A Weeknight Wedding

A Weeknight Wedding

June 3, 2025

I'm not sure when I became old enough to have friends my age get married, but I digress...

Elisa was the very first person I knew in college

We first connected through the Facebook group that William & Mary setup for incoming freshman students in our class. People posted little intro blurbs about themselves in hopes of finding a compatible roommate. I have absolutely zero memory of what I wrote except for a passing mention that I'm a fan of Criminal Minds. Luckily for me, that's all it took! We started chatting and quickly realized our mutual love of food, napping, and, obviously, Spencer Reid.

The first photo we ever took together outside of our freshman dorm :') Please ignore my t*es and (melting) blue hair. (Literally, it was so hot during orientation that my blue hair permanently stained my white pillowcases. Ah, well.) 

El and I spent that whole year falling asleep while chattering to each other and giggling in our absurdly lofted beds. Coming home to a friend at the end of the day made freshman year so much less scary. Even though we didn't live together after that, we remained close.

I've always admired El for her kind, easygoing, and generous nature. She's never turned down someone in need and always has space to hold big, little, (and even ridiculous) feelings expressed by her loved ones (aka me, when I would freak out about something small). We've always just...clicked. During sophomore year, she came over to celebrate my birthday and we both ended up taking naps together, me in my (again) lofted bed and her on our guest camping mattress on the floor. Ah, dorm life.

Elisa's smile is infectious and she can make me laugh in an instant. Over the years, we've developed our own kind of ESP so that we can make eye contact from across a room and have an entire conversation without words—often ending in fits of giggles. When she FaceTimed me in the fall to share the news of her engagement, I cried.

Seniors, back where it all began...

Elisa and Driscoll have been friends at least as long as we have, if not longer. I met Driscoll in freshman year, too, when he used to come by to hang out with El or pick her up to head out for an event. Even then, I had my suspicions about the two of them. "We're just friends!!" (Famous last words.) Their relationship has always made sense—Driscoll is kind, patient, and funny, and their individual connections to their faith are made even deeper by their connection to each other.

In May, Elisa & Driscoll officially tied the knot!

I started crying as soon as El and her father started down the aisle...and honestly didn't stop for the entire ceremony. I know every bride looks breathtaking on her wedding day, but there's something incredibly special about witnessing the union of someone you've been lucky enough to grow up alongside. 

Over the past (nearly) 10 years, we've seen each other begin college, change majors 4+ times (ahem....3+ of which were Elisa's...that talented lady has a brain for science, music, and languages, and had a hell of a time figuring out which one to focus on!), graduate college amid a global pandemic, move to new cities, begin careers, and, now, get married! She is my sister and I was so blessed to watch her embark on this next part of her journey.

Elisa & Driscoll's reception was on a rooftop, where I got to reconnect with some of her family that I haven't seen in ages, befriend some spunky extended family members (my favorite part of every wedding, TBH—seat me at the crazy aunt table, please and thanks), and chitty chat the night away with fellow W&M alums. Weddings are always fun, but this one will forever hold a special place in my heart.

Cheers to the Taylors!

April 2025 reads

April 2025 reads

May 31, 2025

 

In April, the weather got nicer, so my walks to the library got more pleasant, so I read more. Who would've thought?!

A meditation on...meditation (sort of)

Aflame: Learning from Silence by Pico Iyer

As a young only child who read a lot, one of my favorite fantasies was A Little Princess-esque in that I used to imagine I was an orphan living in the attic of a small convent. (I slept under a rather ornate quilt in a very squeaky antique bed frame, which only added to the mystique.) Not since then have I thought very consciously about secluded life in a religious community or hermitage. At least, not until I picked up Pico's book. 

Pico Iyer is a lifelong spiritual seeker who has been fleeing to a remote hermitage on the coast of Big Sur for decades now. This book is a series of vignettes that reflect on his time growing in the holy silence fostered by the Camaldolese monks (and a select cast of outsiders) that call the hermitage their home. Interwoven with tales of the havoc wreaked on his life by the California wildfires, Pico's book is the closest thing a book can get to being an actual meditative experience. He writes movingly about the power of silent reflection and how the practice bolstered by such austere and simple surroundings can be brought into the "real world." (You know my penchant for materiality was absolutely singing at these points in the book.)

