You did enough with your summer.
And with your vacation, with your friend's visit, your long weekend, or whatever other indulgence you feel you squandered.
First time here? Here’s what this newsletter is.
A note for you, if you’re having a bad day.
Hi Pal,
We have a month left of summer (according to the equinoxes and solstices), but if you’re in academics, your “break” is coming to a close. The long days that let you stroll around in dappled daylight at 7 p.m. are packing themselves back in. When I was younger, this time of year always made me antsy. I’d think: Did I do all the summer things I meant to do this year? Should I have kept a checklist? Why didn’t I eat more popsicles? Why didn’t I start a workout routine back in JUNE, when everything felt so optimistic? This “was-it-enough” energy also turns up with vacations, visits from friends, and even long weekends. The good thing that you had been anticipating is winding down, and the next thing on the list is a less-good thing, or at least a less-exciting thing. Maybe you fear having regrets. Maybe there are things you have regretted not doing in the past. Another summer ends and you think, “One year closer to death, and what did I even do with it?”
If you’re feeling that way right now, I have a few thoughts.
Remember that, although this is now Twilight Zone levels of repetitious, you are still in the midst of a global pandemic. It is the first global pandemic of your lifetime. A global pandemic means that you are experiencing a trauma! You’ve been experiencing a trauma. The trauma is ongoing. Trauma warps time and it affects your ability to get things done. Even as there have been pockets of normalcy, there has not been time to process or to grieve or to re-adjust to the world. And hey — you’re not going to have time to do that for a while, because (say it with me) you are still in the midst of a global pandemic! So if you’re checking off more on your to-do list than “just survive,” you’re an overachiever.
There actually is something really cool just around the corner for you to look forward to! Nature makes sure that there’s always a cool new thing to enjoy, no matter what time of year it is. I live in Chicago, where we have the following things to be stoked about in the near future:
Fall migration escalates, with storms of goldfinches, hummingbirds, and drab-clothed warblers making their way back down south.
This all culminates with the migration of the sandhill cranes, from mid-September to mid-November. No matter where you are in the city, you might be able to see the cranes. (See this comic I wrote in The Reader about the cranes.)
So. Much. Fresh. Squash. Also, while we’re at it, can we talk about crunchy apple season? All of this means soup and pie, which are two of the greatest foods on earth.
Leaves fall off all the trees and make crunchy piles that you can jump in, crush with your shoes, and collect for their bright colors.
Shorter days mean you get to say no to things and get more sleep. You get to call it a win when you spend an hour reading a book under a cozy blanket.
It can help to put these things on your day planner, so you remember how much incredible stuff is coming up, right around the corner.
You’re doing a good enough job. If there was even one moment in this whole summer where you were able to savor something, that’s a net gain. And if there wasn’t, it’s not too late to make one. My go-to summer activity when I feel that I’ve been deprived of joy is to buy a popsicle and eat it in the shade. If you want to amp it up to eleven, listen to a great album with good headphones while you eat your popsicle. You can do that today. After you’ve done it, take a moment to say thank you to yourself for savoring something, and choose to believe that because of this popsicle-shade-music moment, your summer was not wasted. You did enough. You’re off the hook.
Wherever you are and whatever you are feeling, it makes sense in this moment, and it is enough.
Love ,
Sophie
Add this to your to-do list.
Put three things to look forward to on your calendar. Let them be things that make you smile when you think of them. If you can’t think of anything, look at a calendar of seasonal flowers, plants, or produce, and learn about what likes to be alive in the coming season where you live.
Really get into brushing your teeth today. Don’t multitask while you brush, but sit on the toilet, close your eyes, and think about how clean your teeth are getting. Make your tooth-brushing time be dedicated you-time. If you’re feeling ambitious, go crazy and floss.
Massage your own fingers.
A drawing.
This week I spent kind of a really long time writing an essay about my rooster (named Foot) dying over the summer. If you want to spend eighteen minutes reading it and looking at more drawings like this one, you can!
What’s on my mind this week.
(This will be about pregnancy. Skip it if you don’t want to read about pregnancy.)
I’ve been experiencing brain fog. This has been happening for me since the beginning of my pregnancy, but it’s gotten so much thicker since my third trimester started. I imagine myself as an enormous tugboat on a great expanse of gray, choppy sea, being dragged down and forth by this hot, heavy, dense murk. People ask totally reasonable questions like, “How are you doing?” and “Seriously, are you OK? You’ve been staring blankly at that wall for like fifteen minutes,” and I can’t for the life of me figure out how to answer them. Sometimes my inability to articulate myself makes me sob uncontrollably, which is probably even more disconcerting for the “are-you-ok” question-askers in my life. Some honest answers to the “are-you-ok” line of questioning are:
Yes, but I have been in a healthy relationship with both Language and Sentence Structure since I was nine, and suddenly they seem to have abandoned me and they didn’t even leave a note to tell me where they went.
I have no idea. Am I supposed to be feeling like a tugboat?
Well, there is a literal human leg on my spleen. So I guess I’m okay, but how do I explain to you what it feels like to have my spleen be so intimate with an external limb? Do you want me to try? Do you have any cereal I can eat? Who came up with the word spleen?
Sometimes I am capable of being fine with staring blankly at things and failing to say what I’m feeling or ruminating upon. These are the times when the people in my life seem most disturbed, because I don’t resemble the version of myself with whom they are familiar. And I really want to say, “Look, I am a tugboat. I just need you to be cool with that. We can watch TV, but that’s kind of all I can do.” Speaking of which, I thought White Lotus was fine.
Extras.
My love-friend Bethany had me listen to this classic Radiolab episode about placenta. Placentas are amazing, bodies are amazing, the way mammals make babies is amazing.
Pre-order Eugenia Viti’s book about pregnancy. She’s one of my favorite comics-makers, and I am itching all over to have a chance to read this book.
A lot of my plants have died recently, which makes me very grateful for my pencil plant, which is resilient and doesn’t make me feel like a bad mom.
My sister Alexis was just in town for several days, and I want to recommend my sister Alexis to everyone who hasn’t met her yet. But if that’s impossible — she took me to get a foot massage, and I didn’t even know you could go get one of those. I recommend a foot massage.
I just discovered The New York Times Magazine’s Letter of Recommendation, and it’s right up my alley. Recent recommendations have included raw onions, flossing, and taking screen shots.
Alex Beggs’ monthly food etiquette column never disappoints. This month’s lead question is about whether it is ever okay to take soup to the beach.