s full of kids.
Being all the way underwater in the lake.
Being in her little pool.
Being sprayed by the hose.
Having her feet in a drinking fountain.
Swings.
SWINGS.
As in, don’t walk by a swing set and expect to get away with it unless you have time to take her out for a quick swing.
Video footage of herself.
Being naked.
Chewing on flowers.
Sophie-Specific Stuff.
I have two pieces that came out in the last week:
From BuzzFeed, this article about being polyamorous and pregnant. When I was pregnant, I scoured the internet for this article, but couldn’t find it. I decided I would need to write it, as soon as I felt far away enough from pregnancy to not start scream-crying just thinking about it. I had great editors on this piece, and there are some fun trolls in the comments who think I’m perverted and disgusting! (And a lot of really, really nice strangers defending me in the comments, too. It’s a lively comments section.)
On Medium, I published a list of my definitive rankings of the 58 performances that are on this one compilation video of celebrity songs on “Sesame Street.” I worked very hard on this. Things changed as I wrote it. I edited it 12 to 15 times and still managed to spell Niall Horan’s name wrong (and as of this writing, still haven’t had the decency to fix it). Let me tell you this: you might not care at all about this two-hour long “Sesame Street” celebrity video, and you could be forgiven for that. But this list will interest you anyway. And I can’t tell you more than that.
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The thing making me happiest in the world right now is The Erins (IYKYK) and their posts on our collective Substack message board. Last week we all met each other, and this week, we all shared recommendations for things — AND SO MANY GOOD RECOMMENDATIONS HAVE COME IN. I have books to read, songs to listen to, and services to try — plus all kinds of life hack tricks. If you want in on this community, please support this publication monetarily! (It means a lot to me, also.) I’d love you to be a part of it.
My only travel “tip” is no secret at all but it is just to be really nice and indulgent with yourself and everyone in your party. Does someone want a hamburger for breakfast? That is FINE as long as you can find one in the airport! Should you buy a dumb magazine? YES. At the airport there are no rules, which I find kind of liberating. Normal life can resume when I’m back in my own time zone.
Whatever travel advice you get when it comes to traveling with an infant, share it! I’m very anxious to travel with my 4 month old, and I know we will be come holiday season via car or plane. (Depending upon pandemic related things.)
My sister who has four children ranging from ages 14 to 2 told me it’s much easier to travel when they’re younger and can sit still. Totally makes sense.
I didn’t know that Southwest offered choose your own seating. Good to know!
The one thing in your newsletters I have enjoyed, in the past and now, are your snippets about parenting and the spectrum of emotions that come with it. It makes me feel less alone in the world of “Am I doing enough for my child?” that you’ve spoken to previously.