A techie tell-all

Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams

Was I entirely surprised when reading the lurid accounts of Facebook executives' poor behavior, ranging from complete lack of cultural or social awareness (ahem Mark Zuckerberg insulting world leaders to their faces) to outright sexual harassment (Sheryl Sandberg forcing her subordinates to share her bed and buy matching lingerie)? No. Do I think this tell-all is an incredibly important tool in the hands of anyone who wishes to fight back against Meta's consuming rise towards totalitarianism? Yes. 

Sarah Wynn-Williams is the former director of global public policy at Facebook (pre-Meta) and she is currently the subject of private arbitration that aims to prevent her from promoting this book. The fact that Mark Zuckerberg (& co.) have tried so desperately to stifle Sarah's story is a rather compelling argument in her favor. Especially considering Meta's raging unpopularity, it's hard to imagine that a book populated with falsehoods would garner this much response from them.

At the same time, I am always hesitant to accept any memoir's presentation of facts as ultimate truth and that's also true here. A great deal of Sarah's justification for staying so long at Facebook—even though she was actively working for a company that helped manufacture genocide and was (apparently) populated with misogynist harassers—is naive idealism. That argument falls really flat for me, especially by the end. As Lily Janiak points out in her review of the book for the San Francisco Chronicle: "The subtext of chapter after chapter...is: 'If only Facebook had listened to Sarah!'" There are lots of open questions about fact checking as well, which is rather par for the course in any memoir. 

All-in-all, my faith in Sarah's account is not crippled by questions about her motivation and bias (especially because it is simply far too easy to see the exact behaviors she describes modeled openly by the tech bros she's writing about), but these questions have to be factored into our understanding of what Sarah is trying to accomplish here. (After all, what is a diplomat if not a politician once-removed?)

Poetic vignettes about capitalism

Having and Being Had by Eula Biss

Reading this book was extremely annoying, and I believe that's entirely by design. In it, Eula Biss examines her role in the unavoidable capitalist structures that order our world. Her writing is sparse and often ask more questions than they answer. 

Eula probes the Western ideals of labor and the very American value system of consumption and ownership, invoking a wide range of philosophical and authorly muses along the way, and there is something mildly enthralling about the way Eula lies bare her insufferable patterns of thought. It's a confidence play that sniffs of the same energy as 'barefaced makeup' routines, where people use the very tools and techniques of the trade that they're attempting to appear liberated from. She is not hiding, she insists to us. And yet...

The central feeling I had at the end of this book—I do not want to call it "the problem" of Eula's writing, because it may very well be intentional that she left us alone to grapple with whatever this book opened within us—was the fact that the best solution Eula could seem to come up with is simply....opting out? And as the entire book aims to grapple with her various forms of privilege (namely white and class), that non-answer feels extremely hollow. But again, that very well may be the point! 

The legacy of capitalism means that, as Carlee Gomes writes, "our ability to consume is the only thing remaining that's 'ours' in late capitalism, and as a result it's become a stand-in for (or perhaps the sole defining quality of) every aspect of being alive today." Eula's writing certainly revolves around the act of consuming, but she offers no ideas for how to radically shift that system, even in your own life. Perhaps the greatest tension I experience with Eula's writing is because, once again, I am compelled by tangibility. Eula's book is a commentary on the world outside her window with zero offering on how to actually interact with what she finds, which I find lacking. 

Jordan Peele meets Huckleberry Finn

James by Percival Everett

Besides complaining about the NYT opinion editors (and don't even get me started on their outdated AF style guide), the number one thing my friend Michael and I text about is books. He described Percival Everett's James as the "best book of 2024" and "one of the few NYT book recommendations I 100% condone." I'm a simple girl. When Michael recommends a book to me–especially with such high praise—I read it. 

