Housekeeping: New York Pals! Sweet friend of The Multitude Lenz is hosting a hilarious fundraiser for Iowa Abortion Access, on June 11. I don’t need to tell you they need our help. With (also-friend!)
, Felipe Torres Medina, Taylor Kay Phillips, Alison Leiby, and Melissa Lozada-Oliva.Also, two weeks left until the paperback release of my memoir! I will be doing an LA event July 10 at Village Well In Culver City with my old pal, . He is simply the smartest and most charming conversationalist, and it will be a super evening. Thanks to everyone who has entered the giveaway (and hello, new subscribers!) 10 names will be drawn in early July.
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Hello!
I shared this last July, in my very first Substack post:
I used to love summer. I currently don’t, but I hope to again. I fondly remember popsicles and limeade, never getting out of my bathing suit, staying up too late with my cousins, monsoon season, late dinners outside, night markets, and having unfettered access to my parents’ attention. They were so fun in the summer, so happy, and they took naps every day. Now… I am not fun in the summer. I don’t take naps every day. My schedule does not agree with our patchwork of kid camp schedules, and I worry about getting enough work done. I’m preoccupied with family stuff while I’m working, and preoccupied with work stuff when I’m family-ing. I can get very grumpy about it all. Everyone loses, basically. Of course, the Vaseline-lens rhythm I would love to fall into is to spend more of the day in pursuit of small, slow pleasures: thinking about what we might have for dinner, and which family movies we haven’t watched yet. But the gulf between who I want to be and who I currently am looms wide, and I’m not certain yet how to traverse it.
Almost a year later, I understand that typing this out solidified the premise of my second book, and that writing this book—which I handed in just yesterday!—has changed my life. Unlike the beginning of last summer, which found me overwhelmed by prep, underwater with work, preoccupied with how to curate memories for my kids, and just… mad, I go into this summer accepting that it’s never going my most productive work season, and that I exist, and am loved, outside of my utility to others. Over the last year I’ve learned how to marinate in small pleasures instead of letting my happiness be hijacked by the ever-present, massive tasklist. I’m doing much much less, while enjoying parenting and marriage. I’m almost certain everyone in my family likes me more than they did a year ago. I am working out, I’m napping, I’m seeing my (real) friends. I read all of my books! I’ve learned to quiet the “shoulds” in my head, along with a whole chorus of gremlins I didn’t know I had to exorcise. And I’ve explained how this all happened, incrementally, in this book I just handed in.
And for the first time in ages, I cannot wait for summer break to begin. We’re spending a nice long while in London for my brother’s wedding, and then home to Michigan for our now-annual Great Lakes pilgrimage. I’ve been texting people a lot about “Chill Mom Summer,” growling when I say things like Nothing’s going to get between me and Chill Mom Summer. Or I’m gonna be so chill, and you can’t stop me. It’s kind of like when they ask you to set an intention in yoga class, but more menacing. Our summer starts in four days, when we fly to Heathrow en famille. We just got an email that our housing might be falling apart again—we already lost one place to a weird miscommunication—and, unlike the mania this would have induced in years past, I met this email with a shrug. Chill Mom has faith something else will come up. Chill Mom can pile us into a cheapo hotel for the first few days and take it from there.
Chill Mom Summer is: A bricked phone. No devices. Understanding my kids do like me, but they mostly just want to be around other kids, outside. Figuring out what I am going to do every day to relax and enjoy myself, and then loosely building the day around that. An ice cream outing whenever anyone asks. Grilled cheese for as many days in a row as they want. Sending postcards to friends back home. Letting their grandparents spoil the kids however they want. Too many library and bookstore visits. Meditation, exercise, stretching. Water balloons, probably. Making fun of me, definitely. Journaling. As many cucumbers and watermelons and cherries and stone fruits as we can eat. Weirdly long afternoon-into-evening hangs with friends who also have kids. Having a basic shape to the day, and letting go of 90% of our checklists and expectations.
Chill Mom Summer is not: Cleaning. Worrying about “learning loss,” or academic enrichment of any kind. Meal planning more than half an hour in advance. Thinking about tomorrow today. Trying to work at anything more than 30% of my professional capacity. Being guilted into going anywhere or doing anything. If people want to hang out, they know where to find me, and they’re invited along.
It’s been an exceptionally tough year. This brutal, endless war, the state of the nation, my near-death experience, the fires across LA. In the middle of all of this, a sweet friend died by suicide. So many things that could easily pull me into their undertow, and maybe that’s why my response has been to try to become a better swimmer. And I don’t actually know if it’s all made me a better parent or partner than I was. I’m maybe more steady and self-aware, but I’ll still get yelled at, and yell at others, and mess things up, in general—as mentioned, I’ll turn over any rock looking for a new mistake to make. I’ll still have to apologize and regret things, and stay awake worried for the kids. But I’ll stay afloat, and so will the family.
Whatever happens over the next ten weeks, I intend to come back to fall excited for back-to-school. I mentioned the other day that I love buying new supplies for myself when I do it for the kids. Fresh notebooks and pens, some highlighters, maybe some art supplies. Maybe a water bottle! It’s a big year for my soon-to-be first grader and middle-schooler. And that got me thinking that fall might be a season for me to take some classes too. I have my eye on adult ballet, short story writing, a chorus I might want to join. I loved that back-to-school buzz as a kid. There’s no reason I shouldn’t embrace it again.
xx
This is the vibe; now I understand vibe.
I love the idea of having fall things to look forward to!