A note for you, if you’re having a bad day.
Hi There Friend,
Today I am going to write to you about lotion.
Yeah, lotion. Just, lotion. Maybe you’re thinking, “Surely she’s not talking about lotion. Maybe she has misspelled ‘potion’ or ’notion.’ I can’t imagine that this whole letter is about lotion.” But it is. In Chicago, the weather is in the single digits this week, and there is no better companion to cold cold weather than … well, than hot tea and snuggles. But after hot tea and snuggles, it’s lotion. Lotion is the most important thing you can do for yourself right now. Indeed, I’m gonna die on that hill.
You don’t really need to spend a lot of money on the lotion. One of my most important lotions (MILs) cost me 79 cents. I bought it initially because I liked the size of its tin: like a round medal from a trophy shop. It felt good in my hand. But now I appreciate that it fits in the pockets of my coat. When I was waiting in line in the 15 degree cold to get my rapid Covid test a few weeks ago, I pulled the lotion out a bunch of times and rubbed it on my hands, and it made things better. Young me would have (erroneously) believed that such lotion would make things (fingers) colder, but it really doesn’t. It helps.
Lotion is a small thing, but it makes a big impact. It exists to say to your hands, “You are cared for. You are worthy of attention.” And if your hands have already gotten that message, you can deliver the same one to your feet, to the back of your neck, to the tender place behind your ears, to your belly. Lotion can help you communicate with your whole body. That can be a hard thing to do, especially in January.
To communicate with your body, you have to start by getting still and quiet. It’s cool if you want to have music on, but you’ve got to quiet your mind and take yourself out of motion. Just that very first step — the “I’m-putting-on-lotion-now” acknowledgement step — should feel good. It should allow your shoulders to fall and your jaw to relax.
Next, you take out your lotion. If there’s a smell you like, get a lotion that has that smell. Otherwise, maybe opt for something thick from the drug store. The kind of lotion that looks like it’s been around the block a few times. The kind of lotion that you could imagine pulling out of a bomb shelter, because that shit is gonna last forever. Scent-wise, I am a big fan of lavender or grapefruit — one is good for making you sleepy and the other one is good for waking you up. But I also like something a little coconut-y; it hits you in the back of the throat, you know?
Anyway, you can spend a lot of money on a lotion if you really want to. If you have the means, this is not a terrible investment. If you spend, say, $30 on one little tube of hand lotion with the prettiest paper label you’ve ever seen, it will become the kind of object that feels precious and magical, and that will settle you when you look at it or hold it. But not having $30 to spend on hand lotion should not prevent you from getting a brand new lotion TODAY. You can find the 79 cents you need for a circle of Nivea just walking down the right alley or searching through the cushions on the right couch.
And sure, you might already have a half-bottle of lotion in a drawer somewhere, and that will do in a pinch. But I suggest getting a new lotion. Find a lotion that symbolizes the commitment you are about to make to your dried out, tensed up body parts, which — let’s just face it — don’t get the recognition or love they truly deserve. (It’s typical to blame your body for things that aren’t its fault. Your body doesn’t get to choose. Your body simply is. And you are collaborating with it whether you like it or not. How often do you tell it that it is doing a good enough job? Buy it some lotion. It’s a gesture.)
When you have your lotion, and your body is still and your mind is quiet (ish), rub the lotion into the places that are begging for it. Give yourself a little massage. Work your muscles and release them. Hold your own hand; curl up your fingers in your fingers. Take deep breaths to enjoy the smell of the lotion. Wow. That lotion smells GOOD. Here is a video about massaging your own hands. Here is a video about massaging your own neck.
And here is why this gets my whole letter this week: you can do this today. You have time for this. You have the means for this. Let lotion be the key to being with your body for even the shortest time. Your body will appreciate it. And you will too.
Love,
Sophie
Add this to your to-do list.
Get some lotion.
If you can, also get some hot tea and get some snuggles.
If you don’t like hot tea, try honey and lemon in hot water. That’s basically tea without the bells and whistles.
A drawing.
Here’s my Instagram comic from this week, which feels like it is basically a “good enough job” post in and of itself.
What’s on my mind this week.
(This will be about new parenthood. Skip it if you don’t want to read about new parenthood.)
I was reflecting today on how the baby who lives outside my body reminds me a lot of the baby who was inside my body. Of course, they are technically the same baby. But there was (and I am hesitating to write this, because I know how it’s gonna sound) this real energy about the baby who moved around inside of me and had opinions about the things that I did and ate and listened to. And T, who is an out-of-the-body organism with thoughts and ideas and choices to make, has that same energy. She’s exactly as I expected she would be, and to me this is wild. Because how does a person become? And when? What made the parts of her personality that existed before she had met any persons?
My favorite thing to do with her is to take her into the bath with me, and hold her head in my lap while she splashes. She really loves to splash and I can’t tell if she can tell about the cause and effect: that thrashing like that makes the water swish and sometimes go in her eyes and her nose and her mouth. She doesn’t care when water gets in those places and last night I felt that this kind of crossed a line: she got so much water in her eyes that it caused them to burn and rash out a little. But it seemed like it made her so happy, or maybe more acutely, it made her the kind of happy that I feel when I am working on something I love. A head-down kind of happy. Not an eating-a-popsicle kind of happy, but the kind of happy you are when you are doing something worthwhile that is outside of yourself.
Extras.
Re: the kind of happy you feel eating a popsicle — I revisited this essay by Zadie Smith on joy that is my most consistently loved essay that I have ever read.
I also recently loved this essay about crossword puzzle writing and eating disorders by Anna Shechtman in the New Yorker. It is the kind of braided narrative that really scratches an itch in me — bundling together two ideas that are different but also the same.
I have discovered a new guilty pleasure genre: the oral history book. I listened to all 30 (!!!) hours of “Live From New York,” the unabridged history of SNL (most recently updated in 2015), and am ten hours into “I Want My MTV,” which is the same thing but about MTV. These books are not good. But I love them. I love hearing people who were a part of something talk about it to journalists and reporters. I just fucking love it. Also, both books are DEFINITELY problematic. Let me know if you want to talk about this for hours with me.
So I guess you’re wondering what kind of lotion I’m into. The lavender one I like is this one from Lush; the grapefruit one I like is this one from Fresh; the all-around brand I go for is L’Occitane because I think the packaging is lovely and it works really well; and the drugstore one I reference is (essentially) this one from Nivea.
Also!
My first fully graphic memoir is coming out on March 22! It would mean a lot to me if you pre-ordered it. More about this — including digital events — will be in future newsletters; stay tuned!
OMG. I remember when I first stumbled upon the Nivea tins on a trip through Germany as a small 20 year old. I felt so fancy with that tin of "European" cream in my pocket. Then I came back to the states and saw it everywhere. LOL. Bless that baby person.