I am oh-so-glad that I did. It took several months of being on the library waitlist for James to finally fall into my clutches and I absolutely devoured it. James is at once both classic, wry adventure and quotidian horror. A novel with a Black narrator living in the antebellum south could hardly be anything less than horror. Language, linguistics, and philosophy become a motif for the buried interiority of James—who is, in fact, the enslaved character called Jim that plays second fiddle to Huckleberry Finn in Mark Twain's earlier text. (I use the word "earlier," not "original," purposefully here. Percival's novel deserves to stand in the context of itself as a work of contemporary fiction and only considering James in relation to Twain's novel is reductionist.)

James is a novel about agency and Percival carefully frames every scene, a direct contrast to the (apparent) carelessness of Twain when it came to James; Percival's omissions are alive with as much meaning as his inclusions. I did not read James in close parallel to Huck Finn—indeed, I have not revisited Twain's novel in well over a decade—though I imagine that approach to reading would reveal further insights about both texts. You do not need a handy understanding of Huck Finn to appreciate Percival's achievement here, and I can confidently echo Michael's apt adulation of the novel.

A light for the midnight hours

Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor

I first encountered the sage wisdom of Barbara Brown Taylor on an episode of "On Being with Krista Tippett" that I listened to while solo driving across the country in desperate search for myself. I am eternally grateful that the journey brought me to Barbara (and, eventually, back to myself). 

Barbara was an Episcopal priest for years that left ministry for career in higher education and as an author, undertaking all things in her pursuit of staying "alive and alert to the holy communion of the human condition, which takes place on more altars than anyone can count." In this book, Barbara embarks on a journey through darkness, both spiritual and physical. Her quest sees her venturing into a cave, into the woods, into the hospital, and her recounting is so moving and unadorned that I found myself tempted to turn from the final page back to the very beginning to read it all again. (Alas, another library book that had to be returned.) I do not practice particularly ecumenical beliefs, and still I found a great deal of purpose and comfort in Barbara's writing.

A visit with the bard

William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

Another one of Michael's influences on my literary life lately has been through the influx of plays on my bookshelf. I picked up Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? late last year and it changed my life (not an exaggeration). Since then, I have a little ritual of seeking the plays in every used bookstore I step into! I've been delighted to find that most bookstores carry plays that were actually used as a script in a production at one point, so they're scribbled over with random notes and stage directions. There's something incredibly endearing about picking up a book that has been so clearly a part of someone else's life before finding its way to my hands. 

For an English major, I am remarkably under-versed in Shakespeare's works. So this was actually my first time reading Midsummer! (I'm ashamed to even admit that.) It's a classic for a reason. 

Camping in Ocracoke

Camping in Ocracoke

May 27, 2025

Over Memorial Day weekend, Gravy and I escaped to Ocracoke, one of the southernmost islands in the Outer Banks chain. Even though I grew up on the Outer Banks, I've never been south of Chicamacomico before! I was excited to explore this new territory (and test out all the new camping gear I received over the holidays).

Friday, May 23

After work, Gravel and I headed for my childhood home. Mom & I moved to North Carolina with my grandparents when I was six, and I spent a solid chunk of my childhood running around the sand dunes and being scared of the ocean. (Once, Mom sent me to a weeklong surf camp alongside my friend, Gracie. While Gracie was learning how to paddle out past the break with the other campers, I was sitting safely on the sand making castles. Even as a kid, I was highly demand avoidant.) 

Even after Mom & I left the OBX, it remained my home. Until recently, my bedroom still had all of my childhood memorabilia on the walls—notably, rows of swim ribbons, faded Michael Phelps posters, and a giant pink butterfly. I lived with my grandparents for consecutive summers in college, lifeguarding at the local waterpark and working as a camp counselor at a local yoga studio, and our family has celebrated most of our Christmases over the past 15 years there.

My grandparents, now blessed to be well into their 80s, recently decided to move closer to family. That unfortunately means my beloved childhood home has hit the market. Gravel and I spent Friday night sleeping on the four seasons porch where I used to pretend to host royal tea and try to avoid my piano practice. I fell asleep to the sounds of waves lapping against the rocks and woke to mourning doves cooing.

I'm grateful I got the chance to say a proper goodbye to the bedroom that saw me grow up, the kitchen where my grandmother fried chicken for my visiting friends and flipped more pancakes than I could ever remember, the boat dock out back where I confessed my first love, and my grandfather's beloved koi pond and pepper garden. It was also a useful starting point for Gravel & I's journey to Ocracoke on Saturday morning!

Saturday, May 24

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Navigating the OBX is delightfully easy. There is, in effect, 1 road, and you can either go north or south. So, Gravy Boat and I got in the car and went south. And south. And south some more. We eventually made it to the southern tip of Hatteras, where we got on the ferry to Ocracoke. Gravel's first time on a boat!

We made it to the island in the morning and campground check-in wasn't until 3pm, so we stopped to pick up some more ice for the cooler and hit the beach. Gravy's first time at the beach! I finished the book I started on the ferry: Vauhini Vara's Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age. I was OBSESSED with Vauhini's novel The Immortal King Rao when I first read it in summer 2023, and even though it didn't make it into my thesis, the novel was—and still is!—a huge inspiration for me. This book is part-nonfiction, part-memoir (full review of all the books I read this weekend coming soon). 

After a couple of hours baking in the sun, Gravel & I needed something to help us cool down. Into the village we went! Ocracoke is a delightfully small community and most people navigate the village on bikes or golf carts (or on foot). The tiny town is populated with the cutest pottery, smoothie, apothecary, and handmade souvenir shops, not to mention all the waterfront fresh seafood restaurants. 

I was lucky to find a parking spot outside Moonraker Tea Shop. The walls of this adorable shop are lined with jars of loose leaf tea blends and I was in heaven bopping from jar to jar, sniffing to my little heart's content. I purchased a few ounces of 2 different tea blends—a "limoncello" white tea and a coconut(!) black tea blend. I've never tried coconut tea but it smelled divine. 

I also had to try the shop's famous magic lemonade—bright purple, with glitter, and it changes color! It was the refreshing pick-me-up I needed. Then, Gravy and I popped next door into Books To Be Red, an adorable local bookshop. Gravel, ever the attention lover, likes to sing when she's in the backpack and there are other people around. She did it the entire time we hiked around the Grand Canyon and I have to admit I found it very funny to watch tired hikers question their sanity when they kept hearing a cat meow but couldn't (yet) see her. In this tiny shop, though, I was a little embarrassed about her chirping, but everyone in the shop seemed to find it adorable and cooed over her. 

I picked up a copy of Shel Silverstein's Falling Up and Donna Tartt's The Secret History. I've never read that one of Donna's, but I adored Shel's work as a kid. I remember poring over Where The Sidewalk Ends for hours, and I wanted to add him back to my collection. Over the past year or so, I've been more consciously collecting books here and there for a future child's library. Nothing crazy! I picked up a picture book at the Badlands when I was there in the fall, a beautiful fairytale anthology at the recent library sale, and now this poetry collection. 

The village is full of little gems like this, my alter ego

By the time we were done shopping, it was time to set up camp! We settled into our site quickly and I dug into my next read of the weekend: Eowyn Ivey's Black Woods Blue Sky. I've been struggling with my fiction reads lately, but this one blew me away! Set in rural Alaska, the major plot twist of this novel is revealed to us early on, but that doesn't lower the tension at all. I highly recommend it. 

Sunday, May 25

We may have reached the mid-80s during the day on Saturday, but the frequent ocean breezes made for cool nights and I found Gravel dozing in her sleeping bag on Sunday morning. We enjoyed some breakfast and morning yoga before heading just over the dune to the beach.

Sunday's read was all about one novel: Madeleine Thien's Do Not Say We Have Nothing. This tome takes place during the Chinese cultural revolution, from the rise of Mao Zedong through the massacre at Tiananmen Square. Artfully written, this one is in the running for my favorite read of 2025! 

After a few hours enjoying the sun, I was in the mood for a sweet treat. Gravy and I headed back to the village for a scoop of mint chocolate chip from Fig Tree Bakery & Deli. I'm not a regular cash carrier and Fig Tree has a $10 minimum, so I also treated myself to some of their fresh tuna salad. I cannot remember ever having said this sentence before, but...that tuna salad kinda changed my life?! It was SO good? Wow. I wish I had more, tbh. Next time you're in Ocracoke, don't sleep on the Fig Tree tuna salad.

Back at camp, Gravel and I were tuckered out from the sun and settled in for a lengthy nap. When I woke up, I dove right back into Madeleine's novel. The sun set slowly on Sunday, and Gravy & I enjoyed lazing on the grass, reading, doing sudoku, and cooking a yummy dinner. 

The campground was full, so nighttime ambiance consisted of lots of laughter, kids racing each other on bikes, dogs wagging their sandy tails as they walked their owners past, and the smell of everyone cooking on charcoal grills. In other words, pure heaven. Monday morning, Gravy and I woke to the sound of rain drumming against the tent and we quickly packed our things to begin the (I'll admit it) lengthy drive home. We spent ~9 hours in the car on Sunday, and I was absolutely dead on my feet by the time I could finally lie down in my bed again. And it was entirely worth it.

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A Week in the Life: May 2025

A Week in the Life: May 2025

May 19, 2025

I'm not sure if it's because I'm 27 this year and thus beginning to enter my Saturn return or what, but lately I have been feeling extremely grounded & engaged and happy that I'm spending my time very intentionally. How joyous is that?!

Saturday, May 10

Cap2Cap 2025, baby! As soon as the snow melts in the spring, you can find me biking along the Virginia Capital Trail and grinning ear-to-ear. Saturday marked the 20th anniversary of the Cap2Cap ride, an annual community fundraiser. Last year, I couldn't participate because the ride fell on my graduation day, and I was thrilled to be back in it this time around! Luckily this ride was far less eventful than my first. In 2023, before I had even made it officially onto to the trail itself, I crashed and flipped over my bike, pinning myself underneath it. I then rode 50 miles actively bleeding on a bike stuck in top gear. Good times! 

I digress. A few weeks ago, my friend Alexis and I discovered over a catch-up dinner that we had both registered for the Cap2Cap Half Century and decided to do the ride together. Was I mildly bananas for agreeing to accompany a cycling instructor on an endurance bike ride? Yes. Would I do it again? Absolutely! 

Alexis and I decided to do an out-and-back 50 mile itinerary and we found ourselves pedaling alongside families, amateur cycling teams, and adorable duos on tandem bikes. The weather was absolutely perfect—a cloudless sky with very cool breezes, so we never worried about being overheated. We stopped at refueling stations for vital nutrient support; along the way, I tucked into fruit gummies, potato wedges, brownies (I've been dreaming about these since my last Cap2Cap, no lie), M&Ms, and pickle juice.

Some friends came to see Alexis and I off at the beginning of the trail & met us at the turnaround point, and still others were waiting for us at the finish line! It was so sweet to feel so surrounded by love. I spent the rest of the day soaking my sore quads in an epsom salt bath and eating pizza on my yoga mat. A 10/10 way to spend a Saturday, I think. 

Sunday, May 11

Sunday was Mother's Day! In the grand tradition of only daughters, I took no pictures with Mom on the day, but we had a lovely time. I baked us a pear and cardamom cake with fresh vanilla whipped cream that we tucked into after a lovely meal of shrimp paella and crusty French bread. 

Food is a love language for my mom & I. Some of our best memories revolve around food and it's usually at the dinner table that we have our Big Conversations™. I came out to my mother at an ice cream parlor in the Dominican Republic. Over the past few months, we've been talking through my breakup healing process over plates of pasta, homemade pizza, and salmon risotto. 

Though nowhere near as sore as I was in 2023, I was still definitely feeling the #effects of the Cap2Cap on Sunday, so it worked really well for me that Mom wanted to stay home. After destroying the kitchen as we baked and cooked, we watched the first couple episodes of Natasha Lyonne's Poker Face—so good!! 

Monday, May 12

The Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center is part of VCU, where I earned my Master's degree. Even though I am no longer a student there, I still teach weekly yoga classes on campus and the occasional private lesson for VCU-affiliated organizations. 

I was really honored to be able to teach a mindfulness seminar at Massey on Monday. We practiced a few rounds of guided meditation, discussed the latest research on mindfulness and the brain, and practiced strategies for integrating mindfulness & meditation into daily life.

Tuesday, May 13

Turns out, I have no photos related to my current yoga practice...

Throughout the various stages of my adult life, yoga has been a consistent way I find a great deal of purpose serving my community. I earned my 200RYT certification and began teaching while I was an undergraduate at William & Mary. Then, I taught free yoga classes with The Phoenix organization when I lived in New York, and I've been teaching at VCU since moving to Richmond! 

Thankfully the looming rain held off for my walk to the gym for my classes on Tuesday night. I'm enchanted by my twilight walks to and from the gym. I pass several churches on my way, and often I am walking past when the bells start tolling the hour. There's something about a tolling bell that resonates inside my bones...some ancestral Catholic DNA, maybe? I digress.

Wednesday, May 14

Thunderstorms are my favorite meteorological phenomenon. I remember waking up one hot summer night when I was very young to the sound of what I could only describe as the sky breaking open. My family was all together in our house at the beach and I woke up alone and frightened. The storm continued to pitch as I gathered my courage to venture into the hallway. To this day, I don't know why I didn't continue downstairs to my mother's room. Instead, I walked to the living room down the hallway on the second floor, where I found my grandfather sitting silently on the couch, enraptured by the storm. I joined him and together we watched the lightning flash against an angry purple sky, illuminating the churning ocean that had been calm enough to splash in just a few hours before. The thunder was no less booming here, but I felt safe sitting with Pop. Eventually, I fell asleep there, lightning, thunder, and all. 

Needless to say, I love thunderstorms. A low, crackling one set upon Richmond on Wednesday night, and I was all too happy to curl up with some takeout sushi and watch the lightning flash through my windows. 

Thursday, May 15

After work on Thursday, Gravy and I hopped in the car and headed for Williamsburg, where I grabbed a quick dinner with my friend, Caleb. Councilman Caleb and I have been friends since we served as Orientation Aides together our senior year (#longliveYates). He is funny, thoughtful, and practically 8 feet tall, which comes in handy a lot more often than I'd think. 

I'm consistently awed by Caleb. Elected to the Williamsburg City Council during our senior year, Caleb's commitment to making a tangible difference on the people and world around him is palpable in everything he does. I wrote frequently in my Master's thesis about my propensity for materiality—my need to research, discuss, and implement ideas that could bridge the gap between theory and reality, make a real impact—and I've come to realize that a great deal of that drive is nurtured by my friendship with Caleb. My current mission is convincing him to bike across the great state of Iowa with me (and Gravel) next summer. He's already biked across Virginia, so....?!

After dinner, I raced over to my friend Tessa's (with a quick stop at Target for the sleepover essentials: peach rings & sugar cookies). I was late for the season finale of the ABC show 911!! I have not watched a single other episode, but Tessa is part of an avid watch group and I was delighted to be invited to join them on this grand occasion. Sadly, the episode itself was pretty underwhelming...? I've heard recaps of several 911 plots over the years and they could've done better, IMO. 

Friday, May 16

Throwback to my own William & Mary graduation, where I was honored to serve as the student commencement speaker

On Friday, I got to do something incredibly special! I am a proud alumna of William & Mary and last year, I was thrilled to join the advisory board for our queer alumni group. Because my own commencement was marred by the outbreak of Covid-19 (#Classof2020), I never had the opportunity to experience the joy of lavender graduation as a student. I was not going to pass up this chance to attend as an alum, especially knowing some of the graduating students who would be in attendance! 

In a happy, full-circle moment, I was asked to address the graduating class at this year's lavender celebration and officially welcome them to the Crim Dell Association. It was pure magic to be in a space that was so joyfully, beautifully, purposefully queer; all-too-rarely do I feel the immediate synergy and relief of existing among a crowd of people that require no explanation from, or to, me. 

I teared up several times witnessing the ceremony, watching siblings, friends, partners, spouses, parents, and mentors 'don' their graduate with a special lavender stole. When I approached the podium, I couldn't help adlib the beginning of my short speech, bursting out with "isn't queer joy beautiful?!" It is.

That night, back in Richmond, my groovy friend Elizabeth celebrated her 27th birthday with a 1970s-themed party. I pulled on my favorite pair of retro, floral carpeted platform boots and boogied 'til the wee hours of....10:30 or so. I forgot to take my narcolepsy medicine on Friday, and lavender celebration started at 8am! Besides, I am always pro leaving a party when you are still having fun, so... Happy Birthday, Elizabeth! 

Saturday, May 17

While I was earning my MA at VCU, I was lucky enough to take classes alongside some of the talented poets and writers earning their MFAs. The MFA program is 3 years long, so my pals received their degrees this past week and they decided to celebrate with a grand American tradition—prom!

I donned one of my favorite wedding guest dresses, strapped myself into perilously high heels that rarely see the light of day, and—the pièce de résistance—slipped on a winged, pearl-dripping halo/headpiece/thing that I purchased as the cherry on top of a Renaissance fair ensemble. The piece is absurd and decadent and I knew the crowd of creatives at this fête would properly appreciate it. 

We danced, toasted the recent graduates, played games, talked endlessly about books, and tucked into piles of French fries and homemade cinnamon cake before—no prom would be complete without it!—crowning a King and Queen. The party broke up in the wee hours of the morning and we all trundled home with sopping wet hair after an impromptu group swim. I can think of no better ending to such a full & loving week! 

February and March 2025 Reads

February and March 2025 Reads

April 23, 2025

An instruction manual for optimism

Hope for Cynics by Jamil Zaki

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I often describe myself as a scholar of hope. My Master's thesis revolved entirely on the subject of hope, positing the emergence of what I termed "post-nostalgia" as the quintessential affect of contemporaneity which can stifle the experience of hope and optimism on a societal scale. I digress...Jamil Zaki's take on hope vs cynicism in contemporary society is a can't-miss read, in my opinion, and I learned a lot from him. I really love how he anchored his entire investigation into optimism with one very personal example what propels him towards hope time and time again. 

The main point of Jamil's book is that we cannot allow the call to arms against fascism and hatred turn us into haters or, even worse, into a cynical and defeated mass. His writing is both a comfort and a battle cry; there is still work to be done. My grandmother, an avid cross stitcher, had a tapestry hanging on the wall above the bed I slept in at her house that read "courage is fear that has said its prayers." And what is hope but courage that we can sustain for the long haul? 

A winter wonderland, but in hell

The Overnight Guest by Heather Gudenkauf

I have....varied feelings about The New York Times'  book review section, though I must admit one of my absolute favorite reads of last year came from one of their suggestions: Daniel Mason's North Woods, an unbelievably gorgeous read. I found Heather's novel off of a NYT list of books that evoke a sense of winter and the icy storm that descends over this entire story was definitely a character in its own right. 

Heather's book contains three narratives that tie together in a way that truly caught me off guard in the end. I am not a huge thriller reader, so the plot twists may have been more obvious to a more regular participant in the true crime-esque genre. Each narrative centers on one character: Wylie, a true crime author staying in a rented farmhouse that once was the setting to a brutal family murder and abduction; Josie, the sole surviving member of her brutally murdered family; and an unnamed little girl who lives confined to a basement with her captive mother. When Wylie discovers the frozen body of a child in the yard during a horrific snowstorm, shit really starts to go sideways.

I liked Heather's novel well enough! Jess was on a FaceTime call with me as I finished it and she can attest to the audible gasps the book provoked at the end. Overall, the tension wasn't as palpable as, say, Stephen King's Gerald's Game (a book that genuinely terrified me) or as heart-pounding as Adrian McKinty's The Island. I found Wylie's inner life a tad too simple, and the resolution was a bit Hallmark-y....y'know, if Hallmark dealt with murder, kidnapping, assault etc. But! It kept me company one chilly winter night and I wouldn't hesitate to pick up another o Heather's works the next time I'm in the mood for a little thrill.

A beautiful tapestry of otherness

Quicksand by Nella Larsen

Nella Larsen is such a quietly evocative writer. Her descriptions are slippery, like an oil painting not yet dry, and they smear across the pages of this story about lovely Helga Crane. 

Helga is a biracial woman that we accompany on a cyclical journey. We begin in the south, where Helga is a teacher at a highly pedigreed institution, which only highlights her orphaned status as a "nobody." From there, Helga flees north to New York, where she finds a great deal of meaning as part of the Black intelligentsia of thriving Harlem. She begins to chafe here, too, eventually, sick of the expectation that she feel ashamed of her lineage as half-white. So, Helga flees to her mother's family in Copenhagen, where she becomes a spectacle of performed Blackness for the upper-middle class community of white artists. Eventually, Helga makes her way back through the city and further south. Along the way, Helga is desperately searching for an understanding of herself that both she and the people around her can live with, a self definition that never truly comes to fruition. 

What Kenneth Burke meant by "equipment for living"

All About Love by bell hooks

It didn't take long for me to join the ardent camp of people who have read bell hooks' work and think "everyone should read this" as soon as I started All About Love. I wrote about the experience of reading this book in my journal: "I find that I am already familiar with (most of) the ideas & principles she's putting forth, but her language and the depth of her careful, studied, researched mastery of the topic have knocked me on my ass several times." 

Even things as (seemingly) simple as the meaning of the word "love" are rocked by hooks. I'd never encountered the definition of love that she uses; it comes from German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, who defined love as "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." Mind = blown. The entire premise of hooks' work is that love should be understood as an action, a verb, a practice. And the more we practice, the better we become. 

Another deeply underlined quote in hooks' work that has become a mantra of mine lately: "When one knows a true love, the transformative force of that love lasts even when we no longer have the company of the person with whom we experienced profound mutual care and growth." A beautiful lifeline for the grieving, I think. 

A balm in book form

Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh

Thây ("teacher") Thich Nhat Hanh has become one of my treasured spiritual guides lately. I first encountered the legacy of his work through podcast interviews with two of Thây's students: former Buddhist nun Kaira Jewel Lingo, who took the leap to leave life as a nun and become a layperson, and Brother Chân Pháp Hũu, who still lives at Plum Village in southern France. (I'm currently reading Kaira's book We Were Made For These Times, and loving it!)

The beauty of Thây's teaching lies in its simplicity. His words and lessons are not only applicable to those living within the cloistered walls of the monastery but to everyone, everywhere, at any time. Thây teaches us how to cultivate a lasting sense of peace even while sitting in traffic, for instance, or amidst a particularly hectic season of life. Thây's personal experience with turmoil infuses his teachings with authenticity and his words are gentle reminders of how much power we have over how we move through the world. As Ram Dass once said, "You can do it like it's a great weight on you, or you can do it like it's part of the dance." Thây teaches us how to do it like it's part of the dance. 

A heart-cracking debut poetry collection

Make Believe by Victoria Hutchins

I first came across Victoria Hutchins on Instagram (@thedailyvictorian), where she shares her poetry, often while practicing on her yoga mat. In school, poetry was often my least favorite unit in English class—I was far more interested in the process of losing myself in a novel. But my burgeoning collection of poetry books over the past few years can attest to my growing interest in the genre. Contemporary poets like Sarah Kay (her 2014 collection No Matter the Wreckage is a regular companion of mine) and Victoria occupy a special place on my shelf.

Victoria's words contain such simple beauty that reflects the inner calm bolstered by her yoga practice. Her work is instantly soothing, like the first step into an inviting bathtub. I recently wrote Victoria's poem "the finer things" in a friend's birthday card and there's something that feels beautiful and lasting about doodling my loved ones' names throughout a volume of poetry that sits on my shelf and reveals fresh understandings to me, about the poetry and about my loved ones, every time I open it. 

Top image credit @judysmith549668